Yet Another Cycling Forum

Off Topic => The Pub => Topic started by: Basil on 25 November, 2008, 09:44:11 pm

Title: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 25 November, 2008, 09:44:11 pm
I'm sure that even old buggers like me still learn on a daily basis.

There are things that you experience for the first time. (Yes, even at my age) There are experiences that occur that make you think.  There's stuff you read.  There's stuff you hear.  There's stuff you learn each day.

What did you learn today?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 25 November, 2008, 09:44:31 pm
My first example is sports related.  (Sorry)

I read today that JPR Williams never, ever lost to England.  He won 12 times!

JPR Williams 12 – England 0

Gosh.  I remember from my youth that he was great, but I never knew he was that great.

What did you learn today?


Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 25 November, 2008, 09:56:47 pm
That you have to be careful when you're reticulating your silver pendant in your jewellery class or you can melt a hole right through it and have to do some careful adapting of the design to disguise the fact you just melted a fuckoff big hole through the pendant you've spent weeks working on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: alan on 25 November, 2008, 10:26:45 pm
I re-learned an old lesson.
Where business is concerned,trust no-one.My faith in human nature has taken yet another hit >:(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: toekneep on 26 November, 2008, 07:01:28 am
I re-learned an old lesson.
Where business is concerned,trust no-one.My faith in human nature has taken yet another hit >:(

You be Tom Price from Survivors and ICMFP  ;D

Sorry you got let down my friend, don't give up on all of us.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: alan on 26 November, 2008, 09:05:39 am
don't give up on all of us.

No,I'll not do that.
This place & its inhabitants go a long way to restoring my faith in human nature.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tom M on 26 November, 2008, 09:57:40 am
I've learnt that the general addage about Estate Agents is true. Being a newcomer to the house selling/buying business I was prepared to give the benefit of the doubt a little. I mean, they do get a bad press, but they can't all be bad can they?

The addage has been proved correct. Bunch of (insert NWS expletive of choice)!

Wise old sage's no doubt many are, please carry on with your pitifull head shaking at my innocence.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ABlipInContinuity on 26 November, 2008, 10:06:40 am
I've just learned about the word 'reticulate'

Thanks Kirst

That you have to be careful when you're reticulating your silver pendant in your jewellery class or you can melt a hole right through it and have to do some careful adapting of the design to disguise the fact you just melted a fuckoff big hole through the pendant you've spent weeks working on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 27 November, 2008, 11:32:19 am
I've just heard the phrase déja-moo.

It is that inescapable feeling that you have heard this bull before..

..d
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 27 November, 2008, 11:36:56 am
That could be very very useful.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Charlotte on 27 November, 2008, 12:13:49 pm
I've learned the difference between "buck" and "boost" (in the context of LED driver circuits).

I've also learned that joining candlepowerforums is a bad idea if you're into shiny, flashy things...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LE on 27 November, 2008, 12:19:00 pm
I've learned lots about log linear analysis and that Principal Components Analysis is just as much fun as Factor Analsis - Whoot Whoot to nonparametric data.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 27 November, 2008, 01:11:18 pm
I've just heard the phrase déja-moo.

It is that inescapable feeling that you have heard this bull before..

..d

Excellent.   :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 November, 2008, 01:47:25 pm
I've learned that people talking about generating "a fifth-order polynomial from a set of some 5000 data points which look random but aren't" and "non-linear regression" might as well be speaking Aramaic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: RichForrest on 27 November, 2008, 01:54:57 pm
I've just heard the phrase déja-moo.

It is that inescapable feeling that you have heard this bull before..

..d

Hasn't someone had that as a sig' on here for months?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 27 November, 2008, 02:13:32 pm
I've just heard the phrase déja-moo.

It is that inescapable feeling that you have heard this bull before..

..d

Hasn't someone had that as a sig' on here for months?

I'm not sure if you are serious or joking..

or suffering an attack of deja-moo..

..d
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Robbo5 on 27 November, 2008, 03:04:38 pm
I've learned that fine-grained oak barrels are more porous than coarse-grained oak barrels.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LE on 27 November, 2008, 03:35:22 pm
Leopard don't change their spots
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LE on 28 November, 2008, 11:51:32 am
That accountants, financial advisors and CEO of Charities who pay themselves massive fat salaries and self promotoe off the back of the charity are the scum of the earth
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 28 November, 2008, 02:28:36 pm
That the German phrase 'jemandem unter die Arme greifen'  (literally to grasp someone under the arms) means 'to help'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jaded on 28 November, 2008, 02:46:18 pm
That it is nice to give your fee to a deserving charity.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LE on 28 November, 2008, 02:57:56 pm
That above has made me smile. it is nice that there are giving people in the world :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MSeries on 28 November, 2008, 03:08:37 pm
That Yorkshire people are not as tight as the legend has it. ;) Someone sent me some pedals, FOC. Thank you, you know who you are.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 November, 2008, 03:46:15 pm
That Yorkshire people are not as tight as the legend has it. ;) Someone sent me some pedals, FOC. Thank you, you know who you are.

That's two people who have had pedals off Yorkshire types recently.  Must be catching ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: alan on 28 November, 2008, 03:50:15 pm
A whole pair of pedals out of Yorkshire :o
Who got the opposite hand thread pedal
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 28 November, 2008, 03:52:05 pm
I feel I ought to point out that, despite being the most vociferous Tyke on the board, and, despite being reasonably generous for a chap of my origin, I had no part in either of these instances of kind munificence in the pedal department.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Rig of Jarkness on 28 November, 2008, 05:33:38 pm
I've just learnt, from Wiki, that 'LOL' is internetspeak stands for 'Laughing Out Loud'.  Is this right ? It doesn't seem to fit with the way I've seen some folk using it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: gordon taylor on 28 November, 2008, 06:48:43 pm
I've learned that if I eat less for a week, I lose weight. I thought my gargantuan mass was all down to my "metabolism" until today.  ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 30 November, 2008, 04:58:02 pm
Four year old boys' ears are wired in such a way that they are physically unable to hear the words "Don't jump in the mud" ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 10 December, 2008, 04:59:25 pm
In Japan there is no Mrs Christmas  :o.


Who looks after the elves and gets the fat bearded one out on his sleigh in time?

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hairyhippy on 10 December, 2008, 05:38:40 pm
I have mainly been learning knitting and welding.

The two should not be confused.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: numbnuts on 10 December, 2008, 06:07:40 pm
That bin men are arsehole drivers
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 10 December, 2008, 07:52:48 pm
I have mainly been learning knitting and welding.

The two should not be confused.

Tho some framebuilders may have done so...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 10 December, 2008, 11:34:23 pm
That if you prepare a seminar on a subject you know quite a lot about you end up waffling for far too long while the rest of the class acquire a glazed look.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 13 January, 2009, 12:48:53 pm
That the magnet in a crackberry case is 100% effective way of erasing credit card style hotel room keys.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 15 November, 2009, 10:49:18 pm
Gosh, for all of my life I thought that a Blue Moon was a second full moon in a calendar month.

Mr. Wowbagger's thread has taught me something today.

Edit:
Hmm, after re-reading article on Wikipedia I'm now totally confused.
There appear to be two definitions.  Seasonal and Calendar.

The more modern Calendar interpretation (two in any month) would now appear to be the one in accepted modern usage. 

Hmm, happy to go with the flow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 16 November, 2009, 03:45:53 am
Many facts about an erstwhile maths teacher, whose Memorial Service I attended today.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tonycollinet on 16 November, 2009, 09:06:36 pm
I've learned the difference between "buck" and "boost" (in the context of LED driver circuits).

I've also learned that joining candlepowerforums is a bad idea if you're into shiny, flashy things...

Oh yes  ;D. You want to avoid boost converters though if you can - they are much less efficient.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tonycollinet on 16 November, 2009, 09:13:11 pm
I learned today that if you put wet cycling shoes (and I mean really really sodden dripping as wet as conceivably wet as can be wet) in the air stream coming out of a dehumidifier, they are bone dry after about 8 hours.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tonycollinet on 16 November, 2009, 09:16:15 pm
I've also learned that if you give stuff away on freecycle, people think it is perfectly OK to arrange a time to collect - and then not bother to show. And not bother to phone or email to let me know. Twice. By two different people.
 >:(

I'm gonna take it to the tip - they can sod off.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jonno on 18 November, 2009, 02:48:42 pm
Trust is everything in business! Tust me!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jonno on 18 November, 2009, 02:55:17 pm
I've learned that if I eat less for a week, I lose weight. I thought my gargantuan mass was all down to my "metabolism" until today.  ::-)

You probably know that lossing weight is alot harder than putting it on.

I'm 'proof in the pudding' that the right diet and exercise helps.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jogler on 18 November, 2009, 03:22:00 pm
Trust is everything in business! Tust me!

£ in business is more than everthing,it's the only thing
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JStone on 18 November, 2009, 04:58:05 pm
Just because a job run over a VPN connection works when tested in the office does not guarantee that it will work on the same laptop when working from home the next day   >:(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 31 January, 2010, 01:13:37 am
I learned that Honoré de Balzac had a great deal in common with that other famous Frenchman, M. le Maire de Mortagne-au-Perche.
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 31 January, 2010, 01:53:31 am
Yakult has more sugar by volume than Coca Cola.
So that explains 1 or 2 of the grams I put on over Xmas, now to find out what caused the rest of the 2kg gain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 February, 2010, 02:53:44 pm
Oi!  I'm not dead!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 01 February, 2010, 03:11:05 pm
Yakult has more sugar by volume than Coca Cola.

Tomato ketchup has more than either. The total sugar in a squidge of tomato ketchup is not that much though, a small pot of Yakult might contain 20g sugar but it's dead easy to drink 50g sugar in Coke (if you can stomach the stuff at all).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 01 February, 2010, 03:15:48 pm
Oi!  I'm not dead!

Are you sure?

You could be an Audax Zombie (an increasingly common sight on the highways and byways of this sceptred isle).

Do you have the sudden urge to dismember people (either with or without a SHOVEL) and eat their BRANES?

Do you find yourself eating everything in sight?

Do you smell somewhat foetid, as though something had crawled into your shorts and died?

If so, you may in fact be an audax zombie...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Greenbank on 01 February, 2010, 03:43:59 pm
Just because a job run over a VPN connection works when tested in the office does not guarantee that it will work on the same laptop when working from home the next day   >:(

A trip with said laptop to a cafe/pub/coffee-shop with wireless network can help test that out. "It's work, honest boss!"

Having signed up for BT Fon (as I have BT Broadband) means I get free access to BT Openzone which has free wireless in loads of places (such as Cafe Nero) as well as the wireless networks of other residential users who have subscribed to BT Fon.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Rig of Jarkness on 02 February, 2010, 07:25:38 am
That USAF/RAF pilots are now flying bombing missions in Afghanistan/Pakistan without leaving the safety of their 'office'...BBC News - How unmanned drones are changing modern warfare (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8488269.stm)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 February, 2010, 03:33:28 pm
Oi!  I'm not dead!

Are you sure?

Actually, I went for a blood pressure check yesterday and it seems that I very probably am.  If I suddenly turn into a heap of steaming offal, it's just my cardio-vascular system going into meltdown...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 02 February, 2010, 03:43:58 pm
On the grounds that a cardio-vascular system is probably easier to fix than an immune system, wanna swap? You know what they say: a change is as good as a rest. You'll get an interesting new set of symptoms, but at least you won't have to worry about high blood pressure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 09 November, 2010, 10:36:14 am
That Beeswing in Dumfriesshire is named after a racehorse.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ian H on 09 November, 2010, 10:43:30 am
That Beeswing in Dumfriesshire is named after a racehorse.

And the racehorse is named after?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 09 November, 2010, 01:42:56 pm
That's what he's going to learn tomorrow.  You can overdo it you know.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 10 November, 2010, 12:45:14 pm
STONITH means Shoot The Other Node In The Head.....

Does what it says on the tin, really :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 10 November, 2010, 01:45:40 pm
I learned that Merrydown Vintage Cider, a staple of my youth, is now being sold in 750ml bottles instead of one litre bottles. No doubt this is justified by way of either making it the same size as wine bottles, or to satisfy, ostensibly, the nanny state. Did this reduction in size accompany a reduction in price? Did it bollocks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 11 November, 2010, 08:04:39 am
That our executive director is a bigger knob than I thought... yesterday I got a very formal letter, on two sheets of fancy paper, in an envelope marked confidential, to tell me that things were worse here than expected, and there could be more redundancies than originally expected.   Very nice of you to tell me this, but I'm already being made redundant, you brainless twat!   What friggin' difference is it going to make to me?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 09 May, 2011, 06:39:06 pm
Devout Muslims must have their toilets facing away from Mecca.

When you're doing a bathroom adaptation which involves repositioning the toilet and access to the soil stack is limited, this requirement can make it quite complicated.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 May, 2011, 06:43:53 pm
That's a euphemism for Saniflo (http://www.diyfaq.org.uk/humour.html), isn't it?   :hand:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 09 May, 2011, 06:47:07 pm
I'm very much hoping not.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feline on 09 May, 2011, 06:48:10 pm
Devout Muslims must have their toilets facing away from Mecca.

When you're doing a bathroom adaptation which involves repositioning the toilet and access to the soil stack is limited, this requirement can make it quite complicated.

It caused all kinds of problems in the toilets on a long haul Royal Brunei flight to Australia I was once on too! They kept pausing the movie to show a map of the plane with an arrow to show which direction Mecca was in too  :o

(it was for other reasons also probably the worst flight of my life because there was no alcohol on the plane, even the wine we pinched from firsdt class was alcohol free  :sick: )
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 09 May, 2011, 08:19:08 pm
Who Lise Meitner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner) and Emmy Noether (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmy_noether) were.

 http://xkcd.com/ (http://xkcd.com/)  who says cartoons are not educational ?

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 09 May, 2011, 08:39:01 pm
Devout Muslims must have their toilets facing away from Mecca.

Doesn't that mean that they're pointing their Arses towards Mecca?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 May, 2011, 11:04:20 am
(it was for other reasons also probably the worst flight of my life because there was no alcohol on the plane, even the wine we pinched from firsdt class was alcohol free  :sick: )

Dr Larrington once flew from Tokyo to London on PIA, via Beijing and Karachi.  She and her friend solved the problem of no boozahol with a couple of two litre bottles1 of tonic water, only one of which contained that described by the label :thumbsup:

1 - This was about 1980, when no-one was trying to blow up aeroplanes with Lucozade Sport.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 10 May, 2011, 09:28:57 pm
How to do very basic and a bit blotchy cobalt blue enamel on silver.  :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2011, 02:07:49 pm
That rhubarb isn't green.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 23 May, 2011, 12:30:28 pm
Courtesy of the Today programme, I learned there's no one as Irish as Barack O'Bama (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_No_One_as_Irish_as_Barack_O%27Bama)!
 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 03 October, 2011, 01:40:39 pm
You can't use Centrelock rotors instead of 6 bolt ones when using Avid BB7 roads, as the caliper catches the rotor arms :(  An expensive mistake that, thinkl I will take it back and see if I can get a refund.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 03 October, 2011, 02:27:24 pm
Oh bugger.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Rig of Jarkness on 09 November, 2011, 06:58:52 am
The poppies sold in Scotland are different to the one sold in E&W.  The Scottish poppies have 4 petals and no leaf. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 09 November, 2011, 07:38:24 am
And Canadian poppies don't have a stem!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: haliaetos on 09 November, 2011, 07:57:57 pm
The poppies sold in Scotland are different to the one sold in E&W.  The Scottish poppies have 4 petals and no leaf.

Makes it easier for schoolkids to make poppy darts. Well, it did back when I were a lad, when the stems were metal! Not very respectful, granted, but at least they received more donations than they would have done otherwise.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 09 November, 2011, 08:03:33 pm
I learned that the joists in a building don't necessarily all run the same way, not even in the same room, and how to get a reasonable estimate of the gradient of an external path by looking at the bellcast.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Quisling on 10 November, 2011, 09:01:37 am
That it is quite possible to loose over 1/4 stone in 24 hours through ones bottom alone and that it's possible to have evil shivers and sweats without apparently running an abnormal temperature

Yes, the plague is in town chez Quisling  :sick:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 16 November, 2011, 11:57:36 am
When trimmed a beard with a hair trimmer and a 3mm guard, DO NOT have eyes open.....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 16 November, 2011, 12:01:54 pm
That it is quite possible to loose over 1/4 stone in 24 hours through ones bottom alone and that it's possible to have evil shivers and sweats without apparently running an abnormal temperature

Yes, the plague is in town chez Quisling  :sick:
Did you eat at the same Indian as me ? One second frozen to the bone, couldn't get warm at all, fell asleep, woke up in a "swimming pool", it all stopped after a trip to the loo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 November, 2011, 03:10:20 pm
That those keyed ring things that sit between a bar-end shifter and the bar plug bit are chiral.  The difference is subtle, and easily missed if you're sitting in a pile of bar-end shifter parts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 27 November, 2011, 03:17:28 pm
A new word.

Chiral.

And having investigated its meaning, I'll be looking for the first opportunity to use it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 27 November, 2011, 08:02:51 pm
Laevo or dextro rotary?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CrinklyLion on 27 November, 2011, 09:11:45 pm
Technically, not today.  Since it was actually Friday evening that I learned that a tandem fits in my living room.  Just.


Dangerous knowledge that, potentially...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 27 November, 2011, 10:43:29 pm
Technically, not today.  Since it was actually Friday evening that I learned that a tandem fits in my living room.  Just.


Dangerous knowledge that, potentially...
I have a 20 inch wheeled tandem that is petite and bijoux (or petit and bijou, I don't know :-[). I could bring it for a trial at some point. :) It isn't very good at optical illusions but there aren't any near the den, are there?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 November, 2011, 10:57:41 pm
Right now I am learning about a woman called Jean Jenkins, who travelled around the world in the 1960s and 70s (back when the world was young  :) ) recording music and establishing the field of ethno-musicology. Right now it's 1974 and she's meeting Haile Selassie and trying to blag funding off him. It's rather fascinating. She seems to have worn lots of girdles!

She recorded world music before World Music, as they've just said.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: αdαmsκι on 29 November, 2011, 08:47:21 pm
Chiral.

And having investigated its meaning, I'll be looking for the first opportunity to use it.

A level chemistry tomorrow Thursday?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 29 November, 2011, 08:53:18 pm
Chiral.

And having investigated its meaning, I'll be looking for the first opportunity to use it.

A level chemistry tomorrow Thursday?

Day after, I reckon  ;).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 30 November, 2011, 06:15:13 pm
Today I have mostly been accompanying No1Son to the Grove of Academe at UEA (Norwich).

I learned, that in the 20 years since I went University:

1 A*AA and he gets £1k off fees as a scholarship
2 Keep up this unemployment and he gets maximum grant and a bursary.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 05 December, 2011, 10:22:53 pm
The word Seedie is a term for ex slaves employed by the Royal Navy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Arch on 05 December, 2011, 10:44:18 pm
Technically, not today.  Since it was actually Friday evening that I learned that a tandem fits in my living room.  Just.


Dangerous knowledge that, potentially...
I have a 20 inch wheeled tandem that is petite and bijoux (or petit and bijou, I don't know :-[). I could bring it for a trial at some point. :) It isn't very good at optical illusions but there aren't any near the den, are there?

Petit et bijou, I think,  un velo being masculine and singular. (I think. A good tip I was given for trying to be confident in limited French was not to get hung up about the le and la stuff and just have a go...)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 05 December, 2011, 11:13:01 pm
(I think. A good tip I was given for trying to be confident in limited French was not to get hung up about the le and la stuff and just have a go...)
And don't. try. to. pronounce. every. word. because. it. doesn't. sound. right. You have to cultivate the right sense of flow, rhythm and mumble when speaking and let the reader's ears fill in the missing bits.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 06 December, 2011, 08:17:16 am
If you put some olbas oil on a tissue and put it inside your pillowcase to keep you able to breathe during the night, there is a good chance that you will end up lying on it and wake up in the night thinking half your face is on fire.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 06 December, 2011, 09:43:51 am
Tip: Put the olbas oil on the underside of your pillow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 06 December, 2011, 11:23:37 am
Then how am I supposed to inhale it? Will it make its way through the pillow? Will that mean my pillow stinks forevermore?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 06 December, 2011, 11:32:23 am
Everything that ever comes into contact with Olbas Oil will reek of it for evermore.

My late, old Gran, bless her, used to daub it in bucketfuls on and around her person & it's the smell I associate with her memory.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 December, 2011, 02:03:53 pm
...whereas if you squirt xylometazoline up your nose, it'll taste nasty for 10 minutes, you'll be able to breathe all night, and nothing will have to smell of anything.   :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 06 December, 2011, 05:59:59 pm
Kirst, the underside of the pillow gets warm enough to vaporise the olbas oil.  It does work (but your pillow might be minty for a while).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Arch on 06 December, 2011, 09:00:13 pm
(I think. A good tip I was given for trying to be confident in limited French was not to get hung up about the le and la stuff and just have a go...)
And don't. try. to. pronounce. every. word. because. it. doesn't. sound. right. You have to cultivate the right sense of flow, rhythm and mumble when speaking and let the reader's ears fill in the missing bits.

Exactly. I remember I started to feel comfortable in France when I realised I was saying "Au'voir" instead of "Au Revoir". Not that I'm anything like fluent, but after a day or so over there I feel more courageous about trying. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 06 December, 2011, 09:29:15 pm
Richard Jefferies went to school in Sydenham and lived part of his life in Surbiton.  Not what you expect for Wiltshire's famous country-loving author.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 December, 2011, 12:58:48 pm
This could have been a rant (predictable stuff; doctors' reception, no appointment till 8 days' time, late evening hour for a 7 y.o., then waiting 20 minutes after appointed time to actually see doc) but instead I have learnt two good things about the NHS, which IME do not apply anywhere else: prescriptions are printed so you can actually read them and contain dosage info; and they are free for children!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 07 December, 2011, 01:44:17 pm
That I am prepared to abandon an  application or an otherwise OK(ish) job partly, possibly mainly, because the prospective employer hasn't got secure bike parking.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 December, 2011, 06:13:51 pm
That AAISP have a company bouncy castle.

Given that they already own an orc and a laser engraver, this doesn't really surprise me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrew_s on 18 December, 2011, 07:56:31 pm
Care to be a little less cryptic?
Bouncy castle and laser engraver are simple, but how does a subterranean humanoid normally found in the pages of LotR come in to things, and what's AAISP when it's at home?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 18 December, 2011, 07:57:02 pm
That I can ride up a hill with an arrow, without getting off and walking any of it :D.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 December, 2011, 08:04:20 pm
how does a subterranean humanoid normally found in the pages of LotR come in to things

It stands guard in the conference room (http://revk.www.me.uk/2011/02/orctastic.html).


Quote
and what's AAISP when it's at home?

A purveyor of fine internet services (http://aaisp.net.uk/).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 December, 2011, 07:12:47 pm
That trikes go faster when the brakes aren't rubbing   :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 22 December, 2011, 08:21:30 pm
If you try to fit a new chain to a singlespeed bike in the dark you'll make it one link too short :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 27 December, 2011, 10:48:41 pm
That Puffinus puffinus is not a Puffin. It is a Manx Sheerwater. A puffin is Fratercula arctica (Atlantic Puffin, there are two other Fratercula sp. puffins)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 27 December, 2011, 10:56:32 pm
That Puffinus puffinus is not a Puffin. It is a Manx Sheerwater.

That was a question in my work's christmas quiz.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 28 December, 2011, 03:01:09 pm
I have learned that slipping off the front of the saddle, emergrency stop for stoopind Ped', onto a frame that is bigger than what I should ride is painful for the Mangerines!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 28 December, 2011, 03:03:06 pm
But the good news is that the local choir are looking for Trebles. ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 28 December, 2011, 03:04:59 pm
I learned a new word today.

Mangerines

 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 28 December, 2011, 03:08:32 pm
You cant taste any Guinness in Guinness chocolate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 28 December, 2011, 03:09:26 pm
But the good news is that the local choir are looking for Trebles. ;)

I've only got the two of them I'm afraid.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: gordon taylor on 28 December, 2011, 03:10:16 pm
I've learned that Britain is broken and we're witnessing the end of civilisation as we know it... according to the miserable, spittle-flecked git who was reading selected articles out of today's Telegraph to his silent wife. All whilst sitting in a posh Costa Cafe sipping skinny latte... in a lovely county town on a beautiful winter's day in one of the richest and healthiest countries on earth.

If he'd shouted "We're all doomed" at the end of one of his diatribes, I'd have laughed.

Poor man.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Arch on 28 December, 2011, 04:16:20 pm
I've learned that Britain is broken and we're witnessing the end of civilisation as we know it... according to the miserable, spittle-flecked git who was reading selected articles out of today's Telegraph to his silent wife. All whilst sitting in a posh Costa Cafe sipping skinny latte... in a lovely county town on a beautiful winter's day in one of the richest and healthiest countries on earth.

If he'd shouted "We're all doomed" at the end of one of his diatribes, I'd have laughed.

Poor man.

Console yourself in the knowledge that when it all goes tits up, he'll probably not have a single useful survival skill, and his wife will go off with the very practical Polish plumber she's been sleeping with for years....

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 December, 2011, 01:29:10 am
Does anyone actually know a Polish plumber? I know Polish bakers, decorators, shopkeepers, electricians and, er, bods in the city, but even when I lived in Poland I never knew a plumber!

Anyways
But the good news is that the local choir are looking for Trebles. ;)

I've only got the two of them I'm afraid.
made me laugh ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jogler on 29 December, 2011, 09:16:04 am
Does anyone actually know a Polish plumber?

I know two Polish plumbers.Business & marriage partners.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 29 December, 2011, 09:25:19 am
All the Polish plumbers I know are far too busy screwing the wives of unsuspecting Daily Telegraph readers to actually get on with any plumbing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 December, 2011, 01:05:54 pm
Sounds like they're doing a lot of plumbing!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 29 December, 2011, 02:00:06 pm
Does anyone actually know a Polish plumber?

I know two Polish plumbers.Business & marriage partners.

So your marriage partner is a Polish plumber? :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 29 December, 2011, 03:08:19 pm
I spent 4 hours today fitting the roller blind I bought from JLP online in the sale.
What I learned today is that roller blinds were invented by sadists, and, it's best to go and actually see how sheer these fabrics are before purchase.

*bashes head off desk*
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Arch on 29 December, 2011, 03:18:05 pm
I have learnt the beginnings of how to use my new Dremel....  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 29 December, 2011, 07:11:12 pm
I am absolutely hopeless at Khet (really not surprised). I think bobb should challenge Wowbagger to a game.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 30 December, 2011, 05:10:49 pm
Edited to change as I got in a strop over being silly.

I learned that I shouldn't be so bloody touchy!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jogler on 30 December, 2011, 05:45:13 pm
IME face value judgements are rarely correct.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 December, 2011, 06:25:34 pm
That the Syriac Church is not monophysistic but miaphysistic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 30 December, 2011, 08:40:54 pm
I learned the difference between a juvenile golden eagle and a red kite.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 31 December, 2011, 01:23:27 am
I learned that Lionel Bart died in the Hammersmith Hospital on 3 April 1999.
My grandmother died in the Hammersmith Hospital on 1 April 1999 and was buried on 4 April. They must have been in the same morgue together...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 17 February, 2012, 09:13:29 pm
I learned today that Kim has a homophobic phone! ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 February, 2012, 09:19:27 pm
I learned today that Kim has a homophobic phone! ::-)

SwiftKey X for Android with the English (UK) dictionary, if you want to play along at home.  While it has no problem with swearing and arbitrary neologisms, it seems to have a specific blind spot for perfectly reasonable words pertaining to teh ghey.  Most odd...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 06 April, 2012, 11:42:45 pm
Thanks Kim.

More stuff learned today. (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=58421.msg1203684#msg1203684)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 20 August, 2012, 09:32:19 am
I doubt anyone will find this surprising, but cycling jerseys make very poor towels.

In spite of the recent references to H2GT2G here guess what I forgot to pack before cycling to work this morning?  :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 20 August, 2012, 10:07:17 am
(Yesterday)

That when my HR hits 187- I don't go much further up hill without taking a breather :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 20 August, 2012, 11:12:48 am
Jessica Ennis is the same dress size as Victoria Beckham.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 20 August, 2012, 12:25:12 pm
Wot a fatty.  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 20 August, 2012, 12:30:30 pm
It's a surprise, tbh. VB gets a lot of press for being 'anorexically thin', and JE is noted for being muscular.  She looks very pretty and girly in a dress tho'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 21 August, 2012, 09:06:41 pm
The Madness farewell gigs in Finsbury Park in 1992 caused earth tremors reaching 5 on the Richter Scale.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CommuteTooFar on 22 August, 2012, 01:20:26 pm
I am not a unix programmer so today I discovered a memory leak in my program was caused by pthread_create. I now know I need to have a pthread_detach call so the system cleans it up after it finishes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 August, 2012, 10:16:50 pm
That Mavic is an acronym of Manufacture d'Articles Vélocopediques Idoux et Chanel. I love the word vélocopedique, which I admit is a new one to me, and I'm going to start using it straight away (but in English).

YACF is the best source of velocipedic knowledge, inspiration, debate and entertainment that I know of.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 August, 2012, 10:40:45 pm
To never trust the rainfall radar.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 23 August, 2012, 09:54:47 am
That sometimes I don't give a flying wossname if the Faerie visits.

Got one whilst exploring a new route to work this morning.

The ride was nice. The visitation a mere interlude.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 05 September, 2012, 11:38:32 am
That riding a bike, fixed, with 4Kg of pork shoulder in a SQR slim is, errr, interesting....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 05 September, 2012, 11:49:46 am
Last night-

When going commando after putting my shreddies in the washing machine, moar care is needed when undoing my fly :o :'(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jogler on 05 September, 2012, 03:57:17 pm
There is a bloke living locally who restores Lambrettas.I know this 'cause as I passed his gaff I stopped to admire an immaculate 1972 "Special" in all white apart from the crash bars,back rest,mirrors etc etc.
He obviously clocked me & came out* so we chewed the fat a bit about Mods & Wiggo :thumbsup:
Took me right back to 1970 when we had a Lambretta SX225 with all the mirrors,crash bars etc etc.
Mods Ruke,O.K.. :thumbsup:
*I suspect he was making sure I was not going to nick it ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jogler on 06 September, 2012, 03:17:50 pm
Reaching to the downtube to change gear achieves very little on a bike with STI  ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 06 September, 2012, 03:21:41 pm
Reaching to the downtube to change gear achieves very little on a bike with STI  ::-)

Exactly as effective as trying to change gear using non sti brake levers  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jogler on 06 September, 2012, 03:28:37 pm
That's one of the reasons I like riding fixed....the brake levers only do braking & there is NO gear changing to be poncing about with.I'd like to be fit enough to use it exclusively.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: matthew on 06 September, 2012, 07:07:52 pm
That either scottish audaxers are as tough as the girders in iron bru or there must be a lot of dns / dnf when the weather turns bad. 30 kms was enough this afternoon (with camping kit) let alone 200.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 06 September, 2012, 07:18:09 pm
Shamelessly cribbed from Radio 2 where some parents e-mailed to say there 3 year old could spin continuously on the spot for 30 seconds without any ill effects at all.

Sadly for their carpets and furniture she had exceeded this margin by some 5 seconds . . .  :sick:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 06 September, 2012, 07:42:14 pm
Fuzzy needs at least one more pair of undercrackers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 07 September, 2012, 03:47:10 pm
What a drott is. "A fraggle rock bulldozer"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 07 September, 2012, 04:59:58 pm
Some 'non-drowsy' Allergy relief pills aren't as non-drowsy as they could be.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 07 September, 2012, 05:04:24 pm
Some 'non-drowsy' Allergy relief pills aren't as non-drowsy as they could be.

Were you riding a bike at the time?   :hand:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 07 September, 2012, 05:17:08 pm
The term "Yellow Belly" is a local expression meaning someone form Lincolnshire.

It derives from the colour of the Lincolnshire regiment's uniform.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 September, 2012, 10:31:02 pm
I've found out why none of the books in the Moomin series seems to be the first. It's not because the first one, The Moomins and the Great Flood, Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen, was only translated into English in 2005, but because the English translation is only available in, bizarrely, Finland.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 13 September, 2012, 01:26:23 pm
The memory for the first usable programmable computer was sound waves travelling along a mercury column. They had calculated the speed of propagation and with a sender on one end linked to a receiver on the other they could store 1kb (1024 bits) at 1 MHz on a 5ft tube. I just have visions of the little pixies inside the computer [1] shouting "one", "zero" at each other very rapidly. Ingenious.

[1] The ones who stop the magic smoke from leaking out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 October, 2012, 02:33:56 am
Russians now use the word фейл. That's feil, ie "fail" with a Russian accent.
Title: Re: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mr magnolia on 30 October, 2012, 05:24:47 am
I've found out why none of the books in the Moomin series seems to be the first. It's not because the first one, The Moomins and the Great Flood, Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen, was only translated into English in 2005, but because the English translation is only available in, bizarrely, Finland.

Released in UK 01.11.12, according to Amazon.
We have a copy here, oddly. I wonder where it came from?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 30 October, 2012, 07:29:16 am
I found out that Australia has an enormous population of feral camels, left over from the building of the telegraph.    Sometimes Arab sheikhs come and grab a few because they are apparently more pure-bred than the Middle Eastern ones, having not mixed with any other camels in the last 150 years or so.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 October, 2012, 06:46:58 pm
Mobile phones work with technology originally developed for the pianola. Sort of.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 30 October, 2012, 08:35:43 pm
I learned that Claudia Winkleman is the daughter of Eve Pollard.  Obvious when you know, really.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Exit Stage Left on 30 October, 2012, 08:37:49 pm
Mobile phones work with technology originally developed for the pianola. Sort of.

I thought it was down to Hedy Lammar.
http://www.hedylamarr.org/hedystory5.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 October, 2012, 10:27:11 pm
Exactly. She got it from the pianola.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 31 October, 2012, 12:48:37 pm
It's hard to get dressed while dancing in a Frankenstein stylee to the Monster Mash.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 26 November, 2012, 09:38:55 pm
That the search on YACF is bleedin' useless, but typing YACF followed by a vague approximation of what you think the thread was called into Google works wonderfully.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 01 December, 2012, 08:51:11 pm
Son informed me today the the word "Football" does not refer to the part of the anatomy that is used to control the ball.
He says that it means "Game of ball -played on foot" - as opposed to on horseback.

 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 01 December, 2012, 10:29:49 pm
Son informed me today the the word "Football" does not refer to the part of the anatomy that is used to control the ball.
He says that it means "Game of ball -played on foot" - as opposed to on horseback.

Suddenly handball sounds like a much more entertaining game than I assumed...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 01 December, 2012, 10:33:40 pm
 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 December, 2012, 09:39:00 am
Sigurd, Viking King of Orkney, died in 892 while invading Scotland. He chopped off the Pictish king's head in battle and fastened it to the saddle of his horse - then cut his leg on its teeth, the wound turned septic and he died. Dead head bites king, that's better than Man bites dog!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: RJ on 06 December, 2012, 09:41:40 am
Quote
the fine-scale structure of branching river networks is an organized signature of erosional mechanics, not a consequence of random topology.

Fractal-tastic!  Read it here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v492/n7427/full/nature11672.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20121206

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 17 December, 2012, 11:43:35 am
Wow.  The fuzz can make use of the buzz: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/14/power_grid_audio_forensics/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 01 January, 2013, 07:30:38 pm
Today, I learned that humans are the only animal on the planet that have a menopause.

Intrigued, I googled around to find that is not quite true.  Blue and Pilot whales also share this.
Still, only three species.

More googling.  It seems that the Grandmother is evolutionarily advantageous.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 01 January, 2013, 07:34:02 pm
Today I discovered how cold flood water is.

How I did this is left to the imagination (but won't take much for those who have ever been on a ride with me!)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 06 January, 2013, 08:30:54 pm
Today I learned the following:

On 9th June 1947, it became legally impossible for Soviet labour camps to
1) access their bank accounts, or get money paid into them
2) get distributors of essential supplies to deliver to them.

This was because the secrecy rules changed. Their full addresses became secrets which they could not disclose.

Distributors of supplies already knew them, so could deliver goods that the labour camps ordered, but were no longer able to accept orders, because orders had to include the full address unless they were 'secret' orders, only military establishments could issue secret orders, & labour camps were not military establishments. The MVD had been transferred to the Ministry of Justice.

They could not access their bank accounts because they could not give Gosbank (the state bank) their full addresses. Gosbank already held the full address of every account holder, including labour camps. It was part of the identity of the account. Transactions could only be made if the correct identity was supplied. But because the address was now secret, neither the camps, nor entities seeking to transfer money to them, could supply it to Gosbank, even though Gosbank already knew it. It was therefore legally impossible for Gosbank to accept requests for payments into or from those accounts.

There was a way round the banking problem. Camps had an alternative identity. If Gosbank substituted this for the full address, all would be well. But it wasn't legally possible to give Gosbank the alternative identity in a form in which it could be matched to the information Gosbank already held.

For the next six years this caused immense problems, with illegal (& in theory punishable by severe penalties) unofficial arrangements having to be made simply to allow the GuLaG to work, & constant interruptions to supplies & payments as carefully & riskily negotiated arrangements broke down (I assume because one party retired, or died, or changed job, or got frightened) & had to be renegotiated.

All the transactions which were inhibited were official, authorised transactions between state agencies, which were necessary for them to make in order to fulfil their legal duty to abide by the plan.  :facepalm:

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ashaman42 on 06 January, 2013, 10:01:23 pm
That is absolutely bonkers Bledlow, but entirely believable.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 06 January, 2013, 10:38:47 pm
Illustrated in the paper I read (by Professor Mark Harrison of Warwick University - I think the most recent freely downloadable pdf on his pages on the university website) by discussion of letters & memos between officials who were trying to resolve the impasse. Fascinating what people find in declassified Soviet archives. He notes that it seemed to be seen as less of a problem about the time that "Stalin was on his way to meet Marx".

The paper's about the transaction costs of secrecy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SandyV on 07 January, 2013, 03:45:50 am
While canning of food was happening by the 1770s and was fairly widespread by the 1820s, the tin opener wasn't invented until the 1850s.  Before then, tins were opened using a hammer and chisel or other implement such as an axe!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 07 January, 2013, 07:27:09 am
Before then, tins were opened using a hammer and chisel or other implement such as an axe!
Been there.  Done that.
In the days before easy-pull can lids, a lost can opener when camping would mean that the next meal was conducted with extreme violence.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Arch on 07 January, 2013, 09:46:25 am
While canning of food was happening by the 1770s and was fairly widespread by the 1820s, the tin opener wasn't invented until the 1850s.  Before then, tins were opened using a hammer and chisel or other implement such as an axe!

One of my favourite literary passages is the one in Three Men in a Boat where they are trying to open a tin of pineapple, having lost the tin opener. Especially when they get angry and beat it with the mast into a shape so grotesque they recoil in horror.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 07 January, 2013, 12:24:42 pm
In 1987, US navy pilot Lt (JG). Timothy Dorsey shot down a US air force reconnaissance aircraft in an exercise. Instead of simulating the firing of a missile, he fired a live missile. The subsequent investigation found that it was not accidental, but a deliberate act. When one missile failed to fire, he fired another one. Dorsey knew that his missiles were live. He claimed to have correctly obeyed the instruction to "fire" (meaning, in the context, simulate the firing of) a missile, despite being shocked at the instruction. He did not query it. He showed no regret, & claimed to have done nothing wrong.

The two crew members of the USAF aircraft ejected & survived, but the pilot has had to have seven operations for the back injuries he received from the ejection, & is in constant pain.

Lt Dorsey remained in the US navy, though he was barred from flying. He is now a captain in the US navy reserve. Last year he was put up for promotion to admiral by the US navy. This involved a hearing by a US senate committee. He sent a letter of apology to the injured officer after the hearing had been scheduled, after showing no remorse for the previous 25 years.

The US navy omitted to mention the incident in the nomination papers, although the US senate armed services committee expects nomination papers to include full information, including anything adverse.

Timothy Dorsey is the son of  James Dorsey, who at the time of the shooting down was a rear admiral & commander of the aircraft carrier USS America, & was promoted the following year to vice admiral.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 11 January, 2013, 01:00:40 am
That there are a lot of slef righteous people that like to support those that never asked for support and when they can't do that they get down and dirty to the next Pathetic group they can find to slag off.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 January, 2013, 09:26:04 am
That a distraught elephant can make a noise like a small-block Chevy on the overrun.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LEE on 11 January, 2013, 09:32:57 am
That a distraught elephant can make a noise like a small-block Chevy on the overrun.

I thought you were still banned from Windsor Safari park (following your previous Elephant "incident")
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LEE on 11 January, 2013, 09:34:58 am
That no matter how hard you work, how dedicated you are to your job, your boss doesn't give two shits...

I've noticed over the last 10 years that being made redundant bears no relation to people's skill, work-effort or dedication.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: matthew on 11 January, 2013, 09:40:19 am
That a distraught elephant can make a noise like a small-block Chevy on the overrun.

I thought you were still banned from Windsor Safari park (following your previous Elephant "incident")
The only Elephants to be found at Windsor Safari Park now will be made of Lego!!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 11 January, 2013, 02:33:33 pm
That it's a bad idea to put the coffee in the Aeropress before attaching the bottom filter bit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 11 January, 2013, 03:11:24 pm
Along similar lines to nicknack, it is not a good idea to sneeze whilst holding a freshly filled espresso basket.

Espresso grind coffee takes FOREVER to clean up :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 14 February, 2014, 09:10:53 am
According to that bastion of learning... the innocent drinks e-mail,

Spinster started off as a compliment, denoting competence at spinning, and therefore self sufficiency.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 February, 2014, 01:49:45 pm
According to that bastion of learning... the innocent drinks e-mail,

Spinster started off as a compliment, denoting competence at spinning, and therefore self sufficiency.

Interestingly, I learned the same thing recently after encountering such use in some historical fiction.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 18 February, 2014, 07:05:57 pm
"Gay Pete" in the pub isn't actually gay.  Whereas Pete is.  (I knew that bit)

Me:  "Pete, what's that bloke's name?"
Pete:  "That's Gay Pete.  Surely you know him?"
Me:  "Yes.  But he's not gay.
Pete:  "I know"
Me:  "So why do we call him Gay Pete?"
Pete:  "That's his name.  ::-) "
Me:  "OK  ??? "
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 February, 2014, 08:49:54 pm
Doesn't actually sound like you've learned anything... (Do we need a thread for that?)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 18 February, 2014, 09:03:29 pm
Well yes.  I learned that Gay Pete isn't gay.  I think that it's fair enough that I assumed he was
I also learned that anyone more than 15 years younger than me is determined to confuse the fuck out of me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 18 February, 2014, 09:45:02 pm
Neil Sedaka wrote Love Will Keep Us Together (which was a hit for the Captain and Tenille).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 19 February, 2014, 11:41:39 am
Well yes.  I learned that Gay Pete isn't gay.  I think that it's fair enough that I assumed he was
I also learned that anyone more than 15 years younger than me is determined to confuse the fuck out of me.

When I worked on the sound for Billy Graham, some of the Christians were a bit concerned about a member of the sound crew called Gay Paul.  He was not gay, and worked for a Christian organisation.  However, there were gayers aplenty in our stage crew doing the load in :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 February, 2014, 09:01:32 pm
Well, there's the journalist Gay Search, who isn't AFAIK gay and neither is the Gay I remember from my mother's circle of friends decades ago.

In fact, is there anyone called Gay who is gay?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 20 February, 2014, 09:32:03 pm
No, Gay Search is not gay.  But nor, IIRC, is Gay Search the name she was born with.  Naturally, I can't find anything to back this up in the internet, but that's because nothing happened before about 1992/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 20 February, 2014, 09:39:00 pm
No, Gay Search is not gay.  But nor, IIRC, is Gay Search the name she was born with.  Naturally, I can't find anything to back this up in the internet, but that's because nothing happened before about 1992/

For the pre-1992 internet you need to ask Veronica (who is also not gay)   ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 February, 2014, 09:44:51 pm
No, Gay Search is not gay.  But nor, IIRC, is Gay Search the name she was born with.  Naturally, I can't find anything to back this up in the internet, but that's because nothing happened before about 1992/

For the pre-1992 internet you need to ask Veronica (who is also not gay)   ;D
Too hard. Never got over Alison.


There's also Gay Talese, an American author who is male and not gay.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 February, 2014, 09:54:21 pm
And just in case you'd forgotten, I feel honoured to remind you of the 2012 Republican candidate Rick Sputorum and his campaign song, Gay Mon.
http://youtu.be/U7pv7sO5Gng
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 21 February, 2014, 12:28:16 am
One of my mum's friend's daughters is called Gay and I don't think it has an e on the end. She would have been born in about 1967 so will be in her late 40s now. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 March, 2014, 10:43:51 am
That Turkmenistan had hydroelectric power in 1910.
http://deser.pl/deser/51,111858,15534671.html?i=8
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 03 March, 2014, 12:52:39 pm
That Turkmenistan had hydroelectric power in 1910.
http://deser.pl/deser/51,111858,15534671.html?i=8

Phwor, look at the commutators on that!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 March, 2014, 01:49:50 pm
There's appreciation for you! They're Hungarian, just to add to your enjoyment.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 18 March, 2014, 08:51:25 pm
The Concorde in the so-bad-it's-good "Airport '79 - The Concorde" was the actual plane that crashed near Paris in July 2000.  So it crashed twice.  Sort of.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 28 March, 2014, 09:53:15 am
That the Dewey Decimal System has:
Quote
941 General history of Europe; British Isles
942 General history of Europe; England & Wales
but no "General History of Europe; Scotland"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes#Class_900_.E2.80.93_History_.26_geography
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 28 March, 2014, 10:06:05 am
That the Dewey Decimal System has:
Quote
941 General history of Europe; British Isles
942 General history of Europe; England & Wales
but no "General History of Europe; Scotland"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes#Class_900_.E2.80.93_History_.26_geography

That's odd isn’t it.

I bet Alex Salmond claims this is a deliberate slight on Scotland by the English (even though Dewey Decimal is an American system)

Mind you the only country in Europe that gets a category all to itself is France.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 28 March, 2014, 11:59:41 am
After a discussion last night revolving around live music, and reading the OPG for "Car SOS", in which one of the presenters is described as "Musician and classic car expert", I looked up his Wikipedia entry.

Turns out he was a) the drummer in PWEI and b) the technical editor of "Practical Classics", both jobs he is no longer doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_Townshend
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 28 March, 2014, 01:06:43 pm
That Turkmenistan had hydroelectric power in 1910.
http://deser.pl/deser/51,111858,15534671.html?i=8

Phwor, look at the commutators on that!

It could only be you....   ::-) ::-)

p.s. that is a compliment, really!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hulver on 28 March, 2014, 02:25:23 pm
After a discussion last night revolving around live music, and reading the OPG for "Car SOS", in which one of the presenters is described as "Musician and classic car expert", I looked up his Wikipedia entry.

Turns out he was a) the drummer in PWEI and b) the technical editor of "Practical Classics", both jobs he is no longer doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_Townshend

(click to show/hide)

;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 02 April, 2014, 10:28:22 am
The SR-71 Blackbird was actually given the designation of RS-71, but a senator got it wrong when announcing the existence of said plane.  Rather than embarrass the politician, they spent $'000's changing all the paperwork from RS-71 to SR-71.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 02 April, 2014, 04:50:59 pm
Slightly OT since I didn't just learn it, but following on . . .

The F-35 Lightning II , AKA JSF, should have been the F-24 (the next unused designation in the series of US fighters), but the US undersecretary for defence confused the designation of its experimental precursor the X-35 (on a different series of numbers) with the production aircraft designations at a press conference in 2001.

This annoyed the manufacturers & the USAF, USN & USMC, which had all been assuming it would be called F-24 & had been using that term in internal documents. The office that assigns designations recommended that F-24 should be used. But to no avail: F-35 stuck, & was officially adopted.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 May, 2014, 08:05:59 pm
That in 1888, the county of Middlesex passed a byelaw that a cyclist approaching a horse-drawn vehicle should either dismount or "politely inquire of the driver if they might pass." London cyclists, beware!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 18 May, 2014, 08:08:38 pm
That an area of Huddersfield is called 'Tandem'
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 18 May, 2014, 08:25:13 pm
That in 1888, the county of Middlesex passed a byelaw that a cyclist approaching a horse-drawn vehicle should either dismount or "politely inquire of the driver if they might pass." London cyclists, beware!

Coincidentally, 1888 was when the 26th Middlesex (Cyclist) Corps was founded. I wonder they observed the byelaw?


(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2902/14028822959_a09b97f751.jpg) (https://www.flickr.com/photos/89773100@N02/14028822959/)
Morning Post 18th Feb 1888
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 19 May, 2014, 07:36:21 pm
That Turkmenistan had hydroelectric power in 1910.
http://deser.pl/deser/51,111858,15534671.html?i=8

Phwor, look at the commutators on that!

I suspect they are slip rings not commutators [/belated pedantry]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 19 May, 2014, 08:45:30 pm
Most people when applying for a job don't do basic "respond to the fucking job spec"... 50 down 20 to go in shortlisting...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 May, 2014, 12:58:59 pm
That the word "bugger" derives from "Bulgar". Apparently when the Manichaean sect of heretical Christians were exiled from the Euphrates by Emperor Alexis Comnene in the ninth century, they settled in Philippopolis, present day Plovdiv in Bulgaria. From here they spread west in the middle ages, establishing the Cathar stronghold in southern France, whose adherents were known to the French as 'Bougres'. One of their heretical tenets was an abhorrence of matter and a search for salvation through the eventual extinction of the human race. The English, in an English way, assumed that their rejection of procreation must lead them into sexual as well as religious heterodoxy.

Somebody had better tell the Wombles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 May, 2014, 01:09:48 pm
Somebody had better tell the Wombles.

 :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 22 May, 2014, 01:56:26 pm
...Apparently when the Manichaean sect of heretical Christians ....
Manichaeanism isn't specifically, or originally, Christian.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 May, 2014, 02:27:57 pm
No, but the "Bulgarian" variety was.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruth on 25 May, 2014, 03:58:23 pm
That rosebay willowherb is in the same family as the fuschia.

I would never have guessed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 30 May, 2014, 09:59:17 pm
If you're at a seminar thing held in a church with a sort of music booth with a drum kit in it, you're NOT ALLOWED to hide in the music booth and punctuate the Director's attempts at jokes during his presentation with a ba-ding-tish.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 31 May, 2014, 11:05:46 am
Oh.  Now that is a disappointment.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 31 May, 2014, 12:47:01 pm
That 'Wendy' of Peter Pan fame is buried not far from home, together with her father, upon whom Long John Silver is apparently based. May take a ride out there tomorrow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 31 May, 2014, 12:49:22 pm
Oh.  Now that is a disappointment.
For him as much as me, I thought.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 31 May, 2014, 03:44:54 pm
American Dad is based on the characters from Till Death Do Us Part - sort of (there were no aliens in Alf Garnets loft).

American Dad is based on All in the Family which is a very successful US remake of Till Death Do Us Part.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 31 May, 2014, 06:08:38 pm
Today I learned how to identify different species of bat from their droppings. Quite clever really. And got most of the test right afterwards.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 May, 2014, 07:38:15 pm
One of my mum's friend's daughters is called Gay and I don't think it has an e on the end. She would have been born in about 1967 so will be in her late 40s now.

I used to work with a Gay Anderson, of a similar vintage to myself.  Her motor-car carries the plate V3GAY.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 31 May, 2014, 09:07:46 pm
Well if you can't hide it, might as well flaunt it - or something ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 June, 2014, 09:21:43 am
This is in part a rant at myself, prompted by Mr Larrington's rant in the Rant Thread. But it's also a something I have learned. Lazy, ignorant, assuming git! If you've never come across a word before, look it up and find out rather than inventing something! Turns out "anbaric" is nothing to do with pressure at all.  :facepalm: In fact, it's rather more interesting. Indeed, it seems to have given birth to Natalia Kukulska! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalia_Kukulska)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 June, 2014, 10:09:46 am
That Struwwelpeter (if you haven't read it, the illustrations are the best thing) was written by Hoffmann! But not that Hoffmann...
(http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02951/peter_2951929b.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 24 June, 2014, 07:49:19 pm
Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi Foreign Minister, shagged Wallace Simpson.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 24 June, 2014, 08:12:10 pm
Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi Foreign Minister, shagged Wallace Simpson.

Sauce Source? Forget I asked that, seems well documented via the webby.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 26 June, 2014, 05:39:03 pm
Dolly Parton is Miley Cyrus's godmother
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 01 July, 2014, 12:52:13 pm
That 1/7 is Canadia day
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 04 July, 2014, 11:03:41 am
That surfing was introduced to the USA and the UK* by the same men; David Kawananakoa and Jonah Kuhio Kalaiana'ole.

* In Bridlington.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jogler on 04 July, 2014, 01:35:54 pm
Today I have learned that The Strawberry Farm Garden Centre in Bramshall regard the many & frequent cyclists whose custom they are favoured with as being amongst their best customers. 8)

'tis a pity then that this establishment has no bike parking facilties nor Sheffield stands or similar. :(

I have also learned that the kitchen goddess who used to bake all their home made pies & cakes etc has been re-engaged despite retiring a while ago.  :thumbsup:

Perhaps this should be in the GoodNewsBadNewsGoodNews thread?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 July, 2014, 01:40:22 pm
Never mind the bike parking, they need to do something about the hills between there and Tamworth ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jogler on 04 July, 2014, 01:45:02 pm
Those hills are there specificaly for audaxing purposes. :demon:

There are alternative almost-flat routes available. as my blind stoker will confirm :smug:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 July, 2014, 02:05:53 pm
Hmm, so a Larrington Manoeuvre is an option...   :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruth on 06 July, 2014, 11:28:31 am
Today I learned that the health messages at work are getting through.

I went for a walk in the Denes - little green areas around the beck in Darlington, each with their own name and character.  I'd not fancied it before, there have been a couple of health alerts at work - the usual open space nocturnal activities have led to an epidemic of syphilis and genital warts.  It didn't make me want to explore!

Today there were lots of condom wrappers.  Hooray!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 July, 2014, 10:25:31 pm
That MATE (and presumably contemporary versions of Gnome) have an options button in the keyboard settings that lets you reconfigure <Caps Lock> as something more useful / harmless, without having to know what a keycode is.   :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 06 July, 2014, 10:55:05 pm
That I worked with the Chuckle Brothers' brothers, the Patton Brothers.  I'd previously thought they were their uncles, but no - Jimmy & Brian Patton, sons of entertainer Gene Patton, are two of the three older brothers (the other is Colin) of Paul and Barry Elliot, sons of Jimmy Elliot, who was Gene Patton.  Obvs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Speshact on 06 July, 2014, 11:02:13 pm
There are 283 kms of bus lanes in London
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 06 July, 2014, 11:28:29 pm
How many are Bus only?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 09 July, 2014, 10:50:35 am
That one of my cow-orkers was involved in the construction of this last week (the bike, not the barn):

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ZLRbOfq_Dq0/U7hdg6W_NQI/AAAAAAAAF7Q/JoyWSknRNzw/s800/P2500253.jpg) (https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/llNl-YhN00N5pWfN9yecy9MTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink)

Took an unspecified length of 4.5m white PVC sheeting, six thousand tent pegs (a bargain job lot from ebay), and a spotter on the opposite hillside to guide the placement after the initial stakeout (as it were).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 July, 2014, 12:50:46 pm
Took an unspecified length of 4.5m white PVC sheeting, six thousand tent pegs (a bargain job lot from ebay), and a spotter on the opposite hillside to guide the placement after the initial stakeout (as it were).

Not Anneka Rice, several tonnes of chalk and a vast supply of cub scouts?  Some people have no sense of tradition...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Exit Stage Left on 09 July, 2014, 01:37:19 pm
That one of my cow-orkers was involved in the construction of this last week (the bike, not the barn):

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ZLRbOfq_Dq0/U7hdg6W_NQI/AAAAAAAAF7Q/JoyWSknRNzw/s800/P2500253.jpg) (https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/llNl-YhN00N5pWfN9yecy9MTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink)

Took an unspecified length of 4.5m white PVC sheeting, six thousand tent pegs (a bargain job lot from ebay), and a spotter on the opposite hillside to guide the placement after the initial stakeout (as it were).

That's a classic 'Miner/Farmer Landscape' shot, with adits visible at the bottom of the limestone scarp. The construction of the barn from a mixture of limestone and gritstone suggests the use of mining spoil. I've learned today that the coming of the railway to Hawes in 1878 stimulated a boom in mining, quarrying and dairying.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 09 July, 2014, 02:19:25 pm
Nice to hear it is so easily removed.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 09 July, 2014, 09:33:08 pm
How to do a wheelie. And an endo. I can only do tiny ones, though...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 09 July, 2014, 10:03:07 pm
How to do a wheelie. And an endo. I can only do tiny ones, though...

I look forward to seeing you demonstrating them down Glenshee  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 11 July, 2014, 01:30:13 pm
That a shared use pavement is not actually a pavement.

Marvellous, this place.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 11 July, 2014, 01:39:31 pm
That I worked with the Chuckle Brothers' brothers, the Patton Brothers.  I'd previously thought they were their uncles, but no - Jimmy & Brian Patton, sons of entertainer Gene Patton, are two of the three older brothers (the other is Colin) of Paul and Barry Elliot, sons of Jimmy Elliot, who was Gene Patton.  Obvs.

Surely this is a Claim to Fame? But convoluted, rather than tenuous.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 11 July, 2014, 02:10:32 pm
I knew before that I have over twice the average number of testicles of humankind, and slightly more than the the average number of legs, but I've just learned that I have 0.4 feet more than the average London pigeon.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruth on 11 July, 2014, 04:04:59 pm
How many legs and testicles have you actually got?   ???
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: matthew on 11 July, 2014, 05:00:44 pm
assume 50:50 split male: female

then the average would be one, however with testicular cancer not all men have 2 so the average will be just under 1.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 11 July, 2014, 10:04:27 pm
I'm relying on women, Hitler and Lance Armstrong. Can someone in London do a quick check on the ave 1.6 feet per pigeon for me - I'm not sure I trust those QI people.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 11 July, 2014, 10:49:18 pm
assume 50:50 split male: female

then the average would be one, however with testicular cancer not all men have 2 so the average will be just under 1.
Yebbut there are slightly more males than females worldwide.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 15 July, 2014, 03:32:48 pm
I knew before that I have over twice the average number of testicles of humankind, and slightly more than the the average number of legs, but I've just learned that I have 0.4 feet more than the average London pigeon.

4.8" more of what?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 20 July, 2014, 02:46:36 pm
If someone says their daughter's name is Petra, don't say "oh, like the Blue Peter dog?"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 20 July, 2014, 03:52:11 pm
I also learned once that comparing said daughter to a 'rose-red city, half as old as time' is unpopular.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 July, 2014, 04:30:25 pm
That my wife has had a crowned front tooth since 1966. Or rather had one until this morning, when it fell out on her daily run.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 July, 2014, 10:11:12 am
If someone says their daughter's name is Petra, don't say "oh, like the Blue Peter dog?"
You're on rocky ground with that.
I also learned once that comparing said daughter to a 'rose-red city, half as old as time' is unpopular.
Did you get a stony stare?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 July, 2014, 10:12:46 am
Actually, I think the rose-red city response is rather a nice one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 27 July, 2014, 08:22:03 pm
The sardonic voiceovers on Jack FM are by Paul Darrow, who played Avon in Blake's 7.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 30 July, 2014, 08:58:58 pm
That more than half of the moon rocks brought back to earth have been nicked.

From the Wikipedia page "Stolen and missing Moon rocks"

Quote
Of the 270 Apollo 11 Moon Rocks and Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rocks that were given to the nations of the world by the Nixon Administration approximately 180 are currently unaccounted for.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Morrisette on 31 July, 2014, 12:42:19 pm
Oh, go on then - that a Mileage Run is a thing. A pointless round trip on a plane to maintain your status card.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 July, 2014, 07:33:36 pm
That Nigeria has introduced a biometric ID system for banking. Initially ATMs and PoS, but “The vision is that this will go beyond the banks." Exactly what data it uses and whether it leaves non-Nigerians unable to use ATMs etc in the country is not mentioned.
http://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/149188-nigeria-central-bank-mandate-biometric-data-identification-bank-customers.html#sthash.xHsCnK3I.dpbs
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 August, 2014, 01:25:47 am
That Romanian trains are "even worse than Virgin".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 August, 2014, 11:56:37 am
That Davina McCall's mother's maiden name is Florence Kock.  Fnarr and, moreover, fnarr.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 August, 2014, 02:04:10 pm
I've learnt something relevant to cycling.  :o Potentially at least. And all thanks to NeilV, occasionally otp. The Ape Index. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape_index) Measurments, quite possibly inaccurate, show I am rather strongly negative ape, at 0.85 or -25cm. It is left to the reader to determine whether this means I have evolved beyond the ape, possibly as a result of interference on Earth by the Fast Radio Burst Beings, or whether I am simply a T-Rex with blunt teeth.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 August, 2014, 02:17:08 pm
1.076.  This is why I can do a hand-assisted trackstand on a Kingcycle.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 August, 2014, 06:15:05 pm
Got it wrong. That was just my arms, I'd forgotten the small matter of shoulders. At least, I think you're meant to included shoulders! Which brings the correct figure up to 0.91. Still negative, but more of an allosaurus than the old T. rex.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 10 August, 2014, 04:25:43 pm
1.023
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 12 August, 2014, 10:58:08 pm
Doing a Google image search for Pompino is not a good idea. I'd forgotten the Italian meaning. :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 12 August, 2014, 11:50:23 pm
Doing a Google image search for Pompino is not a good idea. I'd forgotten the Italian meaning. :facepalm:

That is why i had one :-*
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 15 August, 2014, 11:43:50 am
While re-reading "Moving Pictures" I learned (or, rather, re-learned cos I must have learned it before but gorfotten it) that the Trollish equivalent of having "other fish to fry" translates as having "other maddened Grizzly Bears to stun"

I like dat so much I've started using it in conversation
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 August, 2014, 07:18:02 pm
The BEAR is now well and truly Maddened...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 17 August, 2014, 07:50:51 pm
That Mae West was born 121 years ago.  Blimey.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 August, 2014, 08:20:15 pm
That the plastic from which the 2007 PBP bidons are made smells pretty 'orrible before cleaning with dilute bleach and stink-the-kitchen-out rank when rinsed with boiling water :sick:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 17 August, 2014, 10:36:11 pm
That " Of course I don't want ice.  Are you fucking mad?" is not seen as an acceptable response to a query re my request for a large lafroaig.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 August, 2014, 10:40:02 pm
That " Of course I don't want ice.  Are you fucking mad?" is not seen as an acceptable response to a query re my request for a large lafroaig.

Related:  "That depends on whether you keep your lemonade in a lukewarm bottle under the bar." tends to result in mildly offended confusion when given in answer to the same question.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 21 August, 2014, 07:12:17 pm
My rucksack,  two laptops, 2 power bricks, sandwiches and the other niff, naff and trivia required for a day in the office weigh one eighth of what I do; or, if you prefer, about the same as a v. light top end road bike. 

That is my current excuse for my lack of speed.  It has absolutely _nothing_ to do with advancing years and a hefty reduction in mileage of late.  Oh dear me no.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 24 August, 2014, 09:35:49 pm
In 1923 my grandmother forged her father's signature on the application forms for grammar school (to which he didn't want her to go). When she won a bursary he was not really able to keep his social status and deny her the place so she went.

When she wanted to do science for her matriculation she was told that was only available for boys. She didn't take no for an answer and persuaded them to let her do it. She then worked in a dairy where she helped develop the TT test for milk quality.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 24 August, 2014, 10:00:04 pm
That my mirror makes me look Fat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 26 August, 2014, 03:01:06 pm
Windows 2008 search can be used a bit like google, in that you can type contents:<search term> and it will look through text files in the folder you are in.

Pretty neat, but not as much use as grep/awk/sed and regex.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 30 August, 2014, 07:25:08 pm
In Oxford there is a bell which has been ringing continuously since 1840. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Electric_Bell)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 August, 2014, 12:57:18 am
How to run my iPod from the Mudstang's steering wheel controls :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 31 August, 2014, 04:58:47 pm
These trousers are useless as a defence against nettles.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 31 August, 2014, 09:03:03 pm
How to run my iPod from the Mudstang's steering wheel controls :thumbsup:

More impressive would be the other way around.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 01 September, 2014, 07:33:53 pm
My employer takes you to the doctor when you get grey shiny and make whimpering noises at work.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 01 September, 2014, 07:45:31 pm
My employer takes you to the doctor when you get grey shiny and make whimpering noises at work.
Oh dear, hope you're OK?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 01 September, 2014, 08:39:04 pm
Erk, Hope you're OK now and they worked out what it was which made you go nasty colours.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 02 September, 2014, 02:19:50 pm
GWS whatever it is, boab.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 02 September, 2014, 02:59:32 pm
Hope all is ok and GWS.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: red marley on 03 September, 2014, 05:50:43 pm
The little yellow circles on £5, £10 and £20 notes (and possibly a £50, but I don't have access to any) have some little yellow circles on them grouped into cross shapes.

The mere presence of these circles prevents colour photocopiers from reproducing the image that contains them.

Trufax.

Really. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 September, 2014, 01:46:43 am
I have learned of the existence of the Springville Flume.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 September, 2014, 06:31:44 am
I have learned that if you "accidentally" spill shower gel into a jacuzzi the resultant foam can be sculpted into an accurate scale model of Canyonlands National Park :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 07 September, 2014, 11:14:47 am
You are Richard Dreyfuss AICMFP.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nikki on 07 September, 2014, 04:36:10 pm
Why I've been finding so many dead wasps in my bedroom over the last few months.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 07 September, 2014, 05:23:30 pm
Why I've been finding so many dead wasps in my bedroom over the last few months.

Is this yours?
http://metro.co.uk/2014/08/27/enormous-wasp-nest-takes-over-bedroom-after-homeowner-forgets-to-shut-the-window-4847499/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nikki on 07 September, 2014, 11:56:49 pm
Eek!  I really hope not!

 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 07 September, 2014, 11:58:42 pm
Just make sure you always check your pants...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 September, 2014, 07:15:23 am
That the fictional Oxfod college St. Scholastica's is named not as part of some elaborate literary-academic punnage by Val McDermid but rather after a real saint.  FSVO "real", obv.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 18 September, 2014, 11:07:55 am
That Christ's Hospital, despite having one of the most awful school uniforms ever conceived, does specify Doc Martens as part of it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 September, 2014, 12:56:17 pm
That if you take a strong magnet to a stainless steel sink, it does exactly what it should and is only attracted to the bends.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 September, 2014, 03:17:18 pm
That the "scorching plains of New Mexico™" are anything but this morning >:(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 October, 2014, 03:52:22 pm
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was obsessed with wombats :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wascally Weasel on 01 October, 2014, 04:57:46 pm
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was obsessed with wombats :o

Isn't everyone?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 October, 2014, 05:23:40 pm
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was obsessed with wombats :o

Isn't everyone?

Yes.  Yes.  Yes, they are (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DATATRIEVE).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Juan Martín on 10 October, 2014, 01:09:48 pm
Prince Peter Kropotkin; notable anarchist type, spent nearly 20 years living in Bromley. And I thought that Camille Pissarro painting in Sydenham was weird.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 October, 2014, 01:16:46 pm
Prince Peter Kropotkin; notable anarchist type, spent nearly 20 years living in Bromley. And I thought that Camille Pissarro painting in Sydenham was weird.

No stranger than Ho Chi Minh having worked on the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Juan Martín on 10 October, 2014, 01:57:11 pm
I like the ferry bit and Newhaven. But for me, finding a bloke from French Indo China in France is less strange. However, if you can find a credilble wombat connection I could probably be swayed. (Nips off to google Ho Chi Minh and wombats)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 October, 2014, 07:29:02 pm
I have learned that there are some total gitwank parents out there.  How else can one explain the presence of drivers in the Ginetta Juniors championship with first names like Lando, Senna and Flashman?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 10 October, 2014, 10:58:55 pm
Is that learning to unicycle is a bastard on the shins :o

I am trying to perfect the mount. The method I am attemting involves standing behind my steed, saddle in close proximity to crutch, unicycle at a 45o angle anead, pedals parallel to the ground, put foot on rear pedal and push down- the unicycle moves backwards under you. I am not always sucessful in getting my other leg out of the way as the unicycle moves back, resulting in a sudden pedal/ shin interface.

No pain no gain apparently :'(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 10 October, 2014, 11:22:42 pm
From another thread I learnt the word foulard.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Dibdib on 10 October, 2014, 11:35:07 pm
Is that learning to unicycle is a bastard on the shins :o

I am trying to perfect the mount. The method I am attemting involves standing behind my steed, saddle in close proximity to crutch, unicycle at a 45o angle anead, pedals parallel to the ground, put foot on rear pedal and push down- the unicycle moves backwards under you. I am not always sucessful in getting my other leg out of the way as the unicycle moves back, resulting in a sudden pedal/ shin interface.

No pain no gain apparently :'(

The way I learnt was to stand with arse on saddle and non-dominant foot on the pedal, full extension, with the unicycle at an angle in front of you. Then launch forward from your dominant leg, foot on the pedal, and start pedalling to keep the unicycle under you.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 10 October, 2014, 11:50:21 pm
Is that learning to unicycle is a bastard on the shins :o

I am trying to perfect the mount. The method I am attemting involves standing behind my steed, saddle in close proximity to crutch, unicycle at a 45o angle anead, pedals parallel to the ground, put foot on rear pedal and push down- the unicycle moves backwards under you. I am not always sucessful in getting my other leg out of the way as the unicycle moves back, resulting in a sudden pedal/ shin interface.

No pain no gain apparently :'(

The way I learnt was to stand with arse on saddle and non-dominant foot on the pedal, full extension, with the unicycle at an angle in front of you. Then launch forward from your dominant leg, foot on the pedal, and start pedalling to keep the unicycle under you.

I'll give that a go next week :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 11 October, 2014, 02:34:29 am
In the meantime, football shin pads sound like a good idea :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 11 October, 2014, 06:24:05 am
You're doing better than me with the unicycle. I learned to ride one by starting with both feet on the pedals and holding onto a wall or suchlike, as a first step. I've never learnt how to start from flat ground...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 11 October, 2014, 02:54:31 pm
Saw a street theatre artist once who only had the one 'trick'.
Get out of a straight jacket while on a giraffe unicycle.
He did need help getting onto the unicycle, though!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 11 October, 2014, 06:58:19 pm
That microwaving shaving soap is a very bad idea........ :facepalm:

My plastic tub of Proraso was now holding a piece of soap shaped like a polo mint, all around the edges & none in the middle.   I decided to heat it up in the hope that it would melt & then cool into a nice flat puck.

A couple of minutes in the microwave on medium, covered by a paper towel.    The haze in the kitchen alerted me first... luckily the towel took most of the splatter!

I've now got a microwave that smells of menthol & eucalyptus  ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 11 October, 2014, 07:00:06 pm
That will be a funny flavouring to your Saturday night TV dinner :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 11 October, 2014, 08:26:25 pm
I didn't get where I am today by putting shaving soap in the microwave...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 12 October, 2014, 12:32:53 pm
That Handsel Day is the first Monday of the year.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 16 October, 2014, 12:50:42 pm
That Great Confucius, he say "Wise man never use hand with cuts and scrapes to stir rock salt in spreader"

'kin ouch :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 24 October, 2014, 02:55:49 pm
That I and my crewmate built what may be the longest bench in the UK- 100 feet of plastic bench made from 120,000 recycled bottles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 October, 2014, 09:41:10 pm
That bioscope is the South African word for cinema.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 24 October, 2014, 10:00:40 pm
How to deep fry both cheese and chocolate. :D (Not at the same time, though that could be interesting too.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 October, 2014, 10:28:32 pm
How to deep fry both cheese and chocolate. :D (Not at the same time, though that could be interesting too.)

Sounds like you're going native...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 24 October, 2014, 10:34:58 pm
I've still not developed a taste for Irn-Bru. ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 24 October, 2014, 10:43:39 pm
Next...... the deep fried marshmallow....... :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 October, 2014, 09:17:59 am
That bioscope is the South African word for cinema.

BRITAIN used to have bioscopes too.  Spike Milligan mentions one in one of his volumes of war memoirs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 25 October, 2014, 02:32:04 pm
That our new neighbours constant rowing, shouting, screaming, threats of physical violence is only interrupted by sleep and meals. Am seriously contemplating arson . . .

 . . . or moving.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 25 October, 2014, 03:09:21 pm
Or you could eat or sleep more - maybe I've got the wrong house?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 25 October, 2014, 03:12:43 pm
Or you could eat or sleep more - maybe I've got the wrong house?

Careful, you. I've got your bike and haven't done the bill - YET!  ;D

BTW Today I haz learned that old skool Deore cantis are an absolute bastard to set up . . .  >:(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 28 October, 2014, 12:12:00 am
Ha!

Is that the set I left with you?  I'm open to suggestions.....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 October, 2014, 02:21:53 am
That if you subject the word "ebola" to the ROT13 treatment you get "robyn".

And vice-versa, obv.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 28 October, 2014, 10:30:17 am
I have a new work laptop.

It is a IBMLenovo Thinkpad T440p.

There is no buttons next to the trackpad.

The trackpad is actually the left/right mouse buttons, i.e. the whole pad moves up and down!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hulver on 28 October, 2014, 10:46:34 am
I have a new work laptop.

It is a IBMLenovo Thinkpad T440p.

There is no buttons next to the trackpad.

The trackpad is actually the left/right mouse buttons, i.e. the whole pad moves up and down!

Urgh, I have one like that (an Asus, only the bottom part of the trackpad moves). It's like they thought "How can we make this harder to use". Horrible.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 October, 2014, 11:21:47 am
+1.  I keep hitting the wrong bit and now use a trackball all the time, not just when on holibobs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 29 October, 2014, 10:41:29 pm
I have a new work laptop.

It is a IBMLenovo Thinkpad T440p.

There is no buttons next to the trackpad.

The trackpad is actually the left/right mouse buttons, i.e. the whole pad moves up and down!

Our Thinkpad does that, but it also has buttons above the trackpad. I find myself switching between them without any apparent consitency.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 30 October, 2014, 08:49:11 am
I have a new work laptop.

It is a IBMLenovo Thinkpad T440p.

There is no buttons next to the trackpad.

The trackpad is actually the left/right mouse buttons, i.e. the whole pad moves up and down!

Our Thinkpad does that, but it also has buttons above the trackpad. I find myself switching between them without any apparent consitency.

TBH, it being a new job, having to take a load of stuff in and try and work out just what on earth I am supposed to be doing, I didn't actually notice!  Strangely, the little red nipple still lives on, not that I think anyone uses it as the natural place for the base of your thumb to rest, whilst using it, is on the trackpad!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 30 October, 2014, 09:34:00 am
I have a new work laptop.

It is a IBMLenovo Thinkpad T440p.

There is no buttons next to the trackpad.

The trackpad is actually the left/right mouse buttons, i.e. the whole pad moves up and down!

Our Thinkpad does that, but it also has buttons above the trackpad. I find myself switching between them without any apparent consitency.

Other than Apple trackpads, they're universally suckier than a grumpy black hole. My Dell has a trackpad so ludicrously over-sensitive that it can detect a ghost farting next door sending the cursor scurrying to the edge of a screen. The only way to type with it active is with ballerina hands, your wrists painfully angled so your palms come nowhere near the damn thing. Ah, turn it down in the settings, you say. You can. Despite an entire slider, it has two modes. Hypersensitive and insensitive. In the latter mode, it just shrugs nonchalantly every time you try to use it. What's that, you want me to move the cursor... As a back-up it has a nipple-thing. I thought that kind of shit was embedded in temporal concrete and disposed of back in the 1980s. Trust me, if you used the kind of force that kind of nipple requires on a real nipple, you'd have some explaining to do.

Both options conspire to make you turn them off and get a mouse (in my case they've provided a home for the old Mighty Mouse, a nice mouse, but another venture into bad nippledom). Computer designers, just stop with the nipples, OK?

The Macbook trackpad on the other hand is a thing of swipy beauty. Mine does one tap for left click, two for left.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 October, 2014, 11:49:48 am
The only time my former The Boss a.k.a. the Hairless Scotsman ever made me laugh was when he said that his baby daughter enjoyed snacking on nipples, including the one on his laptop.

Sometimes the fondleslab behaves similarly, in that you can whack a link half a dozen times before it deigns to respond while at other times even heaving a great sigh at for e.g. some particular piece of Super-Twattery can bring up the "Report to Moderator" wossname.  And Wikinaccurate always wants links to be tapped twice, except when it doesn't.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 30 October, 2014, 06:23:09 pm
There is such a thing as a Gin Pennant!  :D

(http://www.flagz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Gin-Pennant-Flag.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 02 November, 2014, 07:17:27 pm
The first recorded demonstration of wireless telegraphy was in Dundee in the 1830's.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LEE on 02 November, 2014, 07:21:16 pm
That our new neighbours constant rowing, shouting, screaming, threats of physical violence is only interrupted by sleep and meals. Am seriously contemplating arson . . .

 . . . or moving.

That Torslanda lives next door to Sir Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 02 November, 2014, 10:51:37 pm
That glasses cleaning wipes from Lidl melt microsoft mouse wheels.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 02 November, 2014, 11:19:25 pm
There is such a thing as a Gin Pennant!  :D

(http://www.flagz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Gin-Pennant-Flag.jpg)

Well, duh  ::-)  ;D

And that pennant is way to fancy  :P

(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3713/12701332264_2ab4370712_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/kmnDzj)
gin_pennant (https://flic.kr/p/kmnDzj) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/people/36539950@N00/), on Flickr
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 03 November, 2014, 05:45:45 am
The Tutti Pole is a real place
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 November, 2014, 09:29:47 am
The Tutti Pole is a real place

Was this every in doubt ???  Unlike Rosie's...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 03 November, 2014, 11:15:31 am
There is such a thing as a Gin Pennant!  :D

(http://www.flagz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Gin-Pennant-Flag.jpg)

Well, duh  ::-)  ;D

And that pennant is way to fancy  :P

(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3713/12701332264_2ab4370712_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/kmnDzj)
gin_pennant (https://flic.kr/p/kmnDzj) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/people/36539950@N00/), on Flickr

They're not uncommon - I have one of these.
(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3869/14531404389_26808c9918_h.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 03 November, 2014, 02:07:04 pm
That our new neighbours constant rowing, shouting, screaming, threats of physical violence is only interrupted by sleep and meals. Am seriously contemplating arson . . .

 . . . or moving.

That Torslanda lives next door to Sir Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent.

If only . . . Stella Street is a haven of peace and harmony by comparison!

And now it's not just threats. I think they're knocking lumps out of each other.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 03 November, 2014, 04:26:25 pm
There is such a thing as a Gin Pennant!  :D

(http://www.flagz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Gin-Pennant-Flag.jpg)

Well, duh  ::-)  ;D

And that pennant is way to fancy  :P

(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3713/12701332264_2ab4370712_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/kmnDzj)
gin_pennant (https://flic.kr/p/kmnDzj) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/people/36539950@N00/), on Flickr

They're not uncommon - I have one of these.
(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3869/14531404389_26808c9918_h.jpg)

I may need to fly one of those next time I do the DunRun.   ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 November, 2014, 10:38:49 pm
I have learned that "numbawan pikinini blong Missis Kwin" is Tok Pisin for "Prince Charles".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 10 November, 2014, 09:27:27 pm
Today I learned that antibiotic resistance is not new, and that the death of a formerly homeless orphan as a soldier in WWI is giving new insights into treatments today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-fbd9JpiMs&feature=share is the video - very strange to have my world and that of those I never knew but whom I remember at this time brought into such close juxtaposition.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 11 November, 2014, 02:07:01 pm
I have learned that "numbawan pikinini blong Missis Kwin" is Tok Pisin for "Prince Charles".

I always thought that was Phil the Greek . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 November, 2014, 02:56:00 pm
I have learned that "numbawan pikinini blong Missis Kwin" is Tok Pisin for "Prince Charles".

I always thought that was Phil the Greek . . .

Him "longpela blong Missis Kwin"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 11 November, 2014, 08:13:56 pm
12) Romanian officers below a certain rank were forbidden to wear eye shadow

This proscription was among the first orders they received at the outset of the war, so one would assume the practice was common.  Senior officers clearly continued to enjoy the privilege – sky blue or lilac lids worn with a monocle, perhaps. 
Historian Norman Stone describes the Romanian army as being particularly reluctant to adopt more practical uniforms suited to trench warfare, preferring to remain “smartly turned out, powdered and painted”.

From: http://www.historyextra.com/feature/first-world-war/15-things-you-didn%E2%80%99t-know-about-fashion-first-world-war?utm_source=Facebook%20referral&utm_medium=Facebook.com&utm_campaign=Bitly
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 14 November, 2014, 03:37:18 pm
A new word or acronym. FUFO. Which means to throw a spanner in the works such that folk only discover after you have left the building, typically last thing on a Friday and relating to things that will happen on Monday.
Earlier today I thought I'd been FUFO'd but fortunately the student who brought me the news was mistaken.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 14 November, 2014, 03:43:06 pm
Yep, FUFOmails are pretty common.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Chris S on 14 November, 2014, 03:47:35 pm
Today, I learned what a Butt Wink is, and why you shouldn't do it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 15 November, 2014, 10:37:56 am
I have learned that "numbawan pikinini blong Missis Kwin" is Tok Pisin for "Prince Charles".

I always thought that was Phil the Greek . . .

Him "longpela blong Missis Kwin"

Something else I have learned, thank you.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 18 November, 2014, 06:50:59 pm
Seals shagging penguins (http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141117-why-seals-have-sex-with-penguins) (with video).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 November, 2014, 09:19:58 am
That some cancer cells can be killed by injecting them with 'muted' herpes virus, and that this works not by the direct action of the virus on the cells but by triggering an immune response, meaning it is effective even against those tumours not injected. Or so they claim.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 November, 2014, 07:08:25 pm
What caberboard is.

I'd never heard of it until ten minutes ago.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 22 November, 2014, 11:43:29 pm
OK, who else just googled it?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 November, 2014, 11:52:57 pm
OK, who else just googled it?

I was going to, but I decided it probably wasn't going to be a sheet material produced through some improbable ballistic process involving burly men in kilts, and that life would generally be more satisfying if I were to maintain that illusion.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 26 November, 2014, 05:55:55 pm
That Tromsø is pronounced Troms-er, and not Troms-oh.  As in, "Donald, where's yer Tromsøs?"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 26 November, 2014, 08:04:12 pm
OK, who else just googled it?


I did. I knew what it is; I didn't know what it's called.


Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 November, 2014, 08:18:40 pm
That no matter how much Anbaric String there is in that Cotswold Outdoor carrier bag over there --->, you still haven't got the right bit.

Bah!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 27 November, 2014, 08:14:43 am
Related to Mr L's.  That no matter how cleverly you arrange your multiple channelled super anbaric noise making machinery on its clever new wall brackets, the most sticky outy connector will always be sticky outy right where the bloody bracket sticks out.  Home cinema amp being rearranged in newly decorated living room, and the bloody optical connection where the Sonos thingy connects is right by the bracket.  Grrr...  I now regret buying a fairly fancy optical connector that loooks more like the flex for an electric iron, all braided and red/black striped, and about 10mm diameter.  ho hum, at least I can make lots of lovely sounds again...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 27 November, 2014, 08:30:44 am
When Francis Drake went on his round the world cruise he took a copy of "Foxe's Book of Martyrs" with him, and during the dull parts of the cruise he whiled away the time by colouring in the pictures.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 November, 2014, 11:06:24 am
S/PDIF cables, a.k.a. The One Which Always Falls Out.  Though loudsqueaker cables are also prone to this; I had cause to investigate the lack of sound on one in the Grand Bedchamber yesterday and found a squeaker conductor to have come out of the squeaker in spite of said squeaker not having moved for a decade ???

Plus HD TV is still not working properly chiz.  And the AV receiver isn't receiving everything it should be either but that's probably for CTRL-ALT-DEL (or avforums).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 27 November, 2014, 11:10:22 am
Polterzeitgheist obv.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 27 November, 2014, 08:45:35 pm
The beginning of S Express is actually a Rose Royce sample. Can't believe I'd never realised. Thank you, TOTP1979.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 28 November, 2014, 01:42:32 pm
The Israeli firm Babylon Ltd, formerly a specialist in translations & translation software, has lost 95% of its value in the last year, & is pretty much going down the tubes.  :thumbsup:

I'm pleased by this because Babylon transmuted from a legitimate firm with decent software (particularly good for Arabic, apparently) into a malware pusher, making its money from advertising, which it pushed via a toolbar which hijacks browsers & tries to hide itself so that you can't uninstall it, & which it got onto computers by paying download sites to inconspicuously bundle it with legitimate software.

Eventually, Microsoft started limiting it on IE, & Google blocked it, & set Chrome to block it. Hence the crash of the company. Hooray!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 28 November, 2014, 08:04:56 pm
Just how overstated the feeding guidelines are on cat food. Felix is 70-75kcal per 100g pouch, Kitekat is about 80kcal per 100g, and Whiskas is 80-85kcal per 100g. Given that my fatty 7kg cat needs 200-220kcal per day to get him down safely to 6kg, the 3-4 pouches per day for a 4kg cat are excessive.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 28 November, 2014, 08:29:35 pm
That this  (https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-DDeRzSSuTeg/VHjZIcOwegI/AAAAAAAAHLU/016-zohg5iI/s56/symbol_small.jpg)  is the weather symbol for, "Well, it would be sunny if the sun actually rose above the horizon, but it doesn't at this time of year so it won't be".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 28 November, 2014, 08:48:44 pm
Just how overstated the feeding guidelines are on cat food. Felix is 70-75kcal per 100g pouch, Kitekat is about 80kcal per 100g, and Whiskas is 80-85kcal per 100g. Given that my fatty 7kg cat needs 200-220kcal per day to get him down safely to 6kg, the 3-4 pouches per day for a 4kg cat are excessive.

Blimey, both my cats added up only make 7kg. One is teeny though, and weighs in at 3kg. Of which 2 kg is fearsome claw. She doesn't have teeth though or she'd weigh more. They only get one sachet of food a day and the exceedingly expensive crunchy stuff (it'd be cheaper to hire Heston to cook unicorns I'm sure).

Anyway Bad Cat got told off by the vet (fortunately the über-stern German locum was off terrorising some other branch) for biting at her stitches. I fear there might have been some implicit criticism of her human staff for removing the collar of shame. She has compliancy issues
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 28 November, 2014, 09:44:26 pm
Pete was neutered late so he grew quite big, and he had free access to dry food for the first few months I had him but didn't learn to self-regulate and totally stuffed himself. I think it's an ex-stray thing. So he's on two wet pouches and 10g diet biscuits a day until he's 6kg.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 28 November, 2014, 09:49:14 pm
That this  (https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-DDeRzSSuTeg/VHjZIcOwegI/AAAAAAAAHLU/016-zohg5iI/s56/symbol_small.jpg)  is the weather symbol for, "Well, it would be sunny if the sun actually rose above the horizon, but it doesn't at this time of year so it won't be".

I always found that one quite amusing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 30 November, 2014, 01:24:09 pm
According to the leaflet my wife has helpfully left on the kitchen counter, if I hear gunfire I should run or hide (it wasn't clear how I'd know which to do, that's an opportunity for a flowchart missed), and when I've finished doing that, I should tell someone. Presumably not everyone notices the outbreak of hostilities. They should get themselves on Twitter. That kind of shit is bound to get retweeted.

Well, it's useful to know. In the event of being caught up in a terror attack my plan had been to build a papier-mâché decoy tank. Terrorists are scared of tanks. And griffins, though making a griffin is more challenging, especially under pressure. I now realise that my decoy tank strategy is misguided and I'd be better either running or hiding. I could run with a bathtub over my head which covers both bases.

Thanks Government!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 30 November, 2014, 01:55:28 pm
Just how overstated the feeding guidelines are on cat food. Felix is 70-75kcal per 100g pouch, Kitekat is about 80kcal per 100g, and Whiskas is 80-85kcal per 100g. Given that my fatty 7kg cat needs 200-220kcal per day to get him down safely to 6kg, the 3-4 pouches per day for a 4kg cat are excessive.

I spent yesterday morning researching which is the best quality food for the kittens and found some interesting articles about the pet food industry and the crap the put in it, and how the manufacturers are prone to exaggerating the food required so they sell more. Some of the stuff I've been reading suggests that the premium food contain more meat and less grain based carbs which might be either less calorie or better calories. This site is quite interesting http://www.justanswer.com/cat-health/2dmhh-female-cat-weighed-3-6-kilos-10-mths-old-spaying.html

I'm hoping that our 2 will self regulate on dry food eventually, but not yet apparently....

When I feed next door's cat he only gets 2 pouches a day but how much of that gets eaten by other cats I dunno.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 30 November, 2014, 02:12:51 pm
Our cats seem to self-regulate on dry food (I think it's Hills, whatever the most expensive is) – they don't come running when we put it down but will diligently munch through it. They are more enthusiastic about soft food. They were brought up on dry food (probably, they're rescue kitties), we only started giving them soft food when little cat had all teeth pulled out and we weren't sure she'd manage the hard sufficiently (and at 3 kg she doesn't need to lose weight). Surprisingly she seems to manage fine with her gums and palate but they get a pouch of soft stuff a day as a treat.

Bad cat managed to escape today by getting her paw behind the out-locked flap and pulling it inwards. Fiend. She did a good job of removing her own stitches earlier too. We're going to get stern looks from the vet. It's probably a good job we don't have kids, we'd be terrible parents, the ones that make the teachers sigh.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 04 December, 2014, 03:05:39 pm
That, unlikely as it is, the word sacro-iliac appears in the lyrics of The Message by Grandmaster Flash.

Yes, expert spotters, I am listening to RadMac on R6M.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 December, 2014, 03:39:46 pm
That Mogwai really don't like being referred to as "Post-Rock".  Sorry, chaps, but if GY!BE and their like are Post-Rock then you are too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 04 December, 2014, 04:27:34 pm
Just how overstated the feeding guidelines are on cat food. Felix is 70-75kcal per 100g pouch, Kitekat is about 80kcal per 100g, and Whiskas is 80-85kcal per 100g. Given that my fatty 7kg cat needs 200-220kcal per day to get him down safely to 6kg, the 3-4 pouches per day for a 4kg cat are excessive.

I spent yesterday morning researching which is the best quality food for the kittens and found some interesting articles about the pet food industry and the crap the put in it, and how the manufacturers are prone to exaggerating the food required so they sell more. Some of the stuff I've been reading suggests that the premium food contain more meat and less grain based carbs which might be either less calorie or better calories. This site is quite interesting http://www.justanswer.com/cat-health/2dmhh-female-cat-weighed-3-6-kilos-10-mths-old-spaying.html

I'm hoping that our 2 will self regulate on dry food eventually, but not yet apparently....

When I feed next door's cat he only gets 2 pouches a day but how much of that gets eaten by other cats I dunno.
A friend of mine feeds her dog and cat stuff that's just ground up muscle and organ meat. I can't remember the name of the place she gets it from. It's only slightly more expensive than pouches of cat food. If I had a bigger freezer, I'd get it for him.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 04 December, 2014, 05:53:51 pm
apparently the Smithsonian agreed to never recognise any other potential first flight pioneer in exchange for the Wright's plane. Dundee claims an early flying pioneer, possibly the first in UK, maybe the world.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/history-2.1462/is-history-right-or-was-dundee-s-preston-watson-the-first-to-make-a-powered-flight-1.718839
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 04 December, 2014, 07:17:57 pm
...
A friend of mine feeds her dog and cat stuff that's just ground up muscle and organ meat. I can't remember the name of the place she gets it from. It's only slightly more expensive than pouches of cat food. If I had a bigger freezer, I'd get it for him.

Mine eats poppadoms. I have no idea what she does with the rest of the takeaway.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 December, 2014, 07:22:58 pm
ian, you are clearly giving your cat too much pocket money.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 04 December, 2014, 07:33:29 pm
When Dafydd was a ickle kitting, I put the remains of my fish and chips down on the kitchen floor.  We once had a cat that used to eat chips and I thought I'd see if Daf was interested.  When I returned later I found he'd not only ignored the chips, but seemed to have not touched the remaining fish either.  He had, however, sucked up every last trace of curry sauce.
A true Brummie cat.  :smug:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 December, 2014, 07:39:35 pm
Mine eats poppadoms. I have no idea what she does with the rest of the takeaway.

A friend's cat once hilariously made off with a poppadom.  By the time we realised, she'd licked it until it was floppy.  Actually eating it either didn't occur to her, or was hampered by lack of teeth.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 04 December, 2014, 09:36:14 pm
http://www.naturalinstinct.com/ was the one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 06 December, 2014, 10:54:32 am
That when Margaret put a card and an envelope on my desk and said "that's Jenny's collection," and I put in an amount of money reflecting that Jenny has been my manager for years, and wrote in the card "thank you for all your support over the years, enjoy your retirement," it wasn't Jenny the manager retiring after 40 years' card, it was Jenny the OT who's leaving after 6 months' card.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 07 December, 2014, 12:26:36 am
Ok, not strictly today but I have learned that there is another person with my RL name.

Who runs a bike shop.*

In Minneapolis, Minnesota.

IIRC it's called John's Bikes.

Spooky.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 07 December, 2014, 09:25:13 pm
apparently the Smithsonian agreed to never recognise any other potential first flight pioneer in exchange for the Wright's plane. Dundee claims an early flying pioneer, possibly the first in UK, maybe the world.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/history-2.1462/is-history-right-or-was-dundee-s-preston-watson-the-first-to-make-a-powered-flight-1.718839
Loadsa people flew before the Wrights 'first' flight, including both of the Wrights (gliding). Some of 'em even did so (briefly) in powered craft. The Wrights' claim depends on a few qualification to 'first flight', e.g. powered, controlled, took off under own power. It seems pretty certain that their 'first' flight was closer to achieving all of those at once than any previous flight, but it was just one step among many.

To me, their achievements were significant, but I'm not sure that they made any net contribution to aviation. Their insane patent war* held back the progress of aviation in the USA**, & the world was filled with experimenters & theoreticians at the time. It was going to happen, & soon, whether the Wrights existed or not.


*They claimed that any kind of control mechanism which changed the shape of a wing, whether by warping, ailerons, or any other means, was covered by their patent. Patently ridiculous, since wing-warping & ailerons had been in the literature for decades, had been used on experimental gliders, & there was even a prior patent (British, expired) for ailerons.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 07 December, 2014, 10:28:39 pm
Supposed to have been a bloke in west Wales (Saundersfoot) who flew years before anyone else.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Dibdib on 07 December, 2014, 11:37:14 pm
Today I learned that Go Outdoors sell a fatbike (http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/coyote-fatman-fat-bike-white-p328480). 's only £350 as well. Steel frame and forks, cheap seven speed Shimano(ish) drivetrain, cable discs, presumably less-than-great wheels.

In unrelated news I'm hiding my credit card.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 08 December, 2014, 12:00:09 am
Supposed to have been a bloke in west Wales (Saundersfoot) who flew years before anyone else.

A bloke in Chard, Somerset.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 08 December, 2014, 12:20:47 am
Or a bloke from Brazil - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-Dumont
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 December, 2014, 11:50:05 am
Or a monk in Malmesbury.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 08 December, 2014, 11:52:08 am
Or a monk in Malmesbury.

Or a greek bloke by the name of Icarus.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 08 December, 2014, 12:50:21 pm
Or a bloke from Brazil - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-Dumont
I disagree on this one.  Even in the article you link to, it says he didn't start on heavier than air flight until 1905.  LTA flight goes back to Montgolfier, though dirigibles were refined by S-D.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 08 December, 2014, 01:08:25 pm
Not today, but recently: The prototype Bristol Type 142 airliner, which was subsequently adapted to become the Blenheim bomber, was called 'Britain First'. :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 December, 2014, 01:16:43 pm
Or a greek bloke by the name of Icarus.

That one was a myth, warning of the dangers of relying on adhesives.  Or perhaps that lusers don't follow instructions, depending on how much sympathy you feel for Daedalus...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 December, 2014, 01:24:24 pm
I thought it was suggesting a way to get rid of your pesky teenage offspring.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 08 December, 2014, 01:46:23 pm
Or a bloke from Brazil - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-Dumont
His integrity as a pioneer flyer is somewhat questionable.
There were two instances of his dirigible being found to be irrepairably damaged moments before he was due to give a demonstration flight in the States.
Sabotage was suspected, but not proven.
A similar incident occurred when he was was about to give a demonstration flight in the grounds of The Crystal Palace, Sydenham.
On being accused of causing the damage himself, he took himself off, back to France, in a huff - an early type of aircraft propelled by fuel made of horse manure and discarded tram tickets.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wascally Weasel on 08 December, 2014, 02:35:59 pm
apparently the Smithsonian agreed to never recognise any other potential first flight pioneer in exchange for the Wright's plane. Dundee claims an early flying pioneer, possibly the first in UK, maybe the world.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/history-2.1462/is-history-right-or-was-dundee-s-preston-watson-the-first-to-make-a-powered-flight-1.718839
Loadsa people flew before the Wrights 'first' flight, including both of the Wrights (gliding). Some of 'em even did so (briefly) in powered craft. The Wrights' claim depends on a few qualification to 'first flight', e.g. powered, controlled, took off under own power. It seems pretty certain that their 'first' flight was closer to achieving all of those at once than any previous flight, but it was just one step among many.

To me, their achievements were significant, but I'm not sure that they made any net contribution to aviation. Their insane patent war* held back the progress of aviation in the USA**, & the world was filled with experimenters & theoreticians at the time. It was going to happen, & soon, whether the Wrights existed or not.


*They claimed that any kind of control mechanism which changed the shape of a wing, whether by warping, ailerons, or any other means, was covered by their patent. Patently ridiculous, since wing-warping & ailerons had been in the literature for decades, had been used on experimental gliders, & there was even a prior patent (British, expired) for ailerons.

In one of my varied ‘book jacket’* of careers I used to work at the Science Museum in London and part of my job was to do guided tours of some of the galleries, including the flight gallery, in which there is a replica of the Wright Flyer – but the Science Museum actually used to have the original aircraft on display.

At first the Smithsonian did not recognise the Wright brothers as having made the first powered flight.  So much so that the Wrights donated the Wright Flyer to the Science Museum in the UK instead, where it remained until 1945.  The agreement the Smithsonian made referenced in the article occured in 1939 if I remember right, after the Smithsonian contracted to agree the Wright Brother’s claim in order to receive the Flyer.

The outbreak of war prevented the safe transport of the Flyer back to the US and the Science Museum made a full scale replica before giving it to the Smithsonian in 1945 after the end of WWII.


*Two more jobs and I’ll have that long list of varied jobs that lots of authors seem to have.  I’ve driven a train, worked in a chocolate factory and been Maureen Lipmann’s paperboy amongst other things.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 December, 2014, 03:03:19 pm
...chicken-shed cleaner, bodyguard, Dr Who scriptwriter...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 08 December, 2014, 03:56:51 pm
Or a bloke from Brazil - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-Dumont
His integrity as a pioneer flyer is somewhat questionable.
There were two instances of his dirigible being found to be irrepairably damaged moments before he was due to give a demonstration flight in the States.
Sabotage was suspected, but not proven.
A similar incident occurred when he was was about to give a demonstration flight in the grounds of The Crystal Palace, Sydenham.
On being accused of causing the damage himself, he took himself off, back to France, in a huff - an early type of aircraft propelled by fuel made of horse manure and discarded tram tickets.


If he'd waited for sixty seconds, but failed to cheer up, he'd have left in a minute and huff. 


Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wascally Weasel on 08 December, 2014, 04:33:57 pm
...chicken-shed cleaner, bodyguard, Dr Who scriptwriter...

Is that you or Douglas Adams?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 08 December, 2014, 08:22:21 pm
Packet Rice and Rice in a packet aren't the same thing.

Local Sainsburys has reshuffled so when I walked up to where the kilo bags of basmati used to be they were gone. The sign over the next aisle promised Packet Rice but only had Noodles and boil in the bag rice.

I found the Basmati under the sign for speciality sauces?

The signs have been shuffled along with the shelves so it must be deliberate
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 08 December, 2014, 11:24:14 pm
apparently the Smithsonian agreed to never recognise any other potential first flight pioneer in exchange for the Wright's plane. Dundee claims an early flying pioneer, possibly the first in UK, maybe the world.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/history-2.1462/is-history-right-or-was-dundee-s-preston-watson-the-first-to-make-a-powered-flight-1.718839
Loadsa people flew before the Wrights 'first' flight, including both of the Wrights (gliding). Some of 'em even did so (briefly) in powered craft. The Wrights' claim depends on a few qualification to 'first flight', e.g. powered, controlled, took off under own power. It seems pretty certain that their 'first' flight was closer to achieving all of those at once than any previous flight, but it was just one step among many.

The 1903 flights had catapult-assisted launches, so the under own power qualification is contestable. The qualifications I'd use are that they had the first powered, controlled, sustained heavier-than-air flight. Under those conditions, I don't think the Wrights' primacy will ever be revised - all of the other claims that pop up are based on dubious evidence, usually hearsay from years after the fact.

I'm more sympathetic wrt their long-term influence, even if it was in many ways indirect; after their European tour in 1908, where they literally flew rings around the local competition, it was clear that controllability was more important than most of the Europeans had realised (this is the Gibbs-Smith 'chauffeurs' vs 'airmen' distinction). Their demonstrations also spurred the Europeans to develop their own designs, having seen how much further advanced the Wrights were.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 08 December, 2014, 11:36:07 pm
Not today, but recently: The prototype Bristol Type 142 airliner, which was subsequently adapted to become the Blenheim bomber, was called 'Britain First'. :o

And was given that name by the owner of the Daily Mail; just one of the many right-wing (if not crypto-fascist) enthusiasts for aviation in the 1930s*

*eg Lady Houston, who famously (for certain spoddy values of famous) funded the British 1931 Schneider Trophy team of Supermarine and Rolls-Royce that won it outright, mainly because she wanted to embarrass Ramsey MacDonald's national government.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2014, 08:13:36 pm
*Two more jobs and I’ll have that long list of varied jobs that lots of authors seem to have.  I’ve driven a train, worked in a chocolate factory and been Maureen Lipmann’s paperboy amongst other things.
For some reason, that gives me a vision of a Wascally Weasel leaping from the cab of a moving tube train, climbing up a ventilation shaft and delivering a box of Milk Tray to Maureen Lipmann.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 December, 2014, 04:53:12 pm
The bass drone on A Silver Mt. Zion's "Broken Chords Can Sing A Little" sounds exactly like the builders' genny/compressor/Diesel Annoyance.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 December, 2014, 04:46:21 pm
That a haversack differs from a knapsack in having only one shoulder strap.

More entertainingly, that if you spill a metric sploshful of water on your gas hob, so that if fills up the well over the gas spout thing under the burner, then when you turn the gas on, it makes a rather nice gurgling sound.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: a lower gear on 11 December, 2014, 10:02:47 pm
That dutifully reading the entirety of the Lift the Lid thread "BHIT are back" was possibly not the most enriching hour and a half of my day.... but I'm up to date, so my OCD demon is satiated.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nikki on 14 December, 2014, 09:29:30 am
Why the UK tax year starts on the 6th of April:
http://www.taxadvisorypartnership.com/tax-compliance/why-does-the-uk-tax-year-start-on-6-april-each-year/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 17 December, 2014, 10:58:17 am
That Michelle Obama volunteers to staff phones for the Norad santa tracking event, and has done since 2009.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAD_Tracks_Santa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAD_Tracks_Santa)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 18 December, 2014, 04:55:56 pm
That icing sugar on the trackpad of your laptop makes navigation almost impossible until it's gone damp and very sticky - which then necessitates cleaning said trackpad so fuck knows what I've clicked on in the last 15 minutes . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 19 December, 2014, 02:13:29 pm
That generally intelligent folk (teachers and the like so degreed up) can be as thick as two short planks.

A notice board, 10mm thick was on the corridor wall. A couple of classes had done a display about Mt Vesuvius. This display included 4 papier mache and plaster of paris volcanoes which were constructed on a square cardboard base, complete with crepe paper eruptions. The volcanoes were too heavy to be mounted on the board with staples, pins or tape. Some bright spark fixed each volcano to the board with a 2" nail in each corner of the base.......

Nails discovered when trying to take the board down to move it.

 ::-)   
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: a lower gear on 19 December, 2014, 05:57:41 pm
Which reminds me of the old Chinese* proverb "To man with hammer, everything look like nail".

[Point to ponder: why are old proverbs always said to be Chinese?]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 19 December, 2014, 09:39:54 pm
Because. Wisdom.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 19 December, 2014, 09:42:41 pm
P38 car body filler is your frend.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 19 January, 2015, 06:52:24 pm
That Lycra for camels exists

https://twitter.com/RDRonaldauthor/status/557146477517348864?s=09
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 19 January, 2015, 08:22:03 pm
That Lycra for camels exists

https://twitter.com/RDRonaldauthor/status/557146477517348864?s=09

I predict the next post will contain a cameltoe reference...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Deano on 08 February, 2015, 10:47:09 pm
Black Sabbath was the last band to play Darlington Civic Theatre - they created such mayhem that no other band has been booked since.

Some guy told me this at a gig, so it must be true.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Oaky on 09 February, 2015, 03:24:35 am
I went to a pantomime at the Darlington Civic Theatre over Christmas, featuring the chuckle brothers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 09 February, 2015, 09:11:21 am
I went to a pantomime at the Darlington Civic Theatre over Christmas, featuring the chuckle brothers.

Oxymoron, no?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 09 February, 2015, 09:55:34 am
That the first programmable computer was build in Germany and ran in 1941. (Konrad Zuse) Predating Turing et al by a good few years. It was built using relays so was very slow compared to the later fully electronic versions.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 09 February, 2015, 10:00:19 am
I worked with a couple of Hungarians who had previously been working on Russian USSR ICBM launchers. Their targeting computers were based on relays as they aren't effected by EMP.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 09 February, 2015, 02:05:48 pm
I worked with a couple of Hungarians who had previously been working on Russian USSR ICBM launchers. Their targeting computers were based on relays as they aren't effected by EMP.

Years ago the was a TV documentary about how behind the technology curve the USSR was. They cited the case of a MiG something or other that defected/got forced down and how it was jammed full of teeny thermionic valves. Hah, they said, those pesky Soviets and their old technology.

Fast forward a few months and there was another documentary about how the EMP from a nuclear strike will banjax the whole of Western technology.  They then roll out the same story about the defecting MiG, but this time change the ending to show how dastardly clever those pesky Soviets were with their clever EMP-defying technology.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 09 February, 2015, 02:29:47 pm
MiG-25 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-25#Western_intelligence_and_the_MiG-25).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 09 February, 2015, 05:05:33 pm
Apparently the relays weren't that reliable, because they were explaining the difficulties of doing the calculation manually, including allowing for the target moving between launch and arrival.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Deano on 09 February, 2015, 08:36:24 pm
I went to a pantomime at the Darlington Civic Theatre over Christmas, featuring the chuckle brothers.

Oxymoron, no?

Oh, no it isn't!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 16 February, 2015, 10:27:39 pm
Quote
On April, 1970, the Grumman Aerospace Corporation—manufacturers of the Lunar Module—sent a $312,421.24 bill to North American Rockwell—who made the service module that malfunctioned in the Apollo 13 mission—for towing services.

 ;D

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/the-only-fun-fact-about-apollo-13s-dramatic-failure-is-1686124526
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 16 February, 2015, 10:41:26 pm
MiG-25 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-25#Western_intelligence_and_the_MiG-25).

Balenko's MiG-25 wasn't the only Soviet plane that the West got to have a very good look at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4477th_Test_and_Evaluation_Squadron
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 18 February, 2015, 10:11:21 pm
Peter Dean, who played Pete Beale in Eastenders, is not dead after all.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 18 February, 2015, 10:12:46 pm
Whereas poor Tony Hart has died again
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 14 March, 2015, 09:55:25 pm
The origin of the Alabama Song (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama_Song).  Until this evening, I only knew cover by The Doors.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 15 March, 2015, 09:58:51 am
You amaze me, Andrij.  I thought you would have been sure to know.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 27 March, 2015, 07:16:09 am
If you're lying on your back in bed, and there is a cat standing on your chest demanding attention, turf him off before you start to stroke him otherwise you'll get cat drool in your mouth.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feline on 27 March, 2015, 10:51:52 am
If you're lying on your back in bed, and there is a cat standing on your chest demanding attention, turf him off before you start to stroke him otherwise you'll get cat drool in your mouth.

I had an unpleasant awakening this morning when my cat actually licked my tongue while I was asleep with my mouth slightly open  :-[
I am not quite sure what I have learned from this.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 27 March, 2015, 12:07:26 pm
Keep cats out of the bedroom?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feline on 27 March, 2015, 12:48:44 pm
Keep cats out of the bedroom?

Not if you expect to have any carpet left outside the bedroom door by the morning  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 30 March, 2015, 11:22:53 am
Keep cats out of the bedroom?

If I slept in a bank vault they'd blow the bloody doors off. There's no keeping them out. Bad Cat's latest morning thing is waiting for my wife to leave and then coming in and punching me on the shoulder while miaowing loudly. This is to get me to extend my arm so she can monorail and rest her chin on my hand. She wasn't giving my arm back this morning, instead as I tried to pull my hand free she simply clamped her jaws around it and refused to let go.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 30 March, 2015, 11:42:10 am
Keep cats out of the bedroom?

Not if you expect to have any carpet left outside the bedroom door by the morning  ;D
I don't have carpet. But I do have a cat who can open all the doors in the flat, and if I lock the bedroom door he either hurls himself against the door, yowling furiously, or he sits at the door crying piteously. He's generally very little trouble in the bedroom at night   
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 30 March, 2015, 02:03:29 pm
If you're lying on your back in bed, and there is a cat standing on your chest demanding attention, turf him off before you start to stroke him otherwise you'll get cat drool in your mouth.

I had an unpleasant awakening this morning when my cat actually licked my tongue while I was asleep with my mouth slightly open  :-[
I am not quite sure what I have learned from this.

Saturday and Sunday morning I got a lick on the nose from Pumpkin  ???
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 31 March, 2015, 10:12:50 pm
The nut securing an oven fan is reversed thread. It would have been useful knowing that a little earlier.

Also my cake recipe is currently making it's presence felt by rising aout of the tin and oozing across the kitchen floor. I think it may be starting to become sentient.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 31 March, 2015, 10:21:42 pm
The nut securing an oven fan is reversed thread. It would have been useful knowing that a little earlier.

Neff?

I discovered that once.  Why don't they just make the fan spin the other way, if the problem is of an unscrewy nature?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 31 March, 2015, 10:23:53 pm
The nut securing an oven fan is reversed thread. It would have been useful knowing that a little earlier.

Neff?

I discovered that once.  Why don't they just make the fan spin the other way, if the problem is of an unscrewy nature?

Because the food would get colder, obviously.

I think it's a good rule of thumb to suspect any fan of having a widdershins thread until proven otherwise.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 31 March, 2015, 11:24:03 pm
I had got the other one off turnwise with some effort so presumed the replacement would be the same. It did seem quite tough so I probably did trash the thread in the process.

Anyhow, I baked a cake for the final winter track meet tomorrow. My estimates (9x12" pan being 3x the batch needed for a 7.5" round tin) whilst mathematically correct appeared to have ignored depth. It took some time to clean up the overspill, and the cake is a bit uneven, having been cooked in the top oven (no fan) whilst waiting for the insulator pad that I didn't know I needed till removing the old fan and having it crumble to pieces on me.

£75 in parts and delivery to repair the oven.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CrinklyLion on 02 April, 2015, 01:08:52 pm
Mordor Central has a bigger, slightly uglier, sibling and their name is New York Penn.

Honestly,  I felt right at home ;-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 April, 2015, 01:10:40 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Station_%28New_York_City%29

Wow, it really is.  Hints of the old Manchester Piccadilly (Platforms 13/14) there too.  There should be a law against 60s rebuilds of perfectly good stations.  Probably a bit late, thobut.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 02 April, 2015, 01:23:37 pm
Mordor Central has a bigger, slightly uglier, sibling and their name is New York Penn.

Honestly,  I felt right at home ;-)

Grand Central is far nicer, but probably doesn't have trains going where you want to go...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 April, 2015, 01:25:15 pm
Mordor Central has a bigger, slightly uglier, sibling and their name is New York Penn.

Honestly,  I felt right at home ;-)

Grand Central is far nicer, but probably doesn't have trains going where you want to go...

The Moor Street Effect™
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Seldom Killer on 02 April, 2015, 01:35:51 pm
The last time I visited New Street Station I felt as if I was in some kind of John Malkovitch as the bad guy future dystopiann corporate institution. Alas a burly but short-arsed lunatic in tight black didn't come in to liberate our moral freedoms with the assistance of romantic interest and a quirky and/or diverse friend.

New Street definitely needs some liberation of moral freedoms, preferably with extreme prejudice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 02 April, 2015, 01:40:49 pm
Nuking Mordor Central from orbit seems somewhat impractical and might create much collateral damage.
It might be the only way...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Seldom Killer on 02 April, 2015, 01:56:03 pm
I think the risk of creating a sentient, glowing Bull Ring is too high. Perhaps just using a SOL Cannon and accepting some secondary localised devastation is the way foward.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 April, 2015, 01:59:59 pm
Alternatively, they could bury it inside an enormous reinforced concrete sarcophagus.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: davelodwig on 02 April, 2015, 02:00:29 pm
Nuking Mordor Central from orbit seems somewhat impractical and might create much collateral damage.
It might be the only way...

Please don't as horrible as it is I need it to get home this evening.

Just some sort of device to stop people with suitcases bigger than my last car would be a start.

D.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 April, 2015, 02:08:53 pm
Alternatively, they could bury it inside an enormous reinforced concrete sarcophagus.
Surely that's what they did when they built it?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 02 April, 2015, 03:01:19 pm
Mordor Central has a bigger, slightly uglier, sibling and their name is New York Penn.

Honestly,  I felt right at home ;-)

The benefit of Penn Station is that it's NYC outside. But yes, it's a station modelled on the British 1960s train station experience. Though with more net curtains for some reason. I regularly travel between Philadelphia and NYC on the train, so that's my NYC arrival experience (30th St Station in Philadelphia is far nicer, if a bit neglected over the years). It's quite odd taking the Amtrak down south, through the grand stations of Philadelphia and Union Station in Washington DC, and then suddenly to get off you pretty much have to jump into a ditch by the side of the train.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 14 April, 2015, 09:47:56 am
A little of B.R.Ambedkar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar) (who I had never heard of), thanks to Google Doodle.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 April, 2015, 11:05:21 am
He was a remarkable man. It's interesting to contrast him with the Dalit woman currently (or very recently) leading Uttar Pradesh (I've forgotten her name for a minute - but her main contribution to UP and Dalits seems to be putting up statues of herself).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 15 April, 2015, 11:16:14 pm
That if a company that has supplied some equipment forgets to pack some fixings, then says on being notified "We'll overnight them to you so they will be with you tomorrow", don't plan your tomorrow around the missing bits actually arriving in time to be useful that day ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ashaman42 on 15 April, 2015, 11:36:25 pm
I started learning how to weld and didn't set myself on fire at any point. Yay.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 15 April, 2015, 11:40:46 pm
I started learning how to weld and didn't set myself on fire at any point. Yay.
Cool (or not). Gas, arc, MIG, TIG?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ashaman42 on 15 April, 2015, 11:52:20 pm
First week of a six week taster course.

Did a little bit of MIG, seven of us each did three lines of weld along a little sheet of metal and then half of us (not me yet) did an external corner weld on two sheets that had been tacked into place by the instructor. Then we ran out of time so the rest of us will have a go at that next week.

Ultimately we will all have a little go at MIG, TIG, arc and gas.

I was the opposite of everyone else in that I was running too close to the work rather than too far away. I was also moving along the weld a bit too fast but part of that was being watched by a bunch of people. Once we've had a go at everything we'll be able to separate to different sections rather than all standing around watching the one person welding which should help.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 16 April, 2015, 10:06:48 am
That if a company that has supplied some equipment forgets to pack some fixings, then says on being notified "We'll overnight them to you so they will be with you tomorrow", don't plan your tomorrow around the missing bits actually arriving in time to be useful that day ::-)

Today I have learned that, if you were waiting for something yesterday, it is worth asking the contractors working near the entrance if they have taken a delivery for you whilst they were causing access problems.

As I cycled in this morning, the contractor boss fella said "I've got a parcel that was delivered yesterday morning".

 ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 16 April, 2015, 04:12:12 pm
Today I have not necessarily learnt, but by doing the sums I have realised that I can save myself a) nearly £200 and b) the hassle of trying to sell a unused set of STIs and caliper brakes.  This I can achieve by buying the parts of a groupset, from Merlin, that I want instead of taking the easy path and buying a whole groupset and then buying the brakes (R685s).

I now have to i) decide what wheels to get and ii) what frame to hang it all off (the only thing I do know is that it WILL be baked soot and will have clearence for 35mm (preferably 40mm) tyres)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 April, 2015, 09:18:41 am
That my immediate neighbours, the friendly couple who never seem to do anything, are multimillionaires through some patent sold to Apple. That a little further down the street is a man convicted of manslaughter (recently released) and the woman opposite us once danced with Stevie Nicks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 April, 2015, 03:15:04 pm
Another thing I have learned today: when you see a BSO with one brake disconnected, it's not necessarily a sign of (simply) bad maintenance. Sometimes, it's a consequence of the bike being stolen. People tend to put locks around the top of the seat post, thief comes along with hammer and chisel and in smashing the lock, severs the brake cable or the caliper as well.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 20 April, 2015, 07:49:05 pm
I should know better than to get involved in a 30 min + conversation with BT, over a mistake they made, and have apologised for.
You'd think that asking for an email or a letter confirming that the conversation took place was a reasonable request. Wouldn't you?

Communications company. Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 20 April, 2015, 07:57:49 pm
That Asok from Dilbert is officially gay.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 21 April, 2015, 06:56:02 pm
The meaning of the word rhaphanidosis.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 21 April, 2015, 07:06:34 pm
 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 21 April, 2015, 07:09:10 pm
That Rapidfire shifters can make a reasonable abode for 8-legged beasties.

That my heart rate can still skyrocket in . . . well . . . a heartbeat.

That I should exercise a little more caution when stripping a bike that has been in a shed for a while.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 April, 2015, 08:32:16 pm
That single-speed/fixed has its merits after all.   ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CrinklyLion on 21 April, 2015, 10:54:02 pm
Mordor Central has a bigger, slightly uglier, sibling and their name is New York Penn.

Honestly,  I felt right at home ;-)

The benefit of Penn Station is that it's NYC outside. But yes, it's a station modelled on the British 1960s train station experience. Though with more net curtains for some reason. I regularly travel between Philadelphia and NYC on the train, so that's my NYC arrival experience (30th St Station in Philadelphia is far nicer, if a bit neglected over the years). It's quite odd taking the Amtrak down south, through the grand stations of Philadelphia and Union Station in Washington DC, and then suddenly to get off you pretty much have to jump into a ditch by the side of the train.

NYC didn't really flick my bic, so to speak, so Penn didn't get a second visit I'm afraid - not even the draw of going to visit Grand Central could encourage me back into the city without a responsible adult to supervise me with two chiddlers in tow (and a very shonky ankle which made yomping around a tad challenging).

Hoboken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoboken_Terminal), on the other hand, is now my most favourite station in the world.  So far, anyway.  And even though we accidentally bought the wrong tickets for our journey there via Secaucus a very nice NJ Transit lady took pity on us and let us through the barriers and also recommended going to The Bakery despite the hype, which meant we did indeed brave the queue before going back to Montclair, and it was worth the mere 20 minute wait.  Plus also Hoboken has several particularly fine New Jersey play parks (we now consider ourselves quite expert on the play parks of NJ, y'know), an extremely splendid small-but-perfectly-formed Historical Museum.

We also had fun with perspective.

(https://scontent-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/15584_10153145173561839_7300684612824100886_n.jpg?oh=07abd48f10e3b29d175dba3adee75458&oe=5597D05E]https://scontent-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/15584_10153145173561839_7300684612824100886_n.jpg?oh=07abd48f10e3b29d175dba3adee75458&oe=5597D05E)

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10421343_10153110243341839_4332543762074890449_n.jpg?oh=ea4da623088c17beb8b5b76d6782179f&oe=559B45D4&__gda__=1440634753_92f23f8c7aecca309093eae133ef0b2f)
(I'm only just starting to catch up on all the forum stuff from when we were away!)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 21 April, 2015, 11:12:21 pm
There is a very interesting private hostel near Basil's place in Wales.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 22 April, 2015, 07:16:47 am
There is a very interesting private hostel near Basil's place in Wales.

Is there?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Blazer on 22 April, 2015, 10:35:29 am
I like swimming  :), grew up in Devon and loved swimming in the sea.

I've learnt today that this doesn't mean I like swimming lengths in the public baths...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 22 April, 2015, 12:40:23 pm
There is a very interesting private hostel near Basil's place in Wales.

Is there?

Nanty Pobty at Coed Y Bryn SA44 SLQ . Seems to be an interesting place,  reasonably priced, and possible venue? Access may be an issue.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 22 April, 2015, 11:27:47 pm
Rehearsal tonight. After running through what we needed to go through, L decided we should try a new song (old words, new tune). As ever there is no melody so I have learned to pick it up and fill in on the fly. Just for once I grabbed the phone and placed it on the monitor to record L, and hopefully me in balance (no point having it right by the sax as it would be washed out).

When I play I have no real idea what I sound like. It is a bit like not knowing how your own voice sounds.

Actually not bad - much better than I thought. I'm sure the professional musicians here would cringe, and of course I hear the fluffed bits and the bits that I know don't quite fit or where the fill missed the chord change, but overall quite pleased, especially for a 'improvise along to this that you have only heard once before - it might be in D' (it was in G).


Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 23 April, 2015, 04:26:53 pm
Possibly not very practical, but cool; it's easy to make a bike trackstand on it's own by letting its rear wheel roll back against a wall or other support.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 April, 2015, 10:20:48 am
Australian rules football is not a variety of rugby. I always thought it was.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 April, 2015, 11:09:54 am
Australian rules football is not a variety of rugby. I always thought it was.

I always thought it derived from that other popular playground activity: The bundle[1]?


[1] Or in northern: "pile-on"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 April, 2015, 11:14:11 am
Australian rules football is not a variety of rugby. I always thought it was.

I always thought it derived from that other popular playground activity: The bundle[1]?


[1] Or in northern: "pile-on"
Another thing Kim will have learned today: pile-on is not only northern. That was the term used in Gloucestershire.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 April, 2015, 11:16:00 am
Another thing Kim will have learned today: pile-on is not only northern. That was the term used in Gloucestershire.

Cheese-rollers are northern by default :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 April, 2015, 11:21:19 am
Hmmm. Go say that in Cheltenham.

It's surprising the variety in terms used for kids' games considering my son's school is only 30-odd miles from where I was (in fact, I've been meaning to start a thread on that for a while). For instance, what we called Freeo (how do you spell that?) he and his friends call Forty-forty In. Of course, the variety could be as much due to decades as miles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 24 April, 2015, 12:46:43 pm
<Warning, this might only make sense to those that have spent time in Sheffield>

Not today, but on Tuesday I learnt that the SatNav in my car seems to have a liking for the Hallamshire Hospital.

Leaving DL7, set satnav destination as S3.

Set it to Fastest route.

Takes you down the A61 into Sheffield, right past said hospital.

So far, so logical.

However, ignore it's pleas and begs and go over the Tinsley Viaduct instead, coming off at the Parkway junction, the logical way to S3 is to go left at the end of the Parkway (heading past the station to Ring Road South) but, no, the SatNav decides you REALLY want to go around the North and past the Hospital.

On the return leg, set it to DL7 and fastest, again, and it thinks that sitting in car park that is the ring road approaching Upper Hannover Street is faster than just going to the Parkway, just so you can go past the hospital, again.

I now have done the trip enough to ignore the satnav* or not even use it.

*It is useful to leave it on, even if you know where you are going as it tailors the traffic alerts to your route.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 April, 2015, 03:29:11 pm
Why is the post code for Sheffield DL? I can't think of a place it might refer to.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 24 April, 2015, 03:35:47 pm
Why is the post code for Sheffield DL? I can't think of a place it might refer to.

NO, DL7 is home, deepest, darkest North Yorkshire (DL is actually Darlington, which is confusing, slightly, as Darlo is in County Durham....)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 24 April, 2015, 07:29:43 pm
Hmmm. Go say that in Cheltenham.

It's surprising the variety in terms used for kids' games..
We had one in my primary school (Princess Road Junior, M/cr) called "sciss-bag-brick" (aka, scissors-bag-brick).
I've heard it down here referred to as "rock-paper-stone".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 April, 2015, 07:55:36 pm
Rock-paper-stone? That's just wrong! Silly wrong! FTR it was scissors-paper-stone when I was little.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 24 April, 2015, 08:52:44 pm
They demolished Linlithgow, Pentland & Midlothian Halls at Riccarton a couple of years ago.  Which, for no good or sensible reason, saddens me a little.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 24 April, 2015, 10:53:42 pm
That I am considered to be totally wrong by some staff at the school. The other day there was an all staff meeting in the hall. Towards the end of the arrival phase, one of the staff snuck in at the back, trying to hide a small box of caeks. They failed to hide them from me. Of the 157 people in the hall, for a while only two people knew of the presence of the caeks- the barer and me. The others didn't understand how I could detect caek from the other side of a very well populated hall.

They failed to grasp the significace of the fact that I had spent 6 years in the army, 26 and a bit years in the police and that I was a practicing cyclist. "Hmmmm, strong the caek radar in this one is"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 27 April, 2015, 02:03:41 pm
1. That when planning a journey between two London railway stations, it is best to look at the booking rather than rely on one's memory for the starting/ending location.
2. When you have given up on the GPS and are using The ForceTM, try not to let a small sporting event cause a disruption in The Force
3. When planning a journey via GPS in a region not previously explored, ensure that the mapping for said region is actually installed on the GPS.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 28 April, 2015, 12:02:19 am
1) That a 24" cast iron pipe might well act as a very nice waveguide for Wifi signals from a wifi enabled camera
2) that I'm not sure if it will or not
3) that I really don't know enough hardcore Electrical Engineering and Physics to be sure.
4) that I will have to wait for the weekend to find out and it will bug me all week.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 April, 2015, 06:53:37 pm
That Don Nix wrote blues/rock standard "Going Down" after falling out of a window :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 08 May, 2015, 07:54:01 pm
That the voice introducing the instruments on Tubular Bells (you know, that bit) is Vivian Stanshall's.  One of those things that's obvious when you know it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 09 May, 2015, 08:34:02 pm
That about 28% of UK government debt, or about £400 million, is owed by the government to itself. But it's still counted as debt.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 13 May, 2015, 10:08:54 am
That you can buy second hand bridges.. http://www.bridgesforsale.co.uk/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 13 May, 2015, 10:41:44 am
I wonder how many times a day someone tries to list London or Tower bridge?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 May, 2015, 11:08:56 am
That very recently-roasted coffee does better in a moka pot than coffee roasted a week ago. Bugger.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 13 May, 2015, 12:55:32 pm
http://www.sunnyskyz.com/inspirational-videos.php?vidid=2365%2FTHIS-Is-What-That-Extra-Shoelace-Hole-Is-For-
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 May, 2015, 10:40:30 am
That there are up to 12 levels of underground city beneath Moscow.
http://spirit-of-moscow.com/The%20Diggers.shtml

Some of is undoubtedly true — even obvious — such as people living in underground railway tunnels, some of it seems quite plausible, like underground military installations, but the subterranean monks do seem a bit far-fetched.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 15 May, 2015, 11:35:46 am
From Before Arnold Bros?

(http://www.lspace.org/ftp/images/bookcovers/uk/diggers-1.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 May, 2015, 11:44:16 am
More like a rather shadowy Russian group of urban explorers. In fact, they're digging as we speak - down to 15 levels and an 18th-century mass suicide pool now!
http://kikistrikeny.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/moscows-diggers-of-underground-planet.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 15 May, 2015, 08:45:52 pm
That there is such a thing as a 'mushy pea fritter' - might just be a Brizzle thing - and now of course I HAVE TO TRY ONE!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: interzen on 15 May, 2015, 09:00:59 pm
That the voice introducing the instruments on Tubular Bells (you know, that bit) is Vivian Stanshall's.  One of those things that's obvious when you know it.
Pretty sure he's credited on the album sleeve as "Master of Ceremonies".
Alan Rickman fills in on Tubular Bells II due to Viv being indisposed on account of being dead.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 May, 2015, 11:19:00 am
That Lothar Malskat was a real person, that Hansi Knoteck only died two years ago (at the age of 99) and that there really was a film called The Merry Petrol Station.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 22 May, 2015, 07:50:52 pm
Deal has a cycle repair shop.  It's been trading since 1978.  It's only taken me 27 or so years to find it.  Mind you MrsLurker is a local and she didn't know about it.

Details if you're interested: http://www.curwenscyclerepairs.co.uk/

Had a natter with Mr. Curwen, seems like a decent chap. Frame resprays done as well, but you might want to wait a bit tho' as his preferred sprayer has just retired and he's currently got a couple of frames with a company in Sandwich (not Lock's - someone on the trading estate) to see if they're up to snuff.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 May, 2015, 01:33:29 pm
That digital music sales overtook CDs last year. I assumed that had happened at least five years ago.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 29 May, 2015, 01:39:13 pm
That CDs aren't digital music, apparently...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 May, 2015, 01:42:36 pm
! :o ! ;) ! ::-) ! :thumbsup: !
It's not even sales, TBF, it's income.
Quote
After more than a decade of decline, worldwide CD income was finally surpassed by digital music revenues last year.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/28/how-the-compact-disc-lost-its-shine

In the context, it's clear. CDs are tangible.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 29 May, 2015, 01:55:13 pm
In the context, it's clear. CDs are tangible.

Not even that:  CDs are read-only, non-volatile and the data is uncompressed and unencrypted.  Those are all pretty desirable features when paying $evilco for some music, even if you're just going to rip it and stick it in a box as a backup.  That you get cover artwork is a fringe benefit, cancelled out by the low storage density.

But the way people listen to music changed.  You don't really have a record collection any more, you just summon up a track from the cloud as the whim dictates.  Be it through iTunes, Spotify or Youtube.

Remember when software came with real paper manuals, and the first thing it told you to do was to make a working copy of the disks?  It's going the way of that...


Also: Brothers in Arms is 30?  Now I feel old...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 May, 2015, 06:51:48 pm
I noticed in another thread the Knopfler brothers were at the same school as someone on this forum. I think it might have been fboab. Maybe.

Anyways, cover artwork? No, that was on vinyl.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 30 May, 2015, 05:58:52 pm
Following on from the link (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=38032.msg1868334#msg1868334) Kim posted in the Best Videos thread, today I have been mostly learning what sweded (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Sweded) means.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 31 May, 2015, 01:47:16 pm
That I should have changed my back DR cable housing before riding. :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Biggsy on 31 May, 2015, 07:16:03 pm
You're not allowed to post a book to Ireland without a licence from the ROI Minister of Justice, and you're not allowed to post any printed matter to France and Japan, full stop.  According to the Royal Fail.  ...Well, you can post them, but the items aren't supposed to be accepted by the receiving countries' postal services.

...To list just a couple of examples of the many ordinary items in Prohibited lists.

http://www.royalmail.com/personal/international-delivery/country-guides
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 01 June, 2015, 12:10:00 am
How on earth did the Entente Cordiale happen?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 01 June, 2015, 01:57:56 am
I've sent quite a few books and calendars to Ireland over the years, Christmas presents to a sister there. I think it was pretty obvious what was in the various packages, especially when they came from Amazon.com.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 June, 2015, 09:39:21 am
How on earth did the Entente Cordiale happen?
It started with a lime, then some fizzy water and sugar. The entente was only added later.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 01 June, 2015, 07:50:34 pm
How on earth did the Entente Cordiale happen?

V. Late 19th Cent. 
France.  Ey Rosbifs, les Allemands zey look a bit dangereux. We make, how you say, "alliance", non?
Britain.  Oh I say, that's rather a top hole idea,  err, oui  c'est une bonne idee.  This Dreadnought arms race's gettin' a bit pricey eh wot!?

And yah boo sucks to Sellars & Yeatman.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 01 June, 2015, 08:04:52 pm
You're not allowed to post a book to Ireland without a licence from the ROI Minister of Justice, and you're not allowed to post any printed matter to France and Japan, full stop.  According to the Royal Fail.  ...Well, you can post them, but the items aren't supposed to be accepted by the receiving countries' postal services.

...To list just a couple of examples of the many ordinary items in Prohibited lists.

http://www.royalmail.com/personal/international-delivery/country-guides

What? I am expecting 2 books from the UK and received another about a week ago.  Don't tell anyone...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Biggsy on 01 June, 2015, 08:25:13 pm
I didn't say the bonkers rules were enforced.  I'm glad to learn they aren't!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 01 June, 2015, 08:55:41 pm
I have learned more about grid systems and projections than I really wanted to, but I now appear to be able to extract data from OSM and calculate areas etc from it (field sizes mostly for an ecologist colleague) with minimal fuss.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 02 June, 2015, 11:25:39 am
That Nigel Molesworh hav a page on Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/nigel-molesworth-obe/35/474/253)

Current role is Special Legal adviser to the IOC

Quote
Making shure committee members get their fair share of perks eg limos, slap-up meals and vintage wine gums
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 19 June, 2015, 03:10:02 pm
I noticed in another thread the Knopfler brothers were at the same school as someone on this forum. I think it might have been fboab. Maybe.
Their uncle lived in the house which had a garage opposite ours on the back lane.

Our head of sixth gave an annual assembly pep-talk in September (FACT verified by older sister, who got it twice, I got expelled so only got it once) where he retold the tale that he'd told M Knopfler to stop messing on that gee-tar and focus on his studies. He told us to love what you do and do it as well as you can. I have it on fairly good authority that this was subsequently updated to include reference to one A Shearer (year below me- some dorky fussballing sporty type) who was told to follow his dream.

This belongs in another thread, doesn't it?

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 June, 2015, 03:45:23 pm
Probably the one about ridiculous management phrases.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 19 June, 2015, 08:37:04 pm
How All 50 States Got Their Names (http://mentalfloss.com/article/31100/how-all-50-states-got-their-names)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 June, 2015, 09:08:36 pm
How All 50 States Got Their Names (http://mentalfloss.com/article/31100/how-all-50-states-got-their-names)
California is a mythical island. I think we'd all suspected this!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 June, 2015, 09:39:20 pm
I did learn summat today. But I've forgotten what it was.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 19 June, 2015, 09:51:27 pm
Fuck me!  La lodger has a trumpet! 
She's been here nearly two years and we never knew.  Seems she thought I would not be happy about it  ???
I've informed her that she has just gone to the top of the house cool table.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 June, 2015, 02:22:15 pm
Nipping round roundabout sharpish, learned that BB on new bike is 2.5 cm lower than on Audax bike.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 24 June, 2015, 08:13:25 am
After a conversation with TLD, I learnt that I have something in common with:
Dwight Eisenhower
Shannon Doherty
Dynamo
Anastasia
and Mike McCready.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 24 June, 2015, 09:29:46 am
That the reason women's stage races have short(er) stages is because the UCI mandate that race distances can only be a maximum average of 100km per day in a stage race and the longest stage can not exceed 130km. The Ladies Tour of Holland one year was actually downgraded a category by the UCI when they broke this rule.

Also that Sweetspot, the organisers of the Aviva Women's Tour of Britain applied to the UCI for special dispensation. For the first time ever there were two 140km stages back to back in the middle of the 5 day race and an average distance per stage of 120km.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 24 June, 2015, 05:04:06 pm
The difference between F/UTP and UTP Cat5e cables.

(Clue: Not just £2.79+VAT)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 27 June, 2015, 12:16:03 pm
The difference between F/UTP and UTP Cat5e cables.

(Clue: Not just £2.79+VAT)

If it is any help I have c 300m of Cat 5e cable to give away.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 June, 2015, 12:33:12 pm
If I still had the l33t 5k1llz required to put connectors on the stuff...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 27 June, 2015, 03:55:04 pm
If I still had the l33t 5k1llz required to put connectors on the stuff...

If you need some made up do shout, I have all the gubbins. It is wire not flex, but still works with RJ45 on the end.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 June, 2015, 02:56:02 pm
The deed is done now, and the Great Escalier at Larrington Towers is increasingly resembling the interior of a slightly down-at-heel spaceship or a U-boat being rebuilt while on patrol.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 28 June, 2015, 03:30:18 pm
That creating what is best called a 'utilitarian finish' on a Land Rover may be achieved with a high-density roller.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 28 June, 2015, 04:06:05 pm
The difference between F/UTP and UTP Cat5e cables.

(Clue: Not just £2.79+VAT)

If it is any help I have c 300m of Cat 5e cable to give away.
Er, no.
I need around 2,000 x 10m grey with RJ45 both ends pa... If (as I suspect) the F is over-specification from engineering that's a worthwhile cost saving.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 29 June, 2015, 07:51:44 am
That a laissez faire attitude to the accuracy of one's watch is fine when the bicycle is ones preferred mode of transport, less so for the good old chemin de fer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 01 July, 2015, 06:02:49 pm
That in 1896 the average wage of a Manchester bricklayer was 10d a day. 
And the sentence for a Manchester thief  convicted of pickpocketing £36 at a football match* was 7 years imprisonment.

*Gainsborough Trinity v Newton Heath.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 01 July, 2015, 06:07:35 pm
That in 1896 the average wage of a Manchester bricklayer was 10d a day. 
And the sentence for a Manchester thief  convicted of pickpocketing £36 at a football match* was 7 years imprisonment.

*Gainsborough Trinity v Newton Heath.

http://www.measuringworth.com/

In 2011, the relative worth of £36 0s 0d from 1896 is:

£3,420.00   using the retail price index
£3,630.00   using the GDP deflator
£13,700.00   using the average earnings
£23,300.00   using the per capita GDP
£37,200.00   using the share of GDP

I learned today that if you are expecting an email from a Russian source, you really need to check your spam box
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 01 July, 2015, 09:00:44 pm
...
I learned today that if you are expecting an email from a Russian source, you really need to check your spam box

Who was it this time?  Svetlana?  Natalia?  Olga?  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 01 July, 2015, 10:18:30 pm
Thing I learned on Sunday, but forgot about until another thread reminded me:  How difficult it is to get a heavily loaded bike moving up a steep hill with flat pedals.  If you haven't attempted it since before you discovered foot retention, it's surprising.

Obviously if you're a regular user of flats in all conditions, then it's just normal and ordinary and just part of the way bikes work, but I only usually use them for short trips without much in the way of  a) hills  or  b) stuff,  so the bike's up to speed by the time the starting foot reaches BDC.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 July, 2015, 11:36:51 pm
That in 1896 the average wage of a Manchester bricklayer was 10d a day. 
And the sentence for a Manchester thief  convicted of pickpocketing £36 at a football match* was 7 years imprisonment.

*Gainsborough Trinity v Newton Heath.

http://www.measuringworth.com/

In 2011, the relative worth of £36 0s 0d from 1896 is:

£3,420.00   using the retail price index
£3,630.00   using the GDP deflator
£13,700.00   using the average earnings
£23,300.00   using the per capita GDP
£37,200.00   using the share of GDP

And compared with the price of the "average house"?

</Daily Mail>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 03 July, 2015, 01:38:09 pm
If I had gone to bed at a reasonable hour last night instead of staying up to watch the last 2/3 of The Fugitive on ITV4, even though I have already seen it loads of times and own the DVD, I would not be so tired today.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 03 July, 2015, 02:04:11 pm
SE London has some waterways and off-road routes worth exploring.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 July, 2015, 09:24:27 pm
That in various Italian kingdoms in the 1840s the very word "railway" was banned, due to fears it would cause moral corruption of society and political revolution.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 06 July, 2015, 03:11:57 pm
Nautical terminology distinguishes between collisions (two moving objects into one another) and allisions (moving object into stationary object).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 06 July, 2015, 03:14:41 pm
I have learned that freshly baked bread out the oven has less calories than normal bread, because it evaporates.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 06 July, 2015, 08:47:29 pm
That all the bridges on the Lancaster canal are individually numbered, with lovely cast iron number plates affixed.  All 200 or so of 'em.  To a geek with OCD and a camera this represents a challenge, an opportunity, and an enormous time-sink.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CrinklyLion on 06 July, 2015, 08:52:19 pm
That all the bridges on the Lancaster canal are individually numbered, with lovely cast iron number plates affixed.  All 200 or so of 'em.  To a geek with OCD and a camera this represents a challenge, an opportunity, and an enormous time-sink.

*strongly approves of this learning*
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 06 July, 2015, 08:55:34 pm
^^^ Wot 'er sed ^^^
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Deano on 06 July, 2015, 09:22:32 pm
Bill, have you spotted this guy's flickr feed?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/suspensionstayed/sets/

I love the wee digital display he carries.

https://flic.kr/p/pefrJx
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 06 July, 2015, 09:23:49 pm
*strongly approves of this learning*

Mmm.  Well, I could go as far down as the Lune Aqueduct (#107), I s'pose.  But I'm not going south of the River Lune, not at this time, not for anyone guv.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 06 July, 2015, 09:27:10 pm
Bill, have you spotted this guy's flickr feed?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/suspensionstayed/sets/

Wow.  I'm out-geeked, out-bridged and, er, over here.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 06 July, 2015, 09:37:25 pm
Mind, I bet he hasn't got a dewatered canal bridge (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=48852.msg1887139#msg1887139)  :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 06 July, 2015, 09:43:25 pm
Bill, as far as I am aware, all bridges on all the canals in the Birmingham network have number plates on them as you describe.  Does this suggest that all the bridges on the whole national  network are similarly numbered?
I think you may have a bit of a job on, matey.   :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 July, 2015, 09:46:04 pm
Bill, as far as I am aware, all bridges on all the canals in the Birmingham network have number plates on them as you describe.

A lot of them certainly do.  Which raises the question: Why haven't they been nicked for scrap?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 06 July, 2015, 10:19:15 pm
Cos the pikeys can't get a flatbed tranny down a towpath . . . ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 06 July, 2015, 10:24:42 pm
BTW the bridges on the Macclesfield Canal are similarly numbered. As are the ones on the Middlewood Way, a disused railway which follows a lower contour but a similar line.

The bridges from Marple on the canal rise in number as you approach Macc, the ones on the track decrease in the same direction.

Confused? you will be . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 July, 2015, 10:28:18 pm
Cos the pikeys can't get a flatbed tranny down a towpath . . . ?

Pity.  They could have nicked the anti-cycling barriers while they were at it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Deano on 06 July, 2015, 10:31:49 pm
Cos the pikeys can't get a flatbed tranny down a towpath . . . ?

Pity.  They could have nicked the anti-cycling barriers while they were at it.

That's what happens to them around Darlo ;D

I assume this is the cause of their disappearance, rather than the council having seen the light, cos if that was the case, they'd all be gone. It's also worth noting that the terrible motorbikes are usually being pushed by lads who move over for cyclists and pedestrians, so it hardly feels like a harbinger of social breakdown.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 06 July, 2015, 10:48:12 pm
Nautical terminology distinguishes between collisions (two moving objects into one another) and allisions (moving object into stationary object).

What about 'In collision with'?  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 July, 2015, 10:04:55 am
Bill, as far as I am aware, all bridges on all the canals in the Birmingham network have number plates on them as you describe.  Does this suggest that all the bridges on the whole national  network are similarly numbered?

They are indeed; 'tis common among canalistas to refer to locations on the system by bridge number.  What happens when one is removed or a new one built is another matter entirely.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cycleman on 07 July, 2015, 06:54:59 pm
The bridge or lift has the same number with A after it . :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 10 July, 2015, 05:10:56 pm
I was reading about the arrest of the American spokesman for Subway sandwiches for child porn offenses. They raided his house with dogs who were trained to sniff out Micro SD cards. I wasn't aware they smelt. I wonder if they have dogs who are trained for different media cards eg compact flash or SD cards.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 10 July, 2015, 05:27:15 pm
The bridge or lift has the same number with A after it . :)
I've seen bridges with number then 'E' after them when there's been a lot of development since the canal was built. Motorway bridges over canals don't get 'canal bridge' numbers and nor (as far as I can remember) do railway ones. I presume it's to do with who is responsible for the maintenance and so on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 10 July, 2015, 05:33:57 pm
Fascinating.  It does appear to be a thing.  Assuming it's not all smoke and mirrors, you have to wonder what the dogs are sniffing out that discriminates solid-state storage from any other electronic device.  Possibly that something's been recently handled by a human, rather than a scent from the device itself?

Of course anyone who collects child porn (or equivalently incriminating data) and doesn't have the sense to encrypt the crap out of it deserves a double sentence on the grounds of stupidity.  Have any more sensible criminals been successfully prosecuted for refusing to reveal an encryption key yet?  That's where it really gets interesting.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 July, 2015, 07:57:34 pm
Could be a specific combination of plastics and metals.


Meanwhile, what I found out today is that the site in Bristol currently known as the Bearpit did once feature a real live bear on display. With its fur shaved, clothed, and a huckster passing it off as "an Ethiopian savage". But that has nothing to do with the present name.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 11 July, 2015, 12:22:03 am
Have any more sensible criminals been successfully prosecuted for refusing to reveal an encryption key yet?  That's where it really gets interesting.

Presumably you don't refuse to reveal the key. Either you're really stressed by all these horrid questions and you can't remember it, or there's some clever kind of two-level encryption where you can give them a key that just shows lots of lovely spreadsheets, then deny everything else.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 13 July, 2015, 10:29:56 am
Sniffer dog detection is another of those somewhat dubious things, since detection is only partly the dog's olfactory ability, but more the handler's interpretation, plus the dogs react to cues – subconscious or otherwise – from their handler. So if they think you look sketchy as you malinger by your badly hidden p0rn stash, the dog may be pleased to oblige its alpha human buddy's gaze at that box by duly sniffing it out. I'm unconvinced that a sniffer dog can genuinely find an SD-card, sounds more like a bit of a wriggle to fit within terms of the search warrant.

Most people don't understand encryption. I wonder what happens too, if it's all encrypted, Apple for instance have Filevault on by default. I might be wrong, but the latest iteration must be pretty tough to crack if you don't pony up the key. Not sure if Microsoft do something similar, but setting up encrypted partitions and storage isn't super-complicated. But given the (non-child) p0rn I've seen smeared across nearly all the computers I've been asked fix over the years, curating that collection hasn't been high on the owners' agenda.

Edit: sniffer bees are a thing, though. Sort of.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 15 July, 2015, 02:53:35 pm
It's easy to draw a horse. Just draw a unicorn, and then remove the horn
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 15 July, 2015, 04:28:19 pm
The bridge or lift has the same number with A after it . :)
I've seen bridges with number then 'E' after them when there's been a lot of development since the canal was built. Motorway bridges over canals don't get 'canal bridge' numbers and nor (as far as I can remember) do railway ones. I presume it's to do with who is responsible for the maintenance and so on.
Motorway and railway bridges will have their own numbering system, so I suppose that's to avoid confusion.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: philip on 15 July, 2015, 07:17:37 pm
Have any more sensible criminals been successfully prosecuted for refusing to reveal an encryption key yet?  That's where it really gets interesting.
It has certainly happened in the UK under RIPA for which section 49 covers court orders to decrypt. Look at the encryption section in the OSC annual reports: https://osc.independent.gov.uk/about-us/annual-reports-2/
2014-15: 3 convictions
2013-14: 2 convictions
2012-13: 3 convictions

Edit:
A better reference: https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000/Part_III
Section 49 is the notice to decrypt, section 53 is failure to comply.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Katie on 15 July, 2015, 09:46:49 pm
The line in hairdye instructions about unused mixture exploding is not in fact just there to make you buy more instead of using up leftovers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 15 July, 2015, 10:10:04 pm
The line in hairdye instructions about unused mixture exploding is not in fact just there to make you buy more instead of using up leftovers.
What did you blow up? :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 July, 2015, 10:37:21 pm
That sufficiently long hair is a successful substitute for reading the instructions.   :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jaded on 15 July, 2015, 11:41:20 pm
That Joe Root was pipped to a sports prize by a girl.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Katie on 16 July, 2015, 09:19:45 am
The line in hairdye instructions about unused mixture exploding is not in fact just there to make you buy more instead of using up leftovers.
What did you blow up? :D

Just the hairdye, but it was really messy ;(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 July, 2015, 01:41:22 pm
That sufficiently long hair is a successful substitute for reading the instructions.   :o

(Runs fingers through flowing tresses, make Jennifer Aniston head-toss gesture)

Pray explain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 16 July, 2015, 01:50:50 pm
I'm going with using up all the hair dye in one go so not having explosive residuals to go boom.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 July, 2015, 02:15:33 pm
Indeed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 16 July, 2015, 02:22:11 pm
Bill, as far as I am aware, all bridges on all the canals in the Birmingham network have number plates on them as you describe.  Does this suggest that all the bridges on the whole national  network are similarly numbered?
I think you may have a bit of a job on, matey.   :)

I though ALL canal bridges were numbered? Those on the Aylesbury arm of the Grand Union certainly are (I think ours in No. 8)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 16 July, 2015, 09:58:55 pm
That the stained glass windows at my church depict The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.

They're really beautiful but illuminated only on summer evenings, due to their orientation.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 16 July, 2015, 10:11:41 pm
So now buying more than one pack of hair colourant could be regarded as evidence of radicalisation.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 July, 2015, 11:04:10 pm
So now buying more than one pack of hair colourant could be regarded as evidence of radicalisation.

Wasn't it always?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2015, 11:10:52 pm
Probably.
Quote from: someone German
A feminist is a woman with red hair.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 July, 2015, 11:23:15 pm
I thought that Horse and Hound was a made-up publication from a Hugh Grant film, but thanks to P&OBI it turns out that it's a) real  b) has a website that  c) is alarmingly like a parallel universe version of road.cc.  I also note that hounds are seriously under-represented.

It's got a forum and everything.  Horsey tips involving Sudocrem, and I expect there's an "Achey Bollock Saddle Advice" thread in there somewhere.  At this point I'd only be mildly surprised if there's a "What stirrups for PBP?" one, too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Katie on 16 July, 2015, 11:24:58 pm
Probably.
Quote from: someone German
A feminist is a woman with red hair.

Guilty as charged.

And indeed, my exact problem. Hair too long for one box of dye, but not long enough to warrant using all of the second box…
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 16 July, 2015, 11:33:15 pm
Probably.
Quote from: someone German
A feminist is a woman with red hair.

That reminds me of yesterday's Graun piece on Sarah Maple (http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jul/14/sarah-maple-feminist-artist-photography), illustrated with, inter alia, her painting The Opposite to a Feminist is an Arsehole.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 July, 2015, 11:34:07 pm
And indeed, my exact problem. Hair too long for one box of dye, but not long enough to warrant using all of the second box…

The Die Hard 3 solution would surely be not to mix up all of the second box...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Katie on 16 July, 2015, 11:36:19 pm
And indeed, my exact problem. Hair too long for one box of dye, but not long enough to warrant using all of the second box…

The Die Hard 3 solution would surely be not to mix up all of the second box...

Yeah, that's exactly what I tried yesterday ;) turns out I'm not very good at estimating "about half the tube of colour" …
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2015, 11:52:39 pm
Probably.
Quote from: someone German
A feminist is a woman with red hair.

Guilty as charged.

And indeed, my exact problem. Hair too long for one box of dye, but not long enough to warrant using all of the second box…
The weird thing about that, which I've heard from several Germans (male and female, albeit last century), is that it wasn't "feminists like to dye their hair red" or "having red hair is often a sign of being a feminist" it was given as an actual definition. Maybe just a language thing though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2015, 11:58:16 pm
Anyway, today I learned about the bizarre behaviour of Pope Boniface VI (pope for fifteen days in 896) in relation to his predecessor, Formosus. You'd better look it up for yourself, it's too weird.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 17 July, 2015, 04:15:53 pm
The Cadaver Synod? Wasn't that Boniface's successor?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 17 July, 2015, 06:48:19 pm
That an old electric toothbrush head smeared in liquid soap is just the ticket for cleaning out all the crud that gets stuck between the links of a metal watch bracelet.

And that you should always check _which_ head is on your electric toothbrush before cleaning your teeth........  :sick:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 19 July, 2015, 09:35:00 pm
That there is a lot more gravel on my back garden than I thought (16 rubble sacks has hardly made a dent), and that the ground underneath is bumpy, full of building rubble and made of heavy clay.

Tempted to put it all back.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 July, 2015, 11:37:28 am
...before you get to the bodies.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 20 July, 2015, 03:01:51 pm
That there is a lot more gravel on my back garden than I thought (16 rubble sacks has hardly made a dent), and that the ground underneath is bumpy, full of building rubble and made of heavy clay.

Tempted to put it all back.

That'll be the reason for the gravel, then.

It does look a bit shit Marcus, don't put it back.  Stay with your vision!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 20 July, 2015, 03:20:01 pm
Just add some NCN signs...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 20 July, 2015, 04:23:43 pm
Put the gravel back, smooth it over then organize a tanker load of bonding agent and pour it in till just below the surface of the gravel. Bonding agent bonds, gravel stays put, Robert is your parents brother.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 20 July, 2015, 04:32:49 pm
If it helps, I'll make a call to your local old bill saying there is a body buried 6ft down.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 20 July, 2015, 05:49:43 pm
If it helps, I'll make a call to your local old bill saying there is a body buried 6ft down.

An old man lived alone. His only son was in prison, and he didn't know anyone who would spade up his potato garden, so he wrote to his son about it.
"For heaven's sake, don't dig up that garden," his son wrote back. "That's where I buried the guns!"
The next day, a dozen police officers, who had intercepted the letter, arrived and dug up the entire garden, but didn't find any guns.
Confused, the man wrote to his son telling him what happened and asking him what to do next.
"Plant your potatoes," his son wrote.

;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: red marley on 20 July, 2015, 08:38:59 pm
Through my annual visit to ITV4 thanks to the TdF, I learn that The Sweeney is really rather shite. A carnival of bad acting and cut price fisticuffs. And can the young inspector Morse do anything other than scowl?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 20 July, 2015, 10:01:10 pm
That there is a lot more gravel on my back garden than I thought (16 rubble sacks has hardly made a dent), and that the ground underneath is bumpy, full of building rubble and made of heavy clay.

Tempted to put it all back.

That'll be the reason for the gravel, then.

It does look a bit shit Marcus, don't put it back.  Stay with your vision!

A few more bags filled before the rain, most of the path is up now. Found a completely intact 3x2' paving slab under the path for no apparent reason. Wonder what's hiding underneath.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 20 July, 2015, 10:13:44 pm
That there is a lot more gravel on my back garden than I thought (16 rubble sacks has hardly made a dent), and that the ground underneath is bumpy, full of building rubble and made of heavy clay.

Tempted to put it all back.

That'll be the reason for the gravel, then.

It does look a bit shit Marcus, don't put it back.  Stay with your vision!

A few more bags filled before the rain, most of the path is up now. Found a completely intact 3x2' paving slab under the path for no apparent reason. Wonder what's hiding underneath.

The bodies.  And the guns.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 20 July, 2015, 10:27:29 pm
That there is a lot more gravel on my back garden than I thought (16 rubble sacks has hardly made a dent), and that the ground underneath is bumpy, full of building rubble and made of heavy clay.

Tempted to put it all back.

That'll be the reason for the gravel, then.

It does look a bit shit Marcus, don't put it back.  Stay with your vision!

A few more bags filled before the rain, most of the path is up now. Found a completely intact 3x2' paving slab under the path for no apparent reason. Wonder what's hiding underneath.

The bodies.  And the guns.



Reading this is bringing back memories of moving to Furrybootoon as a child. We ended up in a University house, previous occupants a sociology lecturer and his 'bidey-in'. Interior decor appeared to be distemper and stolen institutional shades of gloss paint (on the walls), green, mustard etc.
Both gardens were like a jungle and in 1 was a coal shed-cum shed with a greenhouse built on the end made entirely from old windows.
On the floor, a giant wooden door, looking for all the world like a trap door. I was convinced there would be a cavity underneath and the sociology lecture's ex-wife, or buried treasure, or something.
Sadly, there was only concrete. I was so disappointed. Still, there was all manner of random shit in that shed, kept me amused for months....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 July, 2015, 10:44:13 pm
That there is a lot more gravel on my back garden than I thought (16 rubble sacks has hardly made a dent), and that the ground underneath is bumpy, full of building rubble and made of heavy clay.

Tempted to put it all back.

That'll be the reason for the gravel, then.

It does look a bit shit Marcus, don't put it back.  Stay with your vision!

A few more bags filled before the rain, most of the path is up now. Found a completely intact 3x2' paving slab under the path for no apparent reason. Wonder what's hiding underneath.
A secret bunker, already filled with every bike you've ever dreamed of.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 21 July, 2015, 12:04:27 am
That there is a lot more gravel on my back garden than I thought (16 rubble sacks has hardly made a dent), and that the ground underneath is bumpy, full of building rubble and made of heavy clay.

Tempted to put it all back.

That'll be the reason for the gravel, then.

It does look a bit shit Marcus, don't put it back.  Stay with your vision!

A few more bags filled before the rain, most of the path is up now. Found a completely intact 3x2' paving slab under the path for no apparent reason. Wonder what's hiding underneath.
Elephants.  Elephants all the way down.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 July, 2015, 07:23:01 am
Evander Duck is not a relative of Huey, Dewey and Louie.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/af/Louie_Dewey_and_Huey.png/220px-Louie_Dewey_and_Huey.png)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 July, 2015, 10:50:21 am
That if you took the symbol used by the Polish air force until 1993, when they reversed it, and flew it at sea, it would mean "You are standing into danger".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 25 July, 2015, 05:40:35 pm
Well, not learned, as I don't believe it to be true.

I've just read on twitter that adding "The" to the names of major roads is a Birmingham thing.
The Pershore Road and The Bristol Road are examples near me.
But surely other towns do this too don't they?  Whoever speaks of "Edgware Road"?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 July, 2015, 06:55:25 pm
Well, not learned, as I don't believe it to be true.

I've just read on twitter that adding "The" to the names of major roads is a Birmingham thing.
The Pershore Road and The Bristol Road are examples near me.
But surely other towns do this too don't they?  Whoever speaks of "Edgware Road"?

I'd always heard it was a Londonton thing.  Roads are "the", everything else is not, hence "the Mile End Road" or "the Leyton High Road" but "Oxford Street" and "Northumberland Avenue".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 July, 2015, 07:31:16 pm
That spending a few hours walking a few miles around a completely flat town is more tiring than 13 hours riding 200km over 2,000m of ascent. Perhaps it's down to the rain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 26 July, 2015, 01:43:06 am
Well, not learned, as I don't believe it to be true.

I've just read on twitter that adding "The" to the names of major roads is a Birmingham thing.
The Pershore Road and The Bristol Road are examples near me.
But surely other towns do this too don't they?  Whoever speaks of "Edgware Road"?

I'd always heard it was a Londonton thing.  Roads are "the", everything else is not, hence "the Mile End Road" or "the Leyton High Road" but "Oxford Street" and "Northumberland Avenue".

I always thought it was a courier thing - The TCR (which incidentally is the only road in the West End), The Beak, The Dean etc etc
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 26 July, 2015, 12:41:00 pm
It's always been The Old Kent Road, and The Edgeware Road. Seems to apply to roads that go to places (like Old Kent, no one bothers with New Kent), though is random in application.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 July, 2015, 12:42:57 pm
Well, that's the general distinction. The London Road is the road going to London, whereas London Road is just a name.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 July, 2015, 01:04:09 pm
It's always been The Old Kent Road, and The Edgeware Road. Seems to apply to roads that go to places (like Old Kent, no one bothers with New Kent), though is random in application.

The Caledonian Road doesn't go to Scotland...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 26 July, 2015, 01:04:30 pm
Yeahbut, where's Old Kent. Logic seems to think it's New Cross. In which case where the hell is Old Cross.

I've just broke my theory by remembering that we used to live 'off the Askew Road' in W12 and I don't think there's an Askew to go to.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 July, 2015, 03:27:55 pm
Presumably the Old Kent Road was just the Kent Road until they built the new one.  Just be grateful that the Rochester Way Relief Road isn't the Even More Channelling The Zeitgeist Kent Road.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 26 July, 2015, 03:46:41 pm
Through my annual visit to ITV4 thanks to the TdF, I learn that The Sweeney is really rather shite. A carnival of bad acting and cut price fisticuffs.
Harumph!  For (some of) us wrinklies an hour of The Sweeney followed by an hour of TdF is as close to televisual perfection as it is possible to get.  I just wish the bloody continuity announcer wouldn't talk over the end credits drowning out the lovely melancholy arrangement of the theme tune.

Quote
And can the young inspector Morse do anything other than scowl?
He can also do wry smiles / grimaces. :)

Anyway, I learnt today that whilst not, for my money, as good as Humph., Jack Dee makes an acceptable host for ISIHAC.  I shall have to discard my mourning weeds and resume listening on a regular basis.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 26 July, 2015, 06:36:49 pm
That new cables was not the cure for the shite shifting of my rear cassette, and neither was cleaning all the goo that I didn't get out properly when I last cleaned the bike . :(
Things to try next: hanger, followed by new cassette.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 July, 2015, 08:48:55 pm
Check the jockey wheels too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 July, 2015, 02:41:42 pm
Not to symlink /bin/bash to a partition that needs a working shell in order to be mounted.  (DAHIKT)   :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 01 August, 2015, 05:05:50 pm
Cows like dandelion leaves - a lot. Give them a handful & they'll gobble it down then follow you along a fence hoping for more.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 01 August, 2015, 10:06:29 pm
Check the jockey wheels too.
I put the new cassette on and it still didn't work.  :facepalm:

Then I RTFM and stuck it on the 4th smallest sprocket, adjusted the placement of the jockey wheel and all was well. Oh well, it was probably getting on for time for a new cassette anyway.

The moral of the story, sometimes you should read the manual instead of relying on the Park Tools website....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 04 August, 2015, 07:40:10 pm
That King sized beds are not just 6" wider than doubles, but also 3" longer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 04 August, 2015, 07:53:41 pm
That King sized beds are not just 6" wider than doubles, but also 3" longer.

Duvet/sheets too small?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 04 August, 2015, 08:00:01 pm
Looking at replacements for my current '5 legged bed'* , so reading the Sleep Council's 'Bed Buyer's Guide' - http://www.sleepcouncil.org.uk/pdf-downloads/bed_buyers_guide.pdf


*I added a leg on one side as a 'temporary' repair after smashing through the main beam when falling over and kneeing it a while ago
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 August, 2015, 12:43:53 pm
That King sized beds are not just 6" wider than doubles, but also 3" longer.

Moreover, Queen sized beds are sized for Brenda at her current height rather than that she had at the time of the accession.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 August, 2015, 12:57:47 pm
When I literally made the bed (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1241.msg1440312#msg1440312) back in 2013, it was to take a Euro Kingsize mattress (which provided optimal width while maintaining a length that would fit the room).  It turned out that if you want such a thing in the UK, your choice is restricted to Ikea divans, or hideous leather bachelor-beds.  Hence all the woodwork.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 06 August, 2015, 11:06:06 pm
There used to be a rail bridge across the Severn Estuary which was destroyed when two fuel barges collided with it in 1960.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 06 August, 2015, 11:30:44 pm
What one of my friends might look like in 20 years time having seen his doppelgänger on an online documentary.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 07 August, 2015, 09:34:20 am
More proof that time travellers are among us.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 07 August, 2015, 01:39:33 pm
That a smidgen is a genuine measurement!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 07 August, 2015, 03:21:51 pm
That Shimano 11-speed cassettes have many separate sprockety and spacery bits that like to fly in many different directions. At least it makes it easy to clean. :-\
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 07 August, 2015, 08:20:51 pm
People are very amused by the sight of a cat out for a walk with his owner, without a lead or harness.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cycleman on 08 August, 2015, 08:54:36 am
Mine follows me as far as the end of the estate when I am on the wheelchair ☺ .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 August, 2015, 11:31:58 am
Bad Cat will follow me to the swimming pool. OK as far as the 100 steep steps up the hill at which point she stops and gives me the 'Srsly?' look.

Edit: Oh yeah, I forget, and then I have to carry a loudly miaowing cat back down the hill to the house, which I am sure makes it look like I'm kidnapping her.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 08 August, 2015, 12:43:51 pm
Taking Pete for a walk is like going with a toddler. It can take over an hour to do 200 yards because we have to stop and sniff or inspect every doorway, every cat flap, every car wheel, every car underside, every puddle, every tree... And we have to sit down and refuse to move every time we hear a car.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 08 August, 2015, 05:53:05 pm
I think Pete may be humouring you: why do you need to do all this sniffing?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 08 August, 2015, 09:14:15 pm
Not today, but this week, I discovered the traumatic fact that, as a child, I preferred Bridlington to Scarborough.

I am considering therapy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 14 August, 2015, 08:35:20 pm
That a 32mm Park headset spanner can be used to tighten up a bath tap.  Never used it on a headset so don't know if it's any good for that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 15 August, 2015, 07:47:36 pm
That there is such a thing as a satirical chess magazine
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 15 August, 2015, 07:53:55 pm
That one-coat radiator paint is the worst 'paint' I have ever applied and it does not do what it says on the tin.

Next time I'm using spray paint and hang the expense.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 15 August, 2015, 08:23:26 pm
Use rad enamel.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 15 August, 2015, 09:55:26 pm
Apparently I am.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 15 August, 2015, 10:04:51 pm
Sigh...... ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 16 August, 2015, 03:17:03 pm
Not today, but yesterday, I have learnt that my condition also can cause me to suffer from Iritis!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uveitis
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 18 August, 2015, 08:17:21 pm
DotBike closed down over a year ago.  Bugger.   

Bit slow on the uptake here, but I only ever bought stuff from them over the counter so didn't get the closing down e-mail.  This is jolly annoying as I'd planned to cycle over on Friday afternoon and buy some glare shields for my Ixon IQs (cardboard doesn't work too well in the wet).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 18 August, 2015, 10:50:57 pm
That every time the heating system is drained down, the boiler has an expensive hissy fit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: numbnuts on 19 August, 2015, 09:11:18 am
That the song Turn turn turn  was from the book of Ecclesiastes I didn't know that         
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 August, 2015, 11:16:57 am
There used to be a rail bridge across the Severn Estuary which was destroyed when two fuel barges collided with it in 1960.
You can still see the remains of it alongside the Sharpness Canal and at very low water levels even the tops of the piers in the river bed are just about visible. There is a theory that the piers were damaged from an earlier collision and that, rather than the fire, is what really brought it down.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 19 August, 2015, 11:22:08 am
That the song Turn turn turn  was from the book of Ecclesiastes I didn't know that       

Today I have learned numbnuts has not seen Footloose (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087277/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_68) (relevant quote (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087277/quotes?item=qt0949053)).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 21 August, 2015, 05:00:04 pm
The meaning of the term 'cuckoo smurfing'
http://news.stv.tv/tayside/1327099-muhammed-hameed-saleem-shikari-and-shahid-aslam-guilty-of-cash-scam/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 August, 2015, 01:13:11 am
That if I turn off the Bluetooth squeaker in the bathroom the Babbage-Engine will revert to sending sound to the amplifier.  I hereby apologise to the neighbours for the full-throttle burst of moody riffmeister Ritchie Blackmore just now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 22 August, 2015, 01:16:06 am
No problem.  I thought it was the pub.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 August, 2015, 09:54:41 pm
That buckwheat is related to sorrel.

That the British Empire started on 20 May 1497 in Bristol docks, according to at least one person's reckoning.

And,  sticking with the transatlantic link but more surprisingly, that Bristol is just like New York. So says Huey Morgan of Fun Lovin Criminals:
Quote
What do you think of Bristol?

I have a love for the people of Bristol who I met through FLC and they have shown me real, ‘frontline’ Bristol and I see more and more similarities with New York there than any other UK city. It’s a port city, so is NYC; we see things for what they really are, and I love me some of that. Big yourself up, Bristol!

But it is true that buckwheat is related to sorrel!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 26 August, 2015, 10:29:19 pm
There are some really good local small companies!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 27 August, 2015, 01:32:03 pm
That Google maps streetview now marks places you can see inside with an amber blob. Some fun places, like the Hackney Empire (https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.54557,-0.0557986,3a,75y,351.13h,100.55t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sXDRGMiyJm9bl0el4SbjtLA!2e0!3e2!7i13312!8i6656) and odd, like Attic Self Storage (https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5344636,-0.0224501,3a,75y,316.35h,61.62t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s254oAQxr9a4AAAAGOptQkQ!2e0!3e2!7i13312!8i6656). I have a new conference call time wasting tool.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 27 August, 2015, 03:13:32 pm
That Google maps streetview now marks places you can see inside with an amber blob. Some fun places, like the Hackney Empire (https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.54557,-0.0557986,3a,75y,351.13h,100.55t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sXDRGMiyJm9bl0el4SbjtLA!2e0!3e2!7i13312!8i6656) and odd, like Attic Self Storage (https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5344636,-0.0224501,3a,75y,316.35h,61.62t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s254oAQxr9a4AAAAGOptQkQ!2e0!3e2!7i13312!8i6656). I have a new conference call time wasting tool.

And this is where we have small group tutorials with the students. It even has Narwhals. (check the hooves on those..)
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Darcy+thompson+museum/@56.4577774,-2.9785829,3a,75y,328.33h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sfAVQ-Uk3PbgfHGKcDc-rMg!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xc411526445296b79?sa=X&ved=0CHsQoB8wDGoVChMI6dWG_bjJxwIVxD4UCh3i-gig
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 28 August, 2015, 06:15:26 pm
That whereas everyone else has an "Unexpected item in the bagging area", Morrison's have a " Surprising item on the scale".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 30 August, 2015, 07:51:34 pm
Isn't that indecent exposure?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 07 September, 2015, 09:00:35 pm
Rudest plant name ever: https://www.burncoose.co.uk/site/plants.cfm?pl_id=3813&fromplants=pl%5Fid%3D3811
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 07 September, 2015, 09:09:51 pm
Rudest plant name ever: https://www.burncoose.co.uk/site/plants.cfm?pl_id=3813&fromplants=pl%5Fid%3D3811

I see that and raise you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallus_impudicus

Quote
Botanist John Gerard called it the "pricke mushroom" or "fungus virilis penis effigie" in his General Historie of Plants of 1597, and John Parkinson referred to it as "Hollanders workingtoole" or "phallus hollandicus" in his Theatrum botanicum of 1640.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 07 September, 2015, 09:37:33 pm
Back in the SFW world, not me, but No1Daughter just found out that St Pancras is not, in fact, St Pancreas.
 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ashaman42 on 12 September, 2015, 05:11:15 pm
Back in the SFW world, not me, but No1Daughter just found out that St Pancras is not, in fact, St Pancreas.
 ;D

Huh, well whadya know. I have also learnt a thing  :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JonBuoy on 12 September, 2015, 05:24:02 pm
When my GPS shows that I am slap bang on the purple line of my pre-planned route but I still can't see the trail that I am supposed to be following then the word 'tunnel' should occur to me before I start cursing Mr Garmin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 September, 2015, 01:54:45 am
That opening a bottle of Fizzy Pop in 30+ degree heat and a mile above sea level is best not done when driving at 70 mph :-\
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 14 September, 2015, 08:43:50 am
That opening a bottle of Fizzy Pop in 30+ degree heat and a mile above sea level is best not done when driving at 70 mph :-\

TPIUWOV ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 14 September, 2015, 09:24:51 am
That opening a bottle of Fizzy Pop in 30+ degree heat and a mile above sea level is best not done when driving at 70 mph :-\

So, not content with turning a Mustang into a Mudstang, you're doing a number on the interior . . . ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 14 September, 2015, 09:39:49 am
That opening a bottle of Fizzy Pop in 30+ degree heat and a mile above sea level is best not done when driving at 70 mph :-\

About 10 years ago, on holiday in Austria, I discovered that opening a bottle of pop that had sat on the balcony all night leads to a frozen fountain of pop everywhere!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 14 September, 2015, 11:01:35 pm
That opening a bottle of Fizzy Pop in 30+ degree heat and a mile above sea level is best not done when driving at 70 mph :-\
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ySt9SeZl9s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ySt9SeZl9s)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 September, 2015, 05:16:29 am
That opening a bottle of Fizzy Pop in 30+ degree heat and a mile above sea level is best not done when driving at 70 mph :-\

So, not content with turning a Mustang into a Mudstang, you're doing a number on the interior . . . ?

Fortunately I had the roof down so was able to hold it at arm's length and spray ID-51 with it instead of myself, the door trims, the headlining, ect. ect.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 15 September, 2015, 12:53:39 pm
That opening a bottle of Fizzy Pop in 30+ degree heat and a mile above sea level is best not done when driving at 70 mph :-\

TPIUWOV ;D

I Googled that and Google thought I was looking of TPOWIS (The Power of Women in Spandex)...  ;D

Still haven't worked it out - care to elaborate?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 15 September, 2015, 12:57:07 pm
That opening a bottle of Fizzy Pop in 30+ degree heat and a mile above sea level is best not done when driving at 70 mph :-\

TPIUWOV ;D

I Googled that and Google thought I was looking of TPOWIS (The Power of Women in Spandex)...  ;D

Still haven't worked it out - care to elaborate?

This Post Is Useless WithOut Video?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 15 September, 2015, 01:38:48 pm
That opening a bottle of Fizzy Pop in 30+ degree heat and a mile above sea level is best not done when driving at 70 mph :-\

TPIUWOV ;D

I Googled that and Google thought I was looking of TPOWIS (The Power of Women in Spandex)...  ;D

Still haven't worked it out - care to elaborate?

This Post Is Useless WithOut Video?

Wot Spesh said.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 15 September, 2015, 02:26:10 pm
Yebbut TPOWIS is  :thumbsup:  So, indirectly, thanks! (only joking, I haven't looked... no, honest...!)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 16 September, 2015, 09:09:55 pm
That headphones really can get down to 16Hz and below.  Just treated myself to a pair of sennheiser hd380pro, and testing that fact out.  Mrs W asked why that was so important,  so I pointed out that a 32ft organ pipe is 16Hz, and I'm currently proving the point with Daniel Roth on the organ of St  Sulpice.   I think my head is about to dissolve. That is gooooood. They also seem to work well with Gilbert Rowland punishing a harpsichord with the creations of Antonio Soler.  A good purchase,  methinks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 September, 2015, 11:05:50 pm
Cor!  I thought my late, lamented[1] HD25SPs were good, bottoming out at about 25Hz or something.

(TBH, it's the top end I really noticed.  Or did, back in the days when my hearing[2] went higher than about 15kHz.)


[1] Replaced with the now legendary Bose QC15.  Because noise cancellation makes for a better listening experience for 95% of the time I'm using headphones than good sound reproduction.
[2] Audiologically fine.  Because audiologists don't believe there's anything important above above 6kHz.  Don't let an audiologist fettle your bike, especially if it has disc brakes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedal Castro on 17 September, 2015, 06:11:01 am
That headphones really can get down to 16Hz and below.  Just treated myself to a pair of sennheiser hd380pro, and testing that fact out.  Mrs W asked why that was so important,  so I pointed out that a 32ft organ pipe is 16Hz, and I'm currently proving the point with Daniel Roth on the organ of St  Sulpice.   I think my head is about to dissolve. That is gooooood. They also seem to work well with Gilbert Rowland punishing a harpsichord with the creations of Antonio Soler.  A good purchase,  methinks.

Interesting, I thought that 20Hz was the lower limit of human hearing and anything below that would be heard as separate sounds. I can remember doing an experiment in my early teaching days which supported this figure. Is the sound from a 32' organ pipe a discernible pulsing sound?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 17 September, 2015, 08:31:21 am
Oh, yes, very definitely so.  Sort of farting, pulsing, or in the case of St Sulpice, if you are there in person, a bit like thinking someone has rested the end of a pneumatic drill on your chest and pulled the trigger.  16Hz is a bit odd, but apparently an organ in Sydney has 64ft pipes. What the hell that sounds like I cannot grasp. 8Hz, obviously, but presumably like 16 but half the speed.  i struggle to grasp how we can "hear" the individual pulses, but my knowledge of audio physics is lacking.

I was amused by ther specs of some of these heaphones, top end went up to 32KHz on some of them.  A bit of an academic pint as I won't be lending them to a bat, they're too big, for a start.

I flinched at the harpsichord bits, Gilbert Rowland can be a vicious harsichord thrasher, but the hardness of the attack really came through on these 'phones.  It says they are rated for 108dB.... Hmm, not sure of the wisdom of that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 September, 2015, 12:54:51 pm
Oh, yes, very definitely so.  Sort of farting, pulsing, or in the case of St Sulpice, if you are there in person, a bit like thinking someone has rested the end of a pneumatic drill on your chest and pulled the trigger.  16Hz is a bit odd, but apparently an organ in Sydney has 64ft pipes. What the hell that sounds like I cannot grasp. 8Hz, obviously, but presumably like 16 but half the speed.  i struggle to grasp how we can "hear" the individual pulses, but my knowledge of audio physics is lacking.

You seem to get to the point where the cochlea doesn't respond, but you can still feel it through your skin / hairs.  Obviously with headphones that's limited to the ears, while the effect tends to work better on the rest of the body.


Quote
I was amused by ther specs of some of these heaphones, top end went up to 32KHz on some of them.  A bit of an academic pint as I won't be lending them to a bat, they're too big, for a start.

I think that's mostly about achieving a decently linear response, rather than it being useful range.  Nyquist limits you to 22kHz on most commercial recordings, anyway.  That said, on a good day in my yoof I could hear 25kHz.

I suppose 32kHz is ideal if you want to play high-sample-rate binaural wildlife recordings to your cat...


Quote
It says they are rated for 108dB.... Hmm, not sure of the wisdom of that.

The HD25 can do 114dB (when driven by a sufficiently decent amplifier; the impedance mismatch makes them feeble when fed by the average portable device).  That's loud enough for barakta to hear properly - along with anyone else in the room.

It seems to be a desirable feature amongst certain types of electronic musician, who need monitoring that's audible over the ear-damagingly loud sound they're making.   :hand:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Morat on 18 September, 2015, 12:58:23 pm
I learnt today that when VMWare syncs time between the host and a Virtual machine, it jumps the clock forward if the VM clock is slow but if the VM Clock is fast is RUNS TIME MORE SLOWLY  in the VM until the clocks agree. How cool is that?
It also makes VMWare even more of a spoiler for Inception than ever.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 September, 2015, 01:17:09 pm
It also makes VMWare even more of a spoiler for Inception than ever.

 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 21 September, 2015, 09:43:22 pm
That Pete Conrad and Al Bean were stark bollock naked when they jettisoned the LEM from the command module while in Lunar orbit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 September, 2015, 07:02:16 am
That Oregon does not have sales tax, so the price on the label on the shelf is the actual price you actually pay.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 23 September, 2015, 11:24:28 pm
That Owayo shirts say wash at 30oC on the label. Washing my YACF jerseys at 40oC for the last few years doesn't seem to have damaged them :-\
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 September, 2015, 12:03:16 am
That Owayo shirts say wash at 30oC on the label. Washing my YACF jerseys at 40oC for the last few years doesn't seem to have damaged them :-\

They're pleasingly resilient, as long as you don't shoulder-barge too many canal bridges in them.   :thumbsup:

I can't help wondering what the accuracy of the average washing machine's temperature control is anyway.  But not to the point of getting covered in irritant bodging a DS18B20 past the seal.  The cynic in me would guess that they run cool in order to fudge the energy consumption rating...   ;)


(I generally work on the principle that if it can't go in the 40C synthetics wash with everything else, then it's far too much effort.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 24 September, 2015, 12:31:31 am
Quote
The cynic in me would guess that they run cool in order to fudge the energy consumption rating...

I didn't think VW made washing machines**





**Mind you, that was before I looked at an Up!  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 October, 2015, 12:03:06 pm
That Owayo shirts say wash at 30oC on the label. Washing my YACF jerseys at 40oC for the last few years doesn't seem to have damaged them :-\

They're pleasingly resilient, as long as you don't shoulder-barge too many canal bridges in them.   :thumbsup:

I can't help wondering what the accuracy of the average washing machine's temperature control is anyway.  But not to the point of getting covered in irritant bodging a DS18B20 past the seal.  The cynic in me would guess that they run cool in order to fudge the energy consumption rating...   ;)


(I generally work on the principle that if it can't go in the 40C synthetics wash with everything else, then it's far too much effort.)
The complete cynic in you would suspect they run cool when they detect a test cycle to reduce energy consumption, hot when they detect a test cycle for washing efficiency and about right in normal use.  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 01 October, 2015, 12:19:21 pm
That Owayo shirts say wash at 30oC on the label. Washing my YACF jerseys at 40oC for the last few years doesn't seem to have damaged them :-\

They're pleasingly resilient, as long as you don't shoulder-barge too many canal bridges in them.   :thumbsup:

I can't help wondering what the accuracy of the average washing machine's temperature control is anyway.  But not to the point of getting covered in irritant bodging a DS18B20 past the seal.  The cynic in me would guess that they run cool in order to fudge the energy consumption rating...   ;)


(I generally work on the principle that if it can't go in the 40C synthetics wash with everything else, then it's far too much effort.)
The complete cynic in you would suspect they run cool when they detect a test cycle to reduce energy consumption, hot when they detect a test cycle for washing efficiency and about right in normal use.  :demon:

Not much scope for detecting the test conditions, though.

I could imagine running by the book for the first n washes, then upping the power or water consumption to do a better job...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 01 October, 2015, 10:12:00 pm
That Harry Gration still talks to the nation.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Raj on 01 October, 2015, 10:19:27 pm
Tonight, I have learnt that 'Mosaic' from Nobby's Brewery of Northampton is a mighty fine real ale .........  8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Raj on 01 October, 2015, 11:09:44 pm
Quote
The cynic in me would guess that they run cool in order to fudge the energy consumption rating...

I didn't think VW made washing machines**

**Mind you, that was before I looked at an Up!  :demon:

 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 02 October, 2015, 01:46:59 pm
Quote
The cynic in me would guess that they run cool in order to fudge the energy consumption rating...

I didn't think VW made washing machines**





**Mind you, that was before I looked at an Up!  :demon:

It's a little known fact that the beetle was initially designed as the peoples washing machine. It was only when they couldn't fix the vibration problems that made it wander round the floor that they thought about repurposing it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 02 October, 2015, 04:32:53 pm
A joke only ruined by the fact that of its various faults, vibration is not one of them.  The engines will sit untethered on a pallet and run, and not wander off or shake anything to bits.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 03 October, 2015, 07:45:14 pm
That Owayo shirts say wash at 30oC on the label. Washing my YACF jerseys at 40oC for the last few years doesn't seem to have damaged them :-\

They're pleasingly resilient, as long as you don't shoulder-barge too many canal bridges in them.   :thumbsup:
I can vouch for that, except for the barge bridge barging bit
Quote
I can't help wondering what the accuracy of the average washing machine's temperature control is anyway.  But not to the point of getting covered in irritant bodging a DS18B20 past the seal.  The cynic in me would guess that they run cool in order to fudge the energy consumption rating...   ;)
I would have thought a Kim solution would have been a waterproofed minion skeleton (kinder egg insert) containing battery, wireless module and temperature sensor) would have been more appropriate bodgery (corrected back from the autocorrupt's badger)
Quote
(I generally work on the principle that if it can't go in the 40C synthetics wash with everything else, then it's far too much effort.)

That is my mother's rule. If it can't go in XXX wash then you are doing it yourself. I have followed that line too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 06 October, 2015, 11:15:59 am
That there appears to be a British Standard for just about anything:

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/inthroughtheoutfield/2011/12/british-standard-for-a-cup-of-tea-bs-6008-revisited.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 06 October, 2015, 12:33:04 pm
I thought the only 'standard' applied to tea was 'NATO'.

Milk & 2 sugars . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 October, 2015, 04:14:23 pm
There is an ISO Standard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3103).

(Has a nice cup of tea and a sit down)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 06 October, 2015, 04:19:32 pm
1) That my Berghaus coat needs re-proofing.

2) That the weather gods truly believe that timing is the essence of comedy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 07 October, 2015, 03:37:50 pm
There is an ISO Standard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3103).

(Has a nice cup of tea and a sit down)

It's just the BS with a new cover page thobut.

(If anyone is really interested I have it as a PDF kicking around somewhere...)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 07 October, 2015, 08:01:49 pm
There is an ISO Standard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3103).

(Has a nice cup of tea and a sit down)

It is a standard for brewing tea for tasting and blending. Not for making and serving.

It's just the BS with a new cover page thobut.

(If anyone is really interested I have it as a PDF kicking around somewhere...)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 10 October, 2015, 06:50:41 pm
The Ukrainian word for otter (Lutra lutra) is видра [vydra].

As otters rarely come up in conversation, no surprise it's taken so long to encounter the word.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 12 October, 2015, 08:19:10 pm
When my mum's sisters Dorothy and Margaret were supposed to be babysitting their sister Freda, Dorothy didn't want to, so she tied Freda to a post on a building site and went for a swim.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 October, 2015, 06:07:54 pm
The Ukrainian word for otter (Lutra lutra) is видра [vydra].

As otters rarely come up in conversation, no surprise it's taken so long to encounter the word.
I would have known that.  :) I can't think when I might have had a conversation about wydra but I certainly have done at some time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 October, 2015, 07:04:46 pm
The origin of the phrase or saying "to have no truck with".  Nothing to do with lorries.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 October, 2015, 10:38:45 am
That on top of Solsbury Hill (the one Peter Gabriel sang about) there is an arboretum planted by suffragettes in the 1920s.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 16 October, 2015, 07:31:17 pm
People on forums don't like it (get annoyed, angry, sarcastic) when others disagree with them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 17 October, 2015, 09:20:54 am
Oh, you think so, do you?  Absolute rubbish, you nob-head.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 October, 2015, 09:57:15 am
Just the sort of ill-informed bollocks we've come to expect from that Plumtree character ;)

It is, as any fule kno, knobhead.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 17 October, 2015, 10:01:39 am
People on forums don't like it (get annoyed, angry, sarcastic) when others disagree with them.

No they don't!   >:(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 18 October, 2015, 05:37:35 am
Oh! Yes they do!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 18 October, 2015, 03:34:03 pm
He's behind you!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 18 October, 2015, 04:24:32 pm
This isn't argument, its simply contradiction.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 18 October, 2015, 05:03:19 pm
No it isn't!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 18 October, 2015, 05:05:20 pm
O yes it is!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 18 October, 2015, 05:10:05 pm
People on forums don't like it (get annoyed, angry, sarcastic) when others disagree with them.

Now look what you've started...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 18 October, 2015, 07:11:44 pm
Back on topic, you (not me, you blokes) can make your beards grow faster by thinking about sex more.

This is because thinking about sex raises your testosterone levels, apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 October, 2015, 07:14:14 pm
This is because thinking about sex raises your testosterone levels, apparently.

I always thought it was the other way round...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: DDCyclist on 19 October, 2015, 11:04:57 am
I've just found this thread so I'll play a little catchup.

Friday: That if you buy a used bike you should check everything thoroughly after you've got it home. Even if everything you do check is ok, there will be a problem with anything you don't check.

I didn't check the back tyre thoroughly enough on my new-to-me MTB because I was going to strip and re-grease the hub, and tighten a few spokes, after getting a freewheel remover and nipple wrench. Turns out the side-walls were too far gone (great tread though). Bought a few parts including a puncture repair kit (knowing that if I already had one the rubber solution would have dried up while languishing in a garden shed for years). Walked home. :(

There was a seriously muddy stretch on the shortest route home. Learned that flat tyres fill up with mud and water. Cleaning that out can wash/brush away evidence of what caused the puncture making it difficult to find the damage to the tyre. :facepalm:

Saturday: Relearned how to fix a punctured inner tube. Also learned that rubber solution doesn't always dry up while languishing in a garden shed for years. Now have (hopefully) far too many patches. :-\

Sunday: Learned about a bike parts/tools supplier who seems to have everything at a reasonable price. Cheaper than Hal****'s, and certainly cheaper than the dealers around me who seem to think that cycling is a rich man's game and no-one could possibly be capable of maintaining their own bike (or want to, for that matter). Parts and tools ordered. :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 October, 2015, 11:23:32 am
Good things to learn, Dangerous Disastrous Cyclist!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 19 October, 2015, 02:18:32 pm
Kate Winslet (my favourite actress) has said she doesn't use social meeja. Not because of any moral high ground you understand but simply because "when it comes to using gadgets [she] breaks things without even looking at them".  (She will play Joanna Hoffman, Apple's former international head of marketing, in the forthcoming film about Steve Jobs)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: DDCyclist on 19 October, 2015, 04:59:11 pm
Good things to learn, Dangerous Disastrous Cyclist!  :thumbsup:

Who? Me?

Seriously, most of my pre-puncture ride was on a trailway so not particularly dangerous. Scared the living daylights out of the couple I was riding past (and their dog) when it popped, though.  :demon:;D

As I intended to change the knobbly MTB tyres for something more suitable when they wore out I hoped to get a couple of months (at least) out of the ones that were on the bike when I bought it for the princely sum of £20. Frame's straight, bearings are all good, front wheel runs true, back wheel has a little wiggle which I'll deal with soon. Just needs a little work to turn it into a respectable, simple,  basic bike with very little to go wrong. Money well spent to acquire a bike that, when fettled, will be far more reliable than any BSO from the likes of Hal****s or Argos.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Thing2 on 22 October, 2015, 08:59:19 pm
That you really should always check to make sure nothing has fallen into your top loading washing machine before loading it.
Also, what happens when you wash your clothes with a copy of the yellow pages........
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 22 October, 2015, 09:38:45 pm
O.
Pictures?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Chris S on 22 October, 2015, 09:40:00 pm
O.
Pictures?

My guess. It'll be yellow(ish).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 22 October, 2015, 09:51:16 pm
And a bit pulpy...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 October, 2015, 10:04:16 pm
I wouldn't have thought there was enough paper in a modern Yellow Pages to cause more pulp than the average train ticket...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 22 October, 2015, 10:14:34 pm
I wouldn't have thought there was enough paper in a modern Yellow Pages to cause more pulp than the average train ticket...

Or a tenner.  :(  Bugger!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Thing2 on 22 October, 2015, 10:45:05 pm
I wouldn't have thought there was enough paper in a modern Yellow Pages to cause more pulp than the average train ticket...
While not being as thick as the ones I remember as a child, the local one here in silicon valley is still nearly an inch thick. *Everything* was grey. I almost threw out a sock as it looked just like a lump of wet paper.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 October, 2015, 12:13:24 pm
That one of my neighbours has the wonderful name Sascha and a surname ending in -aa. And that when Royal Mail employ new posties (I think he's a temp covering for hols – our normal postie is ace and a cyclist!) they don't necessarily read the envelopes (first he delivered ours with the neighbour's, then came back with something else for us, at which point I intercepted him and gave him Mr Sascha's post).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 28 October, 2015, 01:25:45 pm
Today I have learned that the disc coming loose on an 8in grinder (a cheap one without any motor braking) is Very Scary.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 28 October, 2015, 01:53:51 pm
Bet your heart rate was a trifle elevated till it stopped!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 28 October, 2015, 02:05:12 pm
YES <cough> yes. Sorry for the squeek.

It was an excellent quality, quite heavy, diamond disc in at the time.

That period before it came to rest (with at least another 1/4 turn on the boss) allowed for a fairly extended amount of introspection and speculation. I used to think that the rotation kept it done up, apparently not.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: DDCyclist on 28 October, 2015, 02:08:34 pm
Have you used it since?  :o

I learned that I must have worn my old cycling gloves with grubby mitts before I lost them in the deepest, darkest recesses of 'stuff that might be useful one day'.

Arrived at my destination with filthy hands.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 28 October, 2015, 05:08:44 pm
A disc cut is nasty, usually requiring that material also be removed from around the cut for healing to take place.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 28 October, 2015, 05:36:53 pm
By my calculation, the edge of a 230mm disc running at 6000rpm is moving at a velocity of 72m per second. Wow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 28 October, 2015, 09:26:29 pm
I only just figured out that the "Nes" in "Nescafe" is Nestle!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 29 October, 2015, 10:28:39 am
<Zarniwoop> 'DO try and keep up!' </Zarniwoop>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 29 October, 2015, 10:29:16 am
Google are using balloons to bring the internet to millions.  They will be kept aloft by hot air from social media.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 October, 2015, 01:18:24 pm
That Kerguelen Island was discovered two hundred years to the day before the Greasy Truckers Party at the Roundhouse.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 31 October, 2015, 12:19:16 am
Today I discovered that HMS Unicorn, the frigate built for the Napoleonic wars but never fitted with masts or sailed, and for a while the oldest floating ship in the Royal Navy, is also the only sailing ship to have taken the surrender of a submarine in war time. Despite the Unicorn never leaving the dockside, a german U-boat, U2326 made port in Dundee and formally surrendered to the officer in charge. The frigate was named the HMS Cressy at the time.

The U-boat was then handed over to the French, but sank whilst crossing the Bay of Biscay with the loss of all hands.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 November, 2015, 09:09:02 pm
Today I have discovered Arvo Pärt.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 03 November, 2015, 09:56:52 pm
Today I have discovered Arvo Pärt.

You lucky chap.  Such lovely music to encounter for the first time. :thumbsup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZe3mXlnfNc
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 03 November, 2015, 10:56:29 pm
That is gorgeous.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 November, 2015, 12:59:16 am
Today I have discovered Arvo Pärt.

And claimed it for the Empire?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 04 November, 2015, 03:12:30 pm
 CO2 bike tyre inflation cartridges are banned from passenger jets.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 04 November, 2015, 03:16:06 pm
Today I have discovered Arvo Pärt.

You lucky chap.  Such lovely music to encounter for the first time. :thumbsup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZe3mXlnfNc

Try the Advent O Antiphons - it will soon be the season!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 04 November, 2015, 04:38:17 pm
Tribology is the science and engineering of interacting surfaces in relative motion. It includes the study and application of the principles of friction, lubrication and wear.

Who knew, eh? Probably a few on here ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 November, 2015, 05:21:19 pm
(Sings)
When two tribologists go to war
One is all that you can score.

I thang yew!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 04 November, 2015, 08:06:10 pm
(Clouts Mr L round the lug)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Steph on 05 November, 2015, 08:01:33 am
 :sick:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34721419
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 05 November, 2015, 09:08:18 am
My work has a Stargate! :D

(unfortunately not that sort of stargate)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 November, 2015, 03:38:57 pm
Shame.  Dialling up P3W-451 would be a great way to dispose of unclear waste.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Katie on 05 November, 2015, 04:27:08 pm
If you spread a pancake half with Nutella and half with peanut butter, and then fold it along the line between the two, roll it up and eat it, it's tastes like what I imagine being in heaven feels like.

I love my job.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 05 November, 2015, 04:28:43 pm
If you spread a pancake half with Nutella and half with peanut butter, and then fold it along the line between the two, roll it up and eat it, it's tastes like what I imagine being in heaven feels like.

I love my job.

I soooooooo shouldn't have read that just before riding home in the pissing rain ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Katie on 05 November, 2015, 04:29:48 pm
If you spread a pancake half with Nutella and half with peanut butter, and then fold it along the line between the two, roll it up and eat it, it's tastes like what I imagine being in heaven feels like.

I love my job.

I soooooooo shouldn't have read that just before riding home in the pissing rain ::-)
I also don't have to ride anywhere until tomorrow, when it might have stopped raining.

Really love my job.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 05 November, 2015, 04:32:18 pm
If you spread a pancake half with Nutella and half with peanut butter, and then fold it along the line between the two, roll it up and eat it, it's tastes like what I imagine being in heaven feels like.

I love my job.

I soooooooo shouldn't have read that just before riding home in the pissing rain ::-)
I also don't have to ride anywhere until tomorrow, when it might have stopped raining.

Really love my job.

You can go right off people.

 ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 November, 2015, 04:34:53 pm
Does this mean you are an Official Pancake Tester? *rewrites CV: ...extensive pancake experience, MSc Pancakeology,... *
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Katie on 05 November, 2015, 04:35:01 pm
If you spread a pancake half with Nutella and half with peanut butter, and then fold it along the line between the two, roll it up and eat it, it's tastes like what I imagine being in heaven feels like.

I love my job.

I soooooooo shouldn't have read that just before riding home in the pissing rain ::-)
I also don't have to ride anywhere until tomorrow, when it might have stopped raining.

Really love my job.

You can go right off people.

 ;)

You don't want to do that, I make really good pancakes.

:D

Does this mean you are an Official Pancake Tester? *rewrites CV: ...extensive pancake experience, MSc Pancakeology,... *

Oh I wish. Nope, just making pancakes for someone else and getting to nom the leftovers. :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 06 November, 2015, 01:47:52 pm
There is a time capsule at the base of Cleopatra's needle

"On erection of the obelisk in 1878, a time capsule was concealed in the front part of the pedestal, containing : a set of 12 photographs of the best-looking English women of the day, a box of hairpins, a box of cigars, several tobacco pipes, a set of imperial weights, a baby's bottle, some children's toys, a shilling razor, a hydraulic jack and some samples of the cable used in the erection, a 3' bronze model of the monument, a complete set of contemporary British coins, a rupee, a portrait of Queen Victoria, a written history of the transport of the monument, plans on vellum, a translation of the inscriptions, copies of the Bible in several languages, a copy of John 3:16 in 215 languages,[6] a copy of Whitaker's Almanack, a Bradshaw Railway Guide, a map of London and copies of 10 daily newspapers."

I'm fascinated by the first item listed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 November, 2015, 01:56:13 pm
I'm fairly sure that's Victorian for 'pr0n'
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 November, 2015, 04:11:41 pm
I'm fairly sure that's Victorian for 'pr0n'

Probably showing their ankles, the brass huskies brazen hussies!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 November, 2015, 09:42:09 pm
That before ladybirds were called ladybirds, they were called ladycows. And that the 'lady' comes from a connection between the seven spots and the Seven Pains of Our Lady. In some languages they have names like 'Mary's beetle'.

I suppose this means that just as they are not birds or cows (nor true bugs, it turns out) the ones with different numbers of spots aren't really ladies!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 08 November, 2015, 11:43:56 am
That before ladybirds were called ladybirds, they were called ladycows. And that the 'lady' comes from a connection between the seven spots and the Seven Pains of Our Lady. In some languages they have names like 'Mary's beetle'.

I suppose this means that just as they are not birds or cows (nor true bugs, it turns out) the ones with different numbers of spots aren't really ladies!

In Norfolk they're called Bishy Barnabys after a local Bishop who had red and black vestments

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: matthew on 08 November, 2015, 08:45:16 pm
Today I have learnt the difference between "Reveille" and American military morning bugle call and "Rouse" the British military morning bugle call, sometimes called Reveille. Fortunately Rouse is much easier to play and I found out for I played Last Post and "Reveille".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 10 November, 2015, 04:35:36 pm
From last night's pub quiz.

Which colour smartie has a different flavoured chocolate from all the others?

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 10 November, 2015, 06:53:57 pm
IIRC it's because the orange ones are made with orange chocolate rather than because of any property of the shell.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Katie on 10 November, 2015, 07:22:15 pm
If your AeroPress hasn't formed a proper seal when you turn it upside down, things get messy.

By things, I mean a large quantity of kitchen, the crotch of your jeans, the insides of the closed kitchen cupboards…
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 10 November, 2015, 08:46:05 pm
If you spread a pancake half with Nutella and half with peanut butter, and then fold it along the line between the two, roll it up and eat it, it's tastes like what I imagine being in heaven feels like.

I love my job.

Oh yum, that sounds almost as good as the chocolate and chestnut puree pancake I buy in Val d'Isere :P :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 10 November, 2015, 09:00:14 pm
If you spread a pancake half with Nutella and half with peanut butter, and then fold it along the line between the two, roll it up and eat it, it's tastes like what I imagine being in heaven feels like.

I love my job.

Oh yum, that sounds almost as good as the chocolate and chestnut puree pancake I buy in Val d'Isere :P :P
First World Problem Thread is
<-------------------------------- Thataway  ;) :-*
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 10 November, 2015, 09:12:03 pm
That Robert Orben exists

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/robert_orben.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 11 November, 2015, 08:46:12 am
Gotham, the village in Notts, is directly linked to Gotham City, of Batman fame.  This is due to it's reputation, in the Middle Ages, of being a village of lunatics.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 11 November, 2015, 12:42:44 pm
Gotham, the village in Notts, is directly linked to Gotham City, of Batman fame.  This is due to it's reputation, in the Middle Ages, of being a village of lunatics.
...but of course it's not pronounced the same (Goat'em)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 November, 2015, 12:47:19 pm
Oddly every time I've been through Gotham I've seen someone on an electric bike.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 November, 2015, 01:13:33 pm
Gotham, the village in Notts, is directly linked to Gotham City, of Batman fame.  This is due to it's reputation, in the Middle Ages, of being a village of lunatics.

That has triggered a memory of a tale in one of my early reading books of the people of Gotham, Notts, pretending to be mad in order to make the lackeys of The Man go away and leave them in peace.  It was probably an allegorical reference1 to the Vietnam Police Action.  Man.

1: Lie.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 11 November, 2015, 09:55:41 pm
I was on a personal safety course yesterday, and the facilitator guy told us that the thing about knowledge is, if you're in the know, you've got the edge.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 11 November, 2015, 10:25:27 pm
I was on a personal safety course yesterday, and the facilitator guy told us that the thing about knowledge is, if you're in the know, you've got the edge.
Was he from Unthinkable Solutions? Or maybe he was played by Ricky Gervais. Either way, did you manage not to laugh?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 11 November, 2015, 10:39:21 pm
I was on a personal safety course yesterday, and the facilitator guy told us that the thing about knowledge is, if you're in the know, you've got the edge.
Was he from Unthinkable Solutions? Or maybe he was played by Ricky Gervais. Either way, did you manage not to laugh?

Please tell me that someone managed to respond with a straight face and tell him they'd always thought that if they were in the know, they were on a ledge.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 12 November, 2015, 07:01:09 am
That the Chief Design Officer at Apple comes from Chingford and went to Newcastle Poly

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/11988396/Jony-Ive-interview-The-story-of-the-Apple-Pencil.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 November, 2015, 03:35:32 pm
That Maria Curie, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Irene Joliot-Curie and Ada Yonath never actually existed. In fact, old Skłodowska-Curie was doubly nonexistent. Or so a local 'news' site would have me believe.
Quote
Dorothy Hodgkin, Chancellor of the University of Bristol (1971 to 1988), was the first British woman to win the Nobel Prize for science. She remains the only woman to have received this award.
Oh, and that there is a "Nobel Prize for Science".  ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 12 November, 2015, 03:37:58 pm
I was on a personal safety course yesterday, and the facilitator guy told us that the thing about knowledge is, if you're in the know, you've got the edge.
Was he from Unthinkable Solutions? Or maybe he was played by Ricky Gervais. Either way, did you manage not to laugh?

Please tell me that someone managed to respond with a straight face and tell him they'd always thought that if they were in the know, they were on a ledge.

That was my comment on FB. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 12 November, 2015, 05:58:33 pm
More confirmed than learned, to be honest:  I posses too much crappe. 

I've tossed out loads of stuff recently.  Even once I shift all the boxen of stuff I'm storing for a friend who had to suddenly return to Singapore (not ideal in a one bedroom flat) there are still too many TPoC.
Apologies for drifting into Grumble/FWP territory.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 12 November, 2015, 06:08:19 pm
That if you divide a mass of Ura stuff into spheres of diameter 'x', or cubes of side 'x', the pile of stuff you have has the same total surface area.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 12 November, 2015, 06:35:00 pm
That my mate Ian has had a hair transplant, and that's why he has such great hair.

Could've knocked me down with a feather!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 13 November, 2015, 09:18:20 am
That if you divide a mass of Ura stuff into spheres of diameter 'x', or cubes of side 'x', the pile of stuff you have has the same total surface area.
Yep, 6V/x
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrew on 13 November, 2015, 11:51:54 am
That Adam Purple was quite an incredible chap. An unsung inspiration.

thevillager.com/2015/09/15/adam-purple-legendary-gardener-84-is-dead-was-biking-across-williamsburg-bridge/ (http://thevillager.com/2015/09/15/adam-purple-legendary-gardener-84-is-dead-was-biking-across-williamsburg-bridge/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 13 November, 2015, 07:58:41 pm
Two curious discoveries today: The Williams sisters are vegan, and that Darth Vader had an affair with John Peel's mum.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 14 November, 2015, 11:08:08 am
That shaving with a straight razor is something that will require a lot of practice!    Not as smooth a result as my usual DE razor and a few nicks  :o

Keep watching the videos ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IGMcZjTWOw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IGMcZjTWOw)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 16 November, 2015, 11:05:05 am
That shaving with a straight razor is something that will require a lot of practice!    Not as smooth a result as my usual DE razor and a few nicks  :o

Keep watching the videos ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IGMcZjTWOw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IGMcZjTWOw)

I could have told you that...... sage advice from a bloke who has bled buckets for the cause of straight razor use.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 17 November, 2015, 08:01:32 pm
Transplant corneas are very readily available in the USA but are in short supply in the UK.  Why is that? I asked my opthalmologist.  Without a second's hesitation, he replied, "Gunshot wounds".  Apparently it's true, and the tissue is usually very high quality because these are mostly younger people who could aim a firearm (although not quite well enough, it seems).  He says that the current ban on importing donor corneas from abroad is likely to be relaxed so we can start getting some of the beneficial by-products of their stupid gun laws.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 November, 2015, 09:08:00 am
Similarly, I've heard that certain transplant organs have become scarcer in UK due to falling road deaths.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 20 November, 2015, 09:43:25 pm
Not sure if I've learned this or not, as Wikipedia has no mention of it.
Bloke in the pub tonight works on Estates at BU.  He reckons that Old Joe used to double as a water tower.  Many years ago, obv.  But he told me that the old tank was only taken out a few years ago.  It had to be cut up to get it out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 20 November, 2015, 11:46:34 pm
Not sure if I've learned this or not, as Wikipedia has no mention of it.
Bloke in the pub tonight works on Estates at BU.  He reckons that Old Joe used to double as a water tower.  Many years ago, obv.  But he told me that the old tank was only taken out a few years ago.  It had to be cut up to get it out.

UoB page (http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/alumni/Currentstudents/OldJoeNewFriends.aspx) reckons he's wrong - but only WRT to the 'used to.'

Quote
He’s not just a pretty face - Old Joe is also a water tower and services the University!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 25 November, 2015, 09:20:58 am
"Fiesta Island Fun"  (http://www.ride-fit.com/Shopping/Ride-Fit-Fiesta-Island-Fun.html)is all about cycling, who would have guessed?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 November, 2015, 10:27:35 am
"Fiesta Island Fun"  (http://www.ride-fit.com/Shopping/Ride-Fit-Fiesta-Island-Fun.html)is all about cycling, who would have guessed?

I would, coz some of my USAnian mates do TTs at Fiesta Island ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 November, 2015, 02:06:56 am
That the aeroplane used in Mad Max 3 was an actual proper aeroplane (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transavia_PL-12_Airtruk) and not something knocked up in a film company Sheds by some Outback grease monkey :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 26 November, 2015, 11:04:30 am
Oh that!  Have you seen what it's based on (Bennett Airtruck)?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 November, 2015, 05:35:59 pm
Oh that!  Have you seen what it's based on (Bennett Airtruck)?

By the miracle of Wikinaccurate, yes.  Is there something in the water Down There?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 28 November, 2015, 12:43:30 am
I suppose this is something I ought to have known.  But I didn't.

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=94483.msg1951425#msg1951425

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 28 November, 2015, 11:07:27 am
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that there are at least 95,000 topics and over 1.95 million posts on YACF...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 December, 2015, 07:31:20 pm
That the "Susie" referred to in the lyrics of Van Def Graaf Generator's Refugees is actress Susan Penhaligon
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 10 December, 2015, 07:53:01 pm
This evening I learned what barn doors are (in relation to lighting).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 10 December, 2015, 08:24:03 pm
This evening I learned what barn doors are (in relation to lighting).

Next lesson:  Tophats and Gobos.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 11 December, 2015, 03:32:07 pm
This evening I learned what barn doors are (in relation to lighting).

Next lesson:  Tophats and Gobos.

Ahem. Ahem. I suspect Andrij would rather be booked into the redhead session.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 11 December, 2015, 09:34:02 pm
The cryptic lyrics to the Happy Mondays song "Russell" are actually, verbatim,  the back cover blurb of Russell Grant's book "Sun Signs".  Except that Shaun Ryder replaces "What Makes the Sign Tick" with "What Makes The Twat Tick"  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 13 December, 2015, 06:45:28 pm
London noses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Noses)!!!  I've lived in this city 16 years and have only just learned about these. 

I must now find them all.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 14 December, 2015, 11:38:03 am
London noses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Noses)!!!  I've lived in this city 16 years and have only just learned about these. 

I must now find them all.
The tutor on my Art Foundation course used to make plaster of Paris noses. But his name was Ben.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 14 December, 2015, 12:50:06 pm
Trinity House, the lighthouse people, received their first charter from Henry VIII in 1514.

The first Highway Act was intended to improve the state of England's roads and was passed in 1555. It didn't make any difference to the state of the roads, it just shifted responsibility for their upkeep from Manorial officials* to the Parochial Surveyors of Highways**.



*who weren't doing their job

**who didn't do theirs, either
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 14 December, 2015, 02:48:15 pm
This evening I learned what barn doors are (in relation to lighting).

Next lesson:  Tophats and Gobos.

That might be awkward, as a TV lighting gobo is a different beast from a theatre one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 December, 2015, 05:00:39 pm
I done learned that the Nazis were extracting oil from shale in Estonia during WW2.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 17 December, 2015, 12:32:21 am
That Japan is the only 'developed' country in the world where the law insists that married couples must have the same surname.  The law does not stipulate which partner makes the change.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 December, 2015, 01:10:47 am
I done learned that the Nazis were extracting oil from shale in Estonia during WW2.
Oil was being extracted from shale in the late 19th century, though maybe not in Estonia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 17 December, 2015, 04:39:42 pm
Wahoo! My preferred exercise logging software comes up with the announcement "your heart is about to explode" if my heart rate exceeds a certain level.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: offcumden on 17 December, 2015, 09:30:56 pm
Wahoo! My preferred exercise logging software comes up with the announcement "your heart is about to explode" if my heart rate exceeds a certain level.

How can you be sure it isn't?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 December, 2015, 01:37:10 pm
That "the other Somerset Monument" and the ponds called Duchesses Pond, both in the grounds of Stoke Park, were moved to their present positions to make way for the M32.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 25 December, 2015, 10:30:04 am
Ben Goldacre (the Bad Science bloke) is the  daughter of seventies pop star Noosha Fox.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 25 December, 2015, 11:04:34 am
Ben Goldacre (the Bad Science bloke) is the  daughter of seventies pop star Noosha Fox.
It would be less surprising, but still interesting, to hear that Ben is Noosha's son.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 25 December, 2015, 11:12:07 am
Ben Goldacre (the Bad Science bloke) is the  daughter of seventies pop star Noosha Fox.
It would be less surprising, but still interesting, to hear that Ben is Noosha's son.
Ah. Really bad science, obvs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 December, 2015, 11:43:44 am
That Sir Richard Turnbull, penultimate BRITISH High Commissioner of Aden, told Denis Healey that the final relics of the BRITISH Empire would be the game of Association Football and the phrase or saying "Fuck Off!"

Needless to say, this has brightened up an otherwise rather dull morning.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 January, 2016, 09:53:29 am
A couple of days ago, in fact, I learned from my nephew, who was doing some work experience jaunt on Bloodhound which somehow included a visit to Downing Street, that there is a Tracey Emin in the hall of Number Ten. It's a neon sign that says More Passion. I'm not sure if it was a purchase by Cameron himself but they bought the original and found it was too big to fit in so they asked her to make a smaller one. They got More Passion and asked for less.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 January, 2016, 10:21:45 am
A bit like "Fun-Size" Mars Bars then.  What's fun about less chocolate?

Yesterday I learned that not only is Alison Steadman's character in Abigail's Party not Abigail but also that Abigail doesn't appear in it at all.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 03 January, 2016, 11:04:55 am
I done learned that the Nazis were extracting oil from shale in Estonia during WW2.
Oil was being extracted from shale in the late 19th century, though maybe not in Estonia.
In the UK. Midlothian and West Lothian and possibly other parts into the early years of the C20.  We used to have huuge pink shale bings*, which one was completely forbidden to play on *ahem*, but they've all gone in the last 20 or 30 years.

Google +"Paraffin Young" if you're bored.

*Slag heap.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 January, 2016, 11:21:08 am
In the UK. Midlothian and West Lothian and possibly other parts into the early years of the C20.  We used to have huuge pink shale bings*, which one was completely forbidden to play on *ahem*, but they've all gone in the last 20 or 30 years.

Gideon flogged them to the Godless Communist HordesTM Of Peking.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 03 January, 2016, 12:30:08 pm
we've been fracking on and offshore UK for donkeys years.  Most of the wandering public would be unaware of the oilfield onshore in the forest  just outside Bournemouth/Swanage and on Furzey Island in Poole Harbour, which has the longest extended reach well in the UK.

I have learned that the coefficient of friction of that red anti slip paint on cycle lanes is lower than I thought, particularly in the wet when unloading the rear of a disc-braked recumbent as you come in a bit to fast to a halt and sit up.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 03 January, 2016, 12:33:17 pm
Transplant corneas are very readily available in the USA but are in short supply in the UK.  Why is that? I asked my opthalmologist.  Without a second's hesitation, he replied, "Gunshot wounds". 
What, gunshot wounds are good for corneas?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 03 January, 2016, 12:45:07 pm
Transplant corneas are very readily available in the USA but are in short supply in the UK.  Why is that? I asked my opthalmologist.  Without a second's hesitation, he replied, "Gunshot wounds". 
What, gunshot wounds are good for corneas?

They're good for killing healthy young people in a way that leaves most of the spare parts intact.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 03 January, 2016, 01:00:49 pm
Transplant corneas are very readily available in the USA but are in short supply in the UK.  Why is that? I asked my opthalmologist.  Without a second's hesitation, he replied, "Gunshot wounds". 
What, gunshot wounds are good for corneas?

They're good for killing healthy young people in a way that leaves most of the spare parts intact.

Everything of mine is up for grabs when I no longer want it.  Not sure the pancreas will have any takers though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 January, 2016, 02:37:58 pm
we've been fracking on and offshore UK for donkeys years.  Most of the wandering public would be unaware of the oilfield onshore in the forest  just outside Bournemouth/Swanage and on Furzey Island in Poole Harbour, which has the longest extended reach well in the UK.

The company I used to work for thirty years ago did a bunch of consultancy work on the Wych Farm oil wossname down that way.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 03 January, 2016, 03:58:38 pm
Transplant corneas are very readily available in the USA but are in short supply in the UK.  Why is that? I asked my opthalmologist.  Without a second's hesitation, he replied, "Gunshot wounds". 
What, gunshot wounds are good for corneas?

They're good for killing healthy young people in a way that leaves most of the spare parts intact.

Everything of mine is up for grabs when I no longer want it.  Not sure the pancreas will have any takers though.
Ditto.  But I don't think anything will be suitable for donation because steroids.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 03 January, 2016, 04:09:23 pm
we've been fracking on and offshore UK for donkeys years.  Most of the wandering public would be unaware of the oilfield onshore in the forest  just outside Bournemouth/Swanage and on Furzey Island in Poole Harbour, which has the longest extended reach well in the UK.

The company I used to work for thirty years ago did a bunch of consultancy work on the Wych Farm oil wossname down that way.

That's the one, Ive done a bit down there myself as a consultant, looking at how well they manage their risks from an environmental management and performance standpoint.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 08 January, 2016, 03:03:23 pm
Two hardbacked diaries and a ball of babybel wax makes a barely adequate game of office tennis.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 08 January, 2016, 04:22:44 pm
That Tunnock's Tea Cakes are being boycotted by some Scottish Nationalists.

More for me then  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 08 January, 2016, 11:49:36 pm
Oi! there's a queue here . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 January, 2016, 04:43:48 pm
That the Uriah Heep song July Morning sparked a protest movement in Bulgaria which became a festival tradition. People go to the beach, party and watch the sun rise on 1st July, while listening to vaguely obscure 1970s British rock.

https://youtu.be/l685JEwFPb4

Edit: "Vaguely obscure 1970s rock". I've never knowingly listened to Uriah Heep before learning this factoid but now, thanks to the wonders of electrons, I discover I'm actually familiar with a few of their tracks. Possibly they were in the ether when I was very small indeed, far more likely they were sufficiently non-obscure to last well into the next decade. They seem to have a heavy-folk tinge, a bit like Led Zep; quite appropriate for what seems, from the description I've read, to be a rather post-hippy freedom-comes-from-the-West* morphing into disillusionment-and-hedonism beach party thingy.

*Shame they're facing the rising sun!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 January, 2016, 04:50:22 pm
Two hardbacked diaries and a ball of babybel wax makes a barely adequate game of office tennis.

We once unscrewed the knobs off a ballaceous coat stand and another off the top of a kettle then played pétanque up & down the office corridor.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 January, 2016, 06:49:10 pm
Only yesterday I was redigitising my cassette copy of "The Best Of Uriah Heep".  Music to climb ladders to ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 11 January, 2016, 10:55:34 pm
Two hardbacked diaries and a ball of babybel wax makes a barely adequate game of office tennis.

We once unscrewed the knobs off a ballaceous coat stand and another off the top of a kettle then played pétanque up & down the office corridor.

My night shifts in the control room were often passed by joining two Silverstone size Scalextric sets together to mak a BFO track and racing the cars round. I nearly decapitated (or took the nose off) a card playing radio operator one night when taking the banked bend at the Aylesbury desk end of the room a tad too fast.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 12 January, 2016, 12:54:37 am
Points for style but why am I not surprised . . . ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 12 January, 2016, 07:54:38 am
Two hardbacked diaries and a ball of babybel wax makes a barely adequate game of office tennis.

We once unscrewed the knobs off a ballaceous coat stand and another off the top of a kettle then played pétanque up & down the office corridor.

My night shifts in the control room were often passed by joining two Silverstone size Scalextric sets together to mak a BFO track and racing the cars round. I nearly decapitated (or took the nose off) a card playing radio operator one night when taking the banked bend at the Aylesbury desk end of the room a tad too fast.

I've ordered pizzas to the gatehouse at midnight when comissioning before now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 12 January, 2016, 09:32:09 am
Two hardbacked diaries and a ball of babybel wax makes a barely adequate game of office tennis.

We once unscrewed the knobs off a ballaceous coat stand and another off the top of a kettle then played pétanque up & down the office corridor.

My night shifts in the control room were often passed by joining two Silverstone size Scalextric sets together to mak a BFO track and racing the cars round. I nearly decapitated (or took the nose off) a card playing radio operator one night when taking the banked bend at the Aylesbury desk end of the room a tad too fast.

I've ordered pizzas to the gatehouse at midnight when comissioning before now.

We used to play curling in the back of the kitchen at KFC on slow night shifts using wheeled mop buckets.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 12 January, 2016, 10:39:09 am
... that my mother designed and wove fabrics for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: DDCyclist on 12 January, 2016, 11:08:17 am
That all tools have a built in cloaking device that activates as soon as you put the tool down.

Now ... where did I leave that screwdriver I was using 5 minutes ago?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 12 January, 2016, 02:16:00 pm
Average freedom to wormhole time in the shop is around 5 seconds . . .

Sorry, what were we talking about?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 January, 2016, 02:25:43 pm
I like to keep a barakta on hand while fettling.  Not only is she a source of inspiration for dubious bodges that just might work, not to mention skilled at holding things still in awkward positions while I do terrifying things close to her hands with some combination of  a) heat  b) electricity  c) sharp implements  d) a lump hammer  or e) adhesives, but she also has a superhuman ability to provide the correct answer to rhetorical "Where did the fucking screwdriver go?" type questions.   :thumbsup:

I attribute this to a fundamental, yet unresearched, difference in cognitive style - she has the 'finding things' gene, where I rely on 'remembering where I saw them' (a strategy that works well until dealing with people who like to tidy things up, or objects prone to macroscopic quantum effects like recently-used screwdrivers).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 12 January, 2016, 02:36:35 pm
'A' Barakta. Hmm. Do you have more than one? Are they available for hire?

I have a part-time fettling bod for the shop but he's at least as useless as me and has been known to lose entire bicycles!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 12 January, 2016, 03:29:51 pm
On a semi serious note, having an extensive history of putting tools down and losing the bloody things, I now say out loud where I put things as I do it.  Seems to help in relocating them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 January, 2016, 03:32:40 pm
It's the clinkbuggers I lose. You know, the little pieces not quite as bouncy as pingfuckits but which have a habit of going off in completely unpredictable directions when gravity gets to work on them. Brake washers, for instance.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 January, 2016, 07:21:24 pm
Thing is, the textbook answer to  "Where did the fucking screwdriver go?" is "You're sitting on it".  I'm old and wise enough that that's the first place I check.  But the tools have got sneakier.

Nuts and washers are skilled at hiding in plain sight, aided by the pattern in the carpet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 12 January, 2016, 07:45:04 pm
That "tripette" a word I use to refer to an outing of less than a couple of days was first used by Julian and Sandy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 12 January, 2016, 09:54:58 pm
You all need a shadow tool box and a Park magnetic parts bowl.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 January, 2016, 09:57:18 pm
And a sufficiently large shedde to keep it in.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 12 January, 2016, 10:01:32 pm
You all need a shadow tool box and a Park magnetic parts bowl.

Have both. Doesn't help  . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 January, 2016, 10:50:47 pm
Today I have learned that "yclept" is a real word (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=95194.msg1972935#msg1972935), and not ROT13 for something, as I'd previously assumed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 12 January, 2016, 10:55:21 pm
Today I have learned that "yclept" is a real word (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=95194.msg1972935#msg1972935), and not ROT13 for something, as I'd previously assumed.
It is.

I am looking for the opportunity to insert it into a method statement or risk assessment.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 12 January, 2016, 11:20:37 pm
That "tripette" a word I use to refer to an outing of less than a couple of days was first used by Julian and Sandy.

Oooo! In'n 'e BOLD!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 13 January, 2016, 01:07:30 am
'A' Barakta. Hmm. Do you have more than one? Are they available for hire?

I have a part-time fettling bod for the shop but he's at least as useless as me and has been known to lose entire bicycles!

I forgot I owned a car.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 13 January, 2016, 01:15:12 am
Today I discovered I have a propensity for threatening behavior when people keep touching me and we asked more than four times to stop touching me that I can make people afraid.

I'm not a nice person, because I can not deal with a situation without resorting to violence and showing a side of me that makes loved ones feel afraid of me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 13 January, 2016, 06:53:53 am
I still can't find the stapler that I "tidied" before Christmas.

Good job I have no paper-joining emergencies, and a back up supply of paper clips.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: DDCyclist on 13 January, 2016, 07:10:23 am
It'll be with my (still missing) screwdriver.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2016, 10:50:53 am
Today I have learned that "yclept" is a real word (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=95194.msg1972935#msg1972935), and not ROT13 for something, as I'd previously assumed.
Aaaaaaah, don't know exactly what ROT13 is but now I want a roti. And we do have some dal...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 13 January, 2016, 01:50:20 pm
Back on topic, what ROT-13 is, and that Caesar used it.

Dunno which Caesar, mind. Back to Google...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 January, 2016, 02:14:29 pm
Yup.  Simple Ceaser cypher.  Used as a functional equivalent of the [spoiler] tag in text-only media, and to obfuscate names of people/organisations/things you want to post defamatory rants about, so they don't come up on search engines.

Certain newsgroups use it excessively for comic effect, as a sort of swear filter for terms they find offensive.  So as we might talk of the "p*nct*r* fairy", denizens of ye shedde might say "have to ohl an arj one", or monks of the scary devil monastery might talk about supporting Hohagh[1] Linux.  The net effect of this is that you end up learning them as words in their own right, as it's less jbex than reaching for the ROT13 button to decode them...


[1] The official Linux Distribution of the Klingon Empire.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 13 January, 2016, 02:23:57 pm
That "tripette" a word I use to refer to an outing of less than a couple of days was first used by Julian and Sandy.
In conjunction with the adjective 'bijou', no doubt.  This is a construction I use in all sorts of wildly inappropriate scenarios.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 13 January, 2016, 03:39:42 pm
Yup.  Simple Ceaser cypher.  Used as a functional equivalent of the [spoiler] tag in text-only media, and to obfuscate names of people/organisations/things you want to post defamatory rants about, so they don't come up on search engines.

Certain newsgroups use it excessively for comic effect, as a sort of swear filter for terms they find offensive.  So as we might talk of the "p*nct*r* fairy", denizens of ye shedde might say "have to ohl an arj one", or monks of the scary devil monastery might talk about supporting Hohagh[1] Linux.  The net effect of this is that you end up learning them as words in their own right, as it's less jbex than reaching for the ROT13 button to decode them...


[1] The official Linux Distribution of the Klingon Empire.
Although I've never visited the Scary Devil Monastery and ain't been in ye shedde for ages, I translated hohagh in my head. Should I be proud or slightly worried?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 13 January, 2016, 05:00:50 pm
Today I discovered I have a propensity for threatening behavior when people keep touching me and we asked more than four times to stop touching me that I can make people afraid.

I'm not a nice person, because I can not deal with a situation without resorting to violence and showing a side of me that makes loved ones feel afraid of me.

I think when you have used your words and told people to stop touching you once nevermind more than one that escalating to violence is understandable and not unreasonable. I don't think this is a pathological problem or anything which makes you a bad person.  Repeated unwanted touching is not nice!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 13 January, 2016, 05:17:44 pm
That "tripette" a word I use to refer to an outing of less than a couple of days was first used by Julian and Sandy.

Oooo! In'n 'e BOLD!

Not ony that, but I have ridden on the Ball's Pond Road...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 13 January, 2016, 05:21:32 pm
That "tripette" a word I use to refer to an outing of less than a couple of days was first used by Julian and Sandy.
In conjunction with the adjective 'bijou', no doubt.  This is a construction I use in all sorts of wildly inappropriate scenarios.

Not so far, but I will start to use it for outings of less than a day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 17 January, 2016, 03:39:57 pm
That the bull emblem that the rest of Europe has come to see as representing Spain was originally an advertisement for Sherry. Worse than that, though is that it has now been appropriated by the  Spanish far right.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 17 January, 2016, 06:01:34 pm
That the bull emblem that the rest of Europe has come to see as representing Spain was originally an advertisement for Sherry. Worse than that, though is that it has now been appropriated by the  Spanish far right.

I learned that before I stuck a burro Catalan on the back of the motor, finding out its significance seemed like a good idea. (ans: not a lot, but if you guys are going to have a silly bull without much real history, we'll have a donkey)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 23 January, 2016, 06:52:34 pm
That the actor who was Potsie off of Happy Days is a second cousin of Dr Henry Heimlich, he of the manoeuvre.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 23 January, 2016, 11:19:36 pm
That the walrus is Paul.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 January, 2016, 11:22:05 pm
That the walrus is Paul.

And he's [not] dead.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 25 January, 2016, 01:58:41 pm
What some of the meanings of "knapdarloch" are  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 25 January, 2016, 02:14:30 pm
That there were, in fact, eight spin offs from Happy Days, and that it was itself a spin off show.

To list:

Love, American Style
begat
Happy Days
begat
Mork & Mindy
Mork & Mindy (animated series)
Laverne & Shirley
Laverne & Shirley In The Army (animated series)
Joanie Loves Chachi
Out Of The Blue
Blansky's Beauties
The Fonz & The Happy Days Gang (animated series)

I wonder if this is a record.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 26 January, 2016, 12:53:15 pm
"No. A record is a round thing with a hole in the middle . . ."

Copyright Minn Diffgain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 08 February, 2016, 10:14:52 am
The crest on Kenyan passports contains a white cockerel holding an axe, and the images on the passport pages are of African wildlife but no zebras.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 February, 2016, 10:26:03 am
Well of course no zebras: that'd be like a random bar code in the middle of your passport!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 February, 2016, 12:18:58 pm
Well of course no zebras: that'd be like a random bar code in the middle of your passport!

SPLORT!!!1!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 February, 2016, 11:09:18 pm
That the first interracial screen kiss was not Star Trek nor that 1960s hospital thing, it was a film called Java Head (http://www.bristol247.com/channel/news-comment/features/bristicles/the-definitive-list-of-movies-made-in-bristol) way back in 1934!
Quote
It's been claimed that the mildly racy Java Head made history with the first inter-racial kiss ever shown on screen.
Maybe!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 11 February, 2016, 10:02:18 am
Plusnet's on hold music is Joe Cocker, Pulp, Human League, Kaiser Chiefs, ABC...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 11 February, 2016, 11:22:08 am
Plusnet's on hold music is Joe Cocker, Pulp, Human League, Kaiser Chiefs, ABC...
Robert Palmer, Heaven 17...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 11 February, 2016, 11:35:59 am
Plusnet's on hold music is Joe Cocker, Pulp, Human League, Kaiser Chiefs, ABC...
Robert Palmer, Heaven 17...

It's enough to make you chuck your router in the bin and go and be a spoon-whittler in the woods!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MagnusOpus on 11 February, 2016, 11:56:29 am
Plusnet's on hold music is Joe Cocker, Pulp, Human League, Kaiser Chiefs, ABC...
Robert Palmer, Heaven 17...

no Arctic Monkeys? def lepard? and how did they forget cud?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 11 February, 2016, 12:46:48 pm
Plusnet's on hold music is Joe Cocker, Pulp, Human League, Kaiser Chiefs, ABC...
Robert Palmer, Heaven 17...

no Arctic Monkeys? def lepard? and how did they forget cud?
I hung up after 25 minutes, so I might have missed some.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 11 February, 2016, 12:54:23 pm
Plusnet's on hold music is Joe Cocker, Pulp, Human League, Kaiser Chiefs, ABC...
Robert Palmer, Heaven 17...

no Arctic Monkeys? def lepard? and how did they forget cud?
I hung up after 25 minutes, so I might have missed some.

Go for the talk on line to one of our agents option.  It works much better (for me) than all that hold music.  Of course your work arrangements might preclude this.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 February, 2016, 01:29:34 pm
Now I'm wondering what AAISP's hold music is...

ETA: I've just asked on IRC and it appears their policy is to have someone answer the phone.  Spoilsports.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Dibdib on 11 February, 2016, 01:31:22 pm
Now I'm wondering what AAISP's hold music is...

ETA: I've just asked on IRC and it appears their policy is to have someone answer the phone.  Spoilsports.

This is pretty much the only reason I bank with First Direct. No hold music, no automated menus, just a nice person in Scotland (or sometimes the North East, I think they have two call centres now) who usually answers the phone after two or three rings.

(to clarify - I don't have a problem with overseas call centres per se, but call quality seems to be inversely proportional to how far away they've outsourced the operations.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 February, 2016, 01:35:59 pm
I wonder what an xkcd://806-compliant bank would be like...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 11 February, 2016, 09:26:31 pm
Plusnet's on hold music is Joe Cocker, Pulp, Human League, Kaiser Chiefs, ABC...
Robert Palmer, Heaven 17...

no Arctic Monkeys? def lepard? and how did they forget cud?
I hung up after 25 minutes, so I might have missed some.

Go for the talk on line to one of our agents option.  It works much better (for me) than all that hold music.  Of course your work arrangements might preclude this.
I did that on Tuesday and they told me to phone customer services to pay for p&p for a new router...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 February, 2016, 08:26:51 pm
That Z-axis conductive tape (http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Electronics_NA/Electronics/Products/Electronics_Product_Catalog/~/3M-Electrically-Conductive-Adhesive-Transfer-Tape-9703) is a thing.

(Double sided tape that conducts electricity upwards but not sideways.)

It's clearly witchcraft, but witchcraft that's going to come in handy at some point.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 16 February, 2016, 06:45:08 pm
I have discovered empirically that old school downtube levers will not shift the full range of an 11 speed cassette.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 18 February, 2016, 12:20:50 pm
Prompted by the need for a new Club Card I was browsing the Tesco Site of Doom...

I have over £90 of unused vouchers.

There is a link to exchange vouchers for travel and entertainment.

For Eurotunnel the exchange rate is tripled.

Our Easter holiday just got a whole lot cheaper. Result!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 19 February, 2016, 01:44:56 pm
^I knew that already, witness all those French trips in 2015!

Today I learned that Mr Smith has never heard of the Lambton Worm.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wobbly John on 19 February, 2016, 02:28:18 pm
I've been babysitting the grandsons for a couple of afternoons. If I hadn't watched some childrens television with them, I'd never have realised that Fatima Whitbred was still doing so much Telly work (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/andys-prehistoric-adventures)...  :o

 ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 19 February, 2016, 02:30:47 pm
Nor had I.  Thanks, fboab.

Today I learnt the correct spelling of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke (http://"poka-yoke").  A bit disappointing that it's not "pokey-yolky" or similar.  It's one of those concepts that you keep noticing examples of:  "Aha!  Poka-yoke!"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: numbnuts on 19 February, 2016, 04:07:18 pm
That my cars fucked
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 19 February, 2016, 04:11:27 pm
That they renovated my old school.  It's now a restaurant.  They're doing afternoon teas.

I'll have to say that again, because I don't think I believe it.  They're doing afternoon teas at my old school.

http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/acklam-hall-restoration-complete-take-10905068

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 February, 2016, 04:22:30 pm
I hope the afternoon teas are served at original school desks complete with schoolkid graffiti: Ruthie sat here, I hate history, Dave Z. has warts...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 February, 2016, 06:24:09 pm
Today I learned that Mr Smith has never heard of the Lambton Worm.

 :o. Is such ignorance even possible?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 19 February, 2016, 10:19:29 pm
Yes, indeed. I haven't either . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 20 February, 2016, 12:25:48 am
Here you go, courtesy of the Book of Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambton_Worm
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 20 February, 2016, 12:47:14 am
That they renovated my old school.  It's now a restaurant.  They're doing afternoon teas.

I'll have to say that again, because I don't think I believe it.  They're doing afternoon teas at my old school.

http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/acklam-hall-restoration-complete-take-10905068

Ruthie, I think one of my many brothers taught there, certainly in Acklam.  He taught Chris Rea English (yes, I know).  Does that compute?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 20 February, 2016, 07:31:54 am
D'you know, it does ring a bell.  I think he might have left before my time, but he was still remembered, I think.  I left school in 1984 but went to the adjacent sixth form college till 1986.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 20 February, 2016, 09:40:31 am
That in addition to the one in South Gloucestershire, there is a Pennsylvania in Devon. Both were named after the US state.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 20 February, 2016, 12:44:44 pm
Belmont (the bit south of Sutton) used to be called California (named after the pub, which I was assumed named after the state). I didn't learn that today though.

I've never heard of a Lambton Worm either. As I'm espousing my ignorance, I don't actually know what Mornington Crescent is either and I've deliberately avoided finding out. Something to do with the radiogram. Yes, yes, I know it's a Tube station.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 20 February, 2016, 05:19:11 pm
Belmont (the bit south of Sutton) used to be called California (named after the pub, which I was assumed named after the state). I didn't learn that today though.

I've never heard of a Lambton Worm either. As I'm espousing my ignorance, I don't actually know what Mornington Crescent is either and I've deliberately avoided finding out. Something to do with the radiogram. Yes, yes, I know it's a Tube station.

The rumour is that the California pub was owned by someone who made their fortune in the gold rush.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 20 February, 2016, 05:22:23 pm
That a glebe is a bit of land used to provide an income for the clergy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 20 February, 2016, 05:40:05 pm
I have learned that mounting a folding bike forgetting that the seat post is not extended leads to an unexpected sensation.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 20 February, 2016, 08:31:02 pm
Ifor the Cheese gave me a bag of blue cheese core plugs in the pub tonight.
I assumed that these were test plugs or something, but no.  It seems they take the core out before cutting.  That way they can get a nice crisp cut wedge.  Without the core plug removed the wedge point would crumble.

Anyway.  Free cheese.   :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 21 February, 2016, 08:44:50 am
Noms!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 21 February, 2016, 04:47:46 pm
Here you go, courtesy of the Book of Wiki:

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

Haven't read the wiki, but wasn't it in the Lair of the White Worm (book being better than the poorly made, but amusing Hugh Grant movie)

Today I learned that Audaxes in Essex in February can be a bit breezy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 February, 2016, 05:37:16 pm
That in addition to the one in South Gloucestershire, there is a Pennsylvania in Devon. Both were named after the US state.
Were they? I always thought the one in Gloucestershire – I didn't know there was one in Devon – was named after the Penn Family, one of who (William?) later went on to found the US state; ie the village and the state were named independently but after the same person or family. But it sounds like you actually know what you're talking about!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 21 February, 2016, 06:50:20 pm
I couldn't believe that the one horse petrol station village on the A46 could have given rise to a whole US state and it turns out it didn't.
It was the Quakers in the case of both UK Pennsylvanias.

Courtesy of Wikinaccurate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 21 February, 2016, 08:56:39 pm
That in addition to the one in South Gloucestershire, there is a Pennsylvania in Devon. Both were named after the US state.
There is one just outside Bath as well, on the road to the M4
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 February, 2016, 09:26:11 pm
How to reboot barakta's desk.   :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 February, 2016, 11:10:38 pm
That in addition to the one in South Gloucestershire, there is a Pennsylvania in Devon. Both were named after the US state.
There is one just outside Bath as well, on the road to the M4
I presume that's the S. Glos one that Vince is talking about.
Yes, the Penns were defo Quakers.

Mind you, talking about the A46 not that far from Bath, I always confuse Dunkirk and Petty France. Can never remember which is the place and which the hotel (there are – or used to be – two hotels there. I'm pretty sure the one on the right as you head north used to be the Petty France. Or was it the one on the other side? Or was Petty France strictly speaking a separate hamlet?)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cycleman on 22 February, 2016, 08:33:29 am
How to reboot barakta's desk.   :facepalm:

What. You kicked it   :o ☺
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 February, 2016, 11:45:09 am
How to reboot barakta's desk.   :facepalm:

What. You kicked it   :o ☺

It goes up and down, so she can vary her posture.  For barakta-friendliness, this is motorised, rather than the usual hand-cranked arrangement, and it's a legal requirement to hum the Thunderbirds theme when it's in action.  She was demonstrating this to nikki OTP, when it got to the bottom of the range of travel and stubbornly refused to move again (which, with hindsight, I realise is preferable to it getting stuck at the top - about head height).

Turns out there's a procedure for calibrating what position the motor controller thinks it's in.  Invoking that brought it back to life.  And yes, I did try thumping it first (and more scientifically, checking the continuity on the switch, which is a known failure point).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 22 February, 2016, 12:59:26 pm
That Saladin was a Kurd.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 22 February, 2016, 01:26:03 pm
That in addition to the one in South Gloucestershire, there is a Pennsylvania in Devon. Both were named after the US state.
There is one just outside Bath as well, on the road to the M4
I presume that's the S. Glos one that Vince is talking about.
Yes, the Penns were defo Quakers.

Mind you, talking about the A46 not that far from Bath, I always confuse Dunkirk and Petty France. Can never remember which is the place and which the hotel (there are – or used to be – two hotels there. I'm pretty sure the one on the right as you head north used to be the Petty France. Or was it the one on the other side? Or was Petty France strictly speaking a separate hamlet?)
They are separate hamlets. Petty France is first as you head North on the A46, then Dunkirk is on the junction with A433 to Tetbury.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 February, 2016, 03:54:25 pm
How to reboot barakta's desk.   :facepalm:

What. You kicked it   :o ☺

It goes up and down, so she can vary her posture.  For barakta-friendliness, this is motorised, rather than the usual hand-cranked arrangement, and it's a legal requirement to hum the Thunderbirds theme when it's in action. 
When a stair lift was first installed for my mum, a norty boy (1), who should know better, downloaded onto his phone, and then played, the Thunderbirds theme as she made her inaugural descent.



(1) Me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 February, 2016, 05:16:17 pm
How to reboot barakta's desk.   :facepalm:

What. You kicked it   :o ☺

It goes up and down, so she can vary her posture.  For barakta-friendliness, this is motorised, rather than the usual hand-cranked arrangement, and it's a legal requirement to hum the Thunderbirds theme when it's in action. 
When a stair lift was first installed for my mum, a norty boy (1), who should know better, downloaded onto his phone, and then played, the Thunderbirds theme as she made her inaugural descent.



(1) Me.

I will now have that in mind every time I play with my own sit/stand desk (also motorised)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 February, 2016, 05:17:32 pm
That in addition to the one in South Gloucestershire, there is a Pennsylvania in Devon. Both were named after the US state.
There is one just outside Bath as well, on the road to the M4
I presume that's the S. Glos one that Vince is talking about.
Yes, the Penns were defo Quakers.

Mind you, talking about the A46 not that far from Bath, I always confuse Dunkirk and Petty France. Can never remember which is the place and which the hotel (there are – or used to be – two hotels there. I'm pretty sure the one on the right as you head north used to be the Petty France. Or was it the one on the other side? Or was Petty France strictly speaking a separate hamlet?)

I remember Petty France well, passing there in my Uni days.

There is a Dunkirk around the corner from me as well in rural Cambs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Steph on 23 February, 2016, 03:45:45 am
There is a Dunkirk in Kent, and in County Durham near Washington there are New York, Quebec and Philadelphia.

Anyway, what a name for a beasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screaming_hairy_armadillo
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 February, 2016, 10:01:38 am
The best New-World-in-the-Old-Continent placename I've ever seen was by the side of the S7 expressway somewhere between Warsaw and Olsztyn in northern Poland, where a huge, handcarved sign proudly proclaimed AMERYKA by two dilapidated wooden shacks. Pitifully inspiring.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 23 February, 2016, 10:42:40 am
I was transported to Botany Bay. (My Dad had to see someone in Enfield so we put my bike in the car. I got dropped off in Botany Bay and rode home, about 60 miles avoiding major roads.)

I've also ridden through Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Gibraltar, all without leaving England.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 23 February, 2016, 11:17:53 am
Alt Graphic.

On the UK international keyboard alt gr 4 is € for instance.   alt gr 2 on a Swedish keyboard should be the @ symbol.   Perhaps the keyboard is not Swedish?

This. Thanks PB.
€€€€€€€€€€€€€
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 23 February, 2016, 11:39:48 am
Also a New York in Rotherham, and a Rhodesia and a Wales not far away
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 23 February, 2016, 12:23:34 pm
The value of a sharp knife.

Whilst preparing my very tasty lunch of assorted veggies sauted in copious olive oil with a nice tofu sausage thrown in, I managed to remove a chunk of the end of my thumb.  ::-)

It was surprisingy less bleedy and ouchie than I expected, glad I keep the knives sharp.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 23 February, 2016, 01:10:33 pm
Also a New York in Rotherham, and a Rhodesia and a Wales not far away

and a Palestine in Hampshire, and an Alamein not far away.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 23 February, 2016, 01:28:44 pm
also a few Hollands or New Hollands around in the flatlands of East Anglia, Linclolnshire, East Yorks
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 February, 2016, 02:25:02 pm
There's also a New York near Coningsby, Lincs, and I think there's a Californi near there too.  By way of contrast, in Montana it is possible to drive from Chester to Inverness in under ten minutes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 23 February, 2016, 02:30:26 pm
I live in California.

One of the neighbouring villages has a The Americas

Lots of ex-WWII USAF/USAAC airbases in these parts
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 23 February, 2016, 02:34:33 pm
also a few Hollands or New Hollands around in the flatlands of East Anglia, Linclolnshire, East Yorks

New Hollands are often found on farms.
(http://agriculture.newholland.com/uk/en/Gallery/Gallery_Images/Golden_Jubilee/Lavoro_9257.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 23 February, 2016, 02:52:39 pm
That DuraAce 11spd bar end shifters come with left and right specific spacers. And that it is important not to mix them up. Because when, inadvertently or inattentively, you do (hypothetically speaking) and realise your mistake, you might then find that the ratchety bit on the RH shifter might detach itself from the lever leaving you with a useless pile of bits.*

Hmm... That would be an expensive mistake to make, wouldn't it?



*Might have helped if they'd come with instructions but that's the penalty of buying stuff that's not boxed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 23 February, 2016, 05:22:37 pm
Are the several place name posters above aware of this thread?
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=16657.0
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 23 February, 2016, 05:46:46 pm
I am now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 February, 2016, 05:49:02 pm
I have learned that if you plug your keyboard into one of the USB ports on your monitor it stops working when the monitor goes to sleep so you can't prod the space bar to wake the minotaur up again :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 23 February, 2016, 05:55:46 pm
I have learned that if you plug your keyboard into one of the USB ports on your monitor it stops working when the monitor goes to sleep so you can't prod the space bar to wake the minotaur up again :facepalm:

 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 February, 2016, 10:00:41 pm
I learned that my Abus cable lock weighs exactly 500g according to the greengrocer's scales. (Now I have to decide whether that's really too heavy to lug up the Gospel Pass... I thought it was nearer a kilo.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 23 February, 2016, 10:11:50 pm
Well I went up it fully loaded so you will be fine :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 23 February, 2016, 10:14:19 pm
I learned that my Abus cable lock weighs exactly 500g according to the greengrocer's scales. (Now I have to decide whether that's really too heavy to lug up the Gospel Pass... I thought it was nearer a kilo.)

When touring I take a New York Kryptonite which I believe weights more than half a kilo.   If I can lug that around you should be just fine, especially given that you are younger, significantly lighter and much much fitter than me.     
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 February, 2016, 10:20:01 pm
I don't think either of those muches is justified, and certainly not both! Sure, if it was a tour or even just a ride with no time limit there'd be no question but it's an audax, so 150km in 10 hours; last weekend 160 took me 12  :( But hey, it's only a bike ride, when all's said and done, and the most important thing is to a) have fun b) get back safe and sound c) not miss the last train home!

(The amazing thing is how little some people take on these rides – and how much others lug around.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 26 February, 2016, 09:52:57 am
The torturous exercises known as burpees are named after the splendidly-yclept Dr Royal H. Burpee.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 27 February, 2016, 12:05:36 am
That it's a good idea to check that the turntable in the microwave is properly seated on the gubbins that make it turn before pressing "start".

The lid of my veg steamer now looks rather... different.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 03 March, 2016, 02:11:57 pm
... that some disc platters have a very similar property to glass when you hit them with a hammer. Ain't nobody reading those ones again, that's for sure!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 03 March, 2016, 02:17:36 pm
That <organisation> is not the same as <organization> and remarkably hard to spot when checking xml for syntax errors.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 March, 2016, 03:45:23 pm
That <organisation> is not the same as <organization> and remarkably hard to spot when checking xml for syntax errors.

Got the same thing with .el6 and .e16 yesterday, made the more difficult by the font in question.  What do you mean with your talk of _nameless.e16 I yelled as the program crashed for the seventh time >:(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 03 March, 2016, 07:10:26 pm
... that some disc platters have a very similar property to glass when you hit them with a hammer. Ain't nobody reading those ones again, that's for sure!

Probably because they are! Glass, that is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 03 March, 2016, 07:54:08 pm
Dschinghis Khan (https://youtu.be/_eV3dt1yebk?list=RDp2bvPzvFlP8) were still at it in 2005.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 03 March, 2016, 09:18:26 pm
That the frame of the land-speed-record-breaking (~630 mph) Thrust 2 car was made from Reynolds 531.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 03 March, 2016, 09:21:52 pm
There's an accessible formats association which publishes standards for large print, braille, audio and other formats.  http://www.ukaaf.org/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 March, 2016, 07:05:54 pm
How to read the Christmas tree gauge thingy on the Nissan Leaf's instrument panel.  More Christmas tree = more eco, apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 04 March, 2016, 07:25:05 pm
There's an accessible formats association which publishes standards for large print, braille, audio and other formats.  http://www.ukaaf.org/

Gosh.  How useful.

Thankyou.   :-*
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 04 March, 2016, 09:21:37 pm
I know, such interesting stuff one finds out years after one ought to have known of it!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 06 March, 2016, 04:05:15 pm
All related to Dubai, from whence Miss Ham has just returned

Alcohol is forbidden, so nobody ever gets tested for drink driving
Alcohol is forbidden but there is no wetter dry place on earth
Alcohol is forbidden, so if you have an account with an Arab bank, you can't use it to buy alcohol in bars, it will be refused by the machine (some bars show alcohol as other things to work around that
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 06 March, 2016, 04:26:17 pm
French cavalry once captured a Dutch fleet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_the_Dutch_fleet_at_Den_Helder).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 06 March, 2016, 04:31:20 pm
That I really shouldn't visit Steamer Trading Company so close to pay day (as in after) as "accidents" happen. I seem to be the owner of a set of Global knives...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 06 March, 2016, 05:34:19 pm
That riding a 650cc motorcycle in traffic is quite different from riding a 250cc Honda around a parking lot/car park under the supervision of an instructor. Actually, just getting on the bigger bike is a bit more daunting, and maneuvering the extra mass out of the parking spot was a little nerve wracking.

Good fun, though, and I will be back out on the new moto this afternoon.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 March, 2016, 07:42:51 pm
That the house next door to the one in Hieronymous Bosch grew up fell down last week.  And that you can buy Hieronymous Bosch socks :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 March, 2016, 06:56:52 pm
The significance of the Freemans catalogue in the Undertones' Male Model. It's not just about clothes (they also got one of their first guitars from it).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 13 March, 2016, 10:38:35 pm
Zipf's law (https://youtu.be/fCn8zs912OE)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: red marley on 14 March, 2016, 07:41:51 pm
While I knew about Zipf's law, that presentation is brilliant and well worth a watch. And what I learned today from it was the term Hapax legomenon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenon) (a Googlewhack in any given corpus of words).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 14 March, 2016, 08:34:14 pm
Ah, we all dance to the piper's tune.  :-D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 March, 2016, 10:02:34 pm
That there's a territorial dispute between Canada and Denmark that's been going on since the early 80s.  It sounds suspiciously like the underlying reason may be byte overflow, and they're pretty good natured about it.  I draw the forum's attention to the name of the Canadian military exercise that hotted up the situation in 2004.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Island
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 March, 2016, 09:42:34 am
That Italian vehicle number plates were sold to motor-ists via the War Wounded Association, or at least they were circa 1960.  Credit due to Ham for the appropriate edition of The Observer's Book Of Automobiles (foreword by S. Moss, O.B.E.).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 23 March, 2016, 05:08:58 pm
That self-amalgamating tape self-amalgamates immediately, on introduction to its other half.
There is no honeymoon period.
You need it get it right the first time.
Or start the job again, using new tape.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 March, 2016, 05:39:19 pm
That self-amalgamating tape self-amalgamates immediately, on introduction to its other half.

Unless there's water involved, of course.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 23 March, 2016, 06:26:13 pm
That self-amalgamating tape self-amalgamates immediately, on introduction to its other half.

Unless there's water involved, of course.

Indeed.
I don't think I've ever used it in the water-torn environment for which it was intended.
It is far more useful for Other Things.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 March, 2016, 10:08:27 am
That shoes thrown over telephone wires are not just an urban sport but signify gang territory. Apparently.
http://www.bristol247.com/channel/news-comment/features/investigations/will-it-ever-end-bristol
(http://b247cdn.co.uk/img/shoes-on-a-wire-1458748181.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 March, 2016, 10:53:42 am
It used to be common outside the pikey-infested hellhole that is the second nearest pub to Larrington Towers but I think in that case was more due to the pikeys' idea of a joke.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 01 April, 2016, 12:37:13 pm
[yesterday]

The SETI Institute organises weekly lectures, which it makes available via its website (http://www.seti.org/talks) (scroll down for Lectures archive) and its YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/setiinstitute).

If anyone needs me, I'll be busy geeking out on astronomy...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 01 April, 2016, 01:42:29 pm
That self-amalgamating tape self-amalgamates immediately, on introduction to its other half.

Unless there's water involved, of course.
There's always water involved IME :(

But I did like to have a roll of 'Smalgy' handy. :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 18 April, 2016, 12:59:22 pm
That Archbishop Desmond Tutu is an oblate of the Order of Julian of Norwich.

Well I never did.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 18 April, 2016, 01:16:51 pm
That oblate has another meaning, apart from squashed at the poles as in oblate spheroid.

Confused me for a minute, that did.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 18 April, 2016, 01:19:49 pm
Byrd's "Diliges Dominum" is a musical palindrome
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 18 April, 2016, 02:45:06 pm
That Archbishop Desmond Tutu is an oblate of the Order of Julian of Norwich.

Well I never did.

Julian's from Norwich!!!!!!????????  :o  :o  :o  :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 24 April, 2016, 04:53:19 pm
Angle grinder.
Outdoors.
Rain.
Don't.
Just don't.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 24 April, 2016, 06:32:49 pm
Angle grinder.
Outdoors.
Rain.
Don't.
Just don't.

Oops. RCD?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 24 April, 2016, 06:36:23 pm
110v? Any hair left?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 25 April, 2016, 09:52:24 am
Angle grinder.
Outdoors.
Rain.
Don't.
Just don't.

Oops. RCD?

RCD is why I am here today ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 25 April, 2016, 11:59:59 am
RCD is why I am here today ;)

I heartily endorse this product/service.   :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 25 April, 2016, 02:22:51 pm
I was saved by a MCB once (not its primary purpose, but it did the job) when I drilled through a stupidly-routed cable.  The drill bit must have bridged the wires; it certainly tripped instantly.  Mind you, with a double-insulated drill, I probably wouldn't have been shocked unless for some reason I'd grabbed the chuck.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 25 April, 2016, 05:52:13 pm
At my former work, we had a non-rcd incident many years ago...

An offshore cabin was in the yard, for maintenance.
It was hooked up to a 3-phase electrical supply with a Commando-type plug, from a 64A supply.
It only used 2 of the phases, to feed a single-phase transformer.
This was working fine.

The person who wired up the plug had wired the 3rd phase to the earth pin.
The entire cabin was floating at 240v above ground potential, on a 64A breaker.

This went un-noticed until someone had at it with an earthed drill.
As soon as the bit got through the paint, there was an almighty BANG.


Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 26 April, 2016, 02:44:34 pm
There is such a thing as a "Solar Powered Meerkat"

Our office manager has just bought one as a present for a friend
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 April, 2016, 02:59:19 pm
You can make your own ricotta. Thinking about trying it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Chris S on 26 April, 2016, 03:02:45 pm
My van is rubbish on snowy roads  >:(.

Probably doesn't help that it's rear-wheel drive and usually empty. And it's automatic.

Downhill wasn't much better. I had to use the kerb as a brake  ::-).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 April, 2016, 10:13:40 am
The word vaticinate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 April, 2016, 10:18:26 am
That makes two of us, now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 April, 2016, 10:32:34 am
I knew that would happen.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 April, 2016, 10:34:18 am
HFH

Why was I expecting that?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 29 April, 2016, 10:47:27 am
That the word Vaticinate doesn't appear in the 2001 edition of the Collins Concise Dictionary

 (I didn't know what it meant, either. Thanks Webster's on-line, you've been most helpful)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 29 April, 2016, 04:24:16 pm
Microsoft doesn't follow standards
Microsoft use outdated standards for ID3 tags in MP3 files, thus rendering all the useful information on the music library redundant
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 29 April, 2016, 07:43:29 pm
Way back perhaps xp days, when windows explorer stopped being just a sensible file manager and started groping inside files in order to make thumbnail previews, it was much worse.

If it found exif tags in images it didn't understand, it deleted them!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 29 April, 2016, 10:32:11 pm
There is a place named after some of my in-laws -
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Onomichi_Panorama.jpg/1284px-Onomichi_Panorama.jpg)
http://wikitravel.org/en/Onomichi (http://wikitravel.org/en/Onomichi)
OK, maybe the name started with the place.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 29 April, 2016, 11:28:35 pm
Way back perhaps xp days, when windows explorer stopped being just a sensible file manager and started groping inside files in order to make thumbnail previews, it was much worse.

If it found exif tags in images it didn't understand, it deleted them!


Microsoft's approach to respecting the data integrity of it's clients is questionable to say the least.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 April, 2016, 05:24:55 am
Microsoft's approach to respecting the data integrity of it's clients is questionable to say the least.

I'm picturing an animated paper clip popping up, asking "did you means its or it's" and then ignoring what you tell it :demon:

Any typos in this post are, needless to say, entirely the fault of iOS.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 30 April, 2016, 03:46:50 pm
To be fair to old Clippy, if you typed "fuck off!" he did take the hint and ask if you wanted to close the Office Assistant.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 06 May, 2016, 12:42:16 pm
That R will do maths in roman numerals.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 09 May, 2016, 11:18:53 am
That there is a plan to "turn off" Niagra falls for maintenance.

http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/niagara-falls/niagara-falls-is-going-to-go-dry-x2013-again-20160123 (http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/niagara-falls/niagara-falls-is-going-to-go-dry-x2013-again-20160123)

It was done before in 1969 apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 May, 2016, 11:45:16 am
Some fellow oh Twitter wrote that Garibaldi (presumably the bickies, not the bloke) was invented in 1849, but the current version dates from 1951. Gene Hunt take note.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 May, 2016, 09:40:49 pm
The other day (before it got warm enough to denecessitate knee high footwear) I discovered a woman can get stuck in her boot when the zipper gets caught up in the material inside. It then takes some explaining why you're dragging her around the living room floor by her heel while she loudly urges you to pull harder, it's nearly out. I suppose it was mildly better than trying to wriggle my hand inside. Which came next.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 10 May, 2016, 03:14:34 pm
That the Minister of Education and Research of the Federal Republic of Germany is called Johanna Wanka.

She'll be giving a speech at a conference in Japan next week, & I'm tidying up the MC's script.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 May, 2016, 03:28:50 pm
^^^I once stayed overnight in a German forest hut called the Wankhutte.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 11 May, 2016, 04:18:26 pm
A Bulgarian Lev comprises 100 Stotinki.

You can't say Stotinki without feeling happy. Try it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 11 May, 2016, 10:56:03 pm
I have a 5000 lev note from the 1990s, before the 1000:1 upgrade which put the lev on par with the deutschmark - not long before it was abolished. None of this stotinki nonsense then!

Unfortunately that note wasn't worth 5000 new lev when I went there at the beginning of this millennium.  :( But it was possible to use stotinki.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 12 May, 2016, 09:52:04 am
There were stotinki in 1983 ...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 May, 2016, 09:59:12 am
Stotinki sounds like a portmanteau'd malodorous infant.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 May, 2016, 10:13:49 am
There were stotinki in 1983 ...

I remember reading of the then-current stotinki circa 1978.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 12 May, 2016, 04:04:00 pm
That Alison Moyet's nickname Alf pre-dates the US sitcom of the same name.  For years I've been labouring under the misapprehension that it was because of her startling physical resemblance to the Alien Life Form.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 12 May, 2016, 06:42:53 pm
That it was Hugh Bonneville.  I didn't need to know that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 12 May, 2016, 07:21:57 pm
I have a 5000 lev note from the 1990s, before the 1000:1 upgrade which put the lev on par with the deutschmark - not long before it was abolished. None of this stotinki nonsense then!

Unfortunately that note wasn't worth 5000 new lev when I went there at the beginning of this millennium.  :( But it was possible to use stotinki.

I stayed at the Hotel Balkan in the Largo. Splendidly overwrought edifice of socialist classicism. They don't make them like that any more.

Stotinki. Saying it still makes me happy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 12 May, 2016, 08:13:57 pm
Taking advantage of my present work lull (which has already stopped) I did a virtual commute (https://ridewithgps.com/trips/8925150) this morning; I learnt lots.

First, there was a good reason I normally avoid the Chigwell area around school run time. at least 16 reasons ackcherly (do the math)

Next, I find that Epping is actually higher than Toot Hill, who knew? (courtesy of putting it on the GPS rather than just riding)

I also discovered that it was more pleasant attending a business conference call looking at this
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DHFa19sjpfs/VzRa7rmWoYI/AAAAAAAA3PU/DNeBKXX8jochq4TvX2CfsCkOUJQBP4EkgCCo/s640/IMG_20160512_090414.jpg)

rather than a computer monitor

On top of that I learned that it would be a good move to go with the suggestion that you just suspend your lost credit card rather than cancel it straight off, because after doing the cancelling thing, the caff who you had already phoned to ask if they had it may call you back to say that they have.....

I must be very clever now.


Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Si S on 13 May, 2016, 07:45:19 am
I've learnt that contaminating the seat clamp bolt with carbon assembly paste and taking the FIBR approach is going to lead to a problem when you want to undo it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 May, 2016, 10:05:29 am
That the band Storyville, as recommended by Large Scotsman, guitar-slinger and all round Top Chap Stevie Nimmo, is what Stevie Ray Vaughan's rhythm section did after someone put SRV on the wrong helichopter.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 May, 2016, 02:19:31 pm
That the Brandenburg concertos were written as an audition piece. He didn't get the job. I don't know who did.

(Further to stotinki: it's hundredths. Sto = hundred. Presumably lev has some other origin than lion, cos hundredths of a lion would take us back to Cecil and the dentist.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 May, 2016, 02:41:51 pm
That PC Hipsta is now Gas Safe registered and has just serviced our boiler.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 May, 2016, 04:15:00 pm
That PC Hipsta is now Gas Safe registered and has just serviced our boiler.
I want to say "we need photos" but that's rather rude towards Gas Man Hipsta so we'll just take the info instead.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 17 May, 2016, 05:13:19 pm
That the Brandenburg concertos were written as an audition piece. He didn't get the job. I don't know who did.

Imagine that. "Hmm that Bach chap was pretty good but I'm seeing a couple of other composers next week and I think one of those will be better". Major recruitment fail !
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 18 May, 2016, 12:22:49 am
(Further to stotinki: it's hundredths. Sto = hundred.
Da, stotinki is just cents in Slav.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 19 May, 2016, 11:48:14 am
Planting potatoes is very labour and machine intensive.

The two fields opposite my house (about 25 acres in total) have been wheat or rape for years but this year its potatoes.
A couple of weeks ago they were ploughed then this week two tractors turned up and harrowed them then ridged them.
Today eleven tractors and a front loader arrived !
The fields have been de-stoned and potatoes planted its a major operation. I counted five de-stoners working at once !
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Thing2 on 19 May, 2016, 09:19:30 pm
The washing machine at the house we rent is old enough to drink alcohol, here in California. No wonder it's getting a little temperamental!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 19 May, 2016, 10:27:12 pm
Potatoes are interesting. Organic potatoes can have more pesticides and fungicides added than many other crops.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 May, 2016, 07:52:05 am
The ones in our cupboard look like baby triffids just now.  Maybe they're a bit too organic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 May, 2016, 12:48:05 pm
Is there a measurable difference between the natural curiosity of organic spuds and the regular sort?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 20 May, 2016, 12:52:39 pm
Is there a measurable difference between the natural curiosity of organic spuds and the regular sort?

I hope so; the whole plan hinges on it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 20 May, 2016, 01:06:26 pm
Why sometimes there are bins overturned in the street and the refuse appears to have been rummaged through.

It's what identity thieves do apparently.

Advice is to put bins out on the morning of collection.

I found this out whilst attending an interview under caution with a client this morning.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 May, 2016, 01:29:35 pm
Why sometimes there are bins overturned in the street and the refuse appears to have been rummaged through.

It's what identity thieves do apparently.

Are you sure there isn't a nest of journalists in the area?  Advanced bin-rummaging is one of the requirements for promotion1 from Dirty Lying Journalist Scum to Filthy Lying Journalist Scum.

1: According to my chum Samfast, last heard of reducing the already ankle-high standards of journalism in Captain Cook's Mistake.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 20 May, 2016, 07:44:20 pm
Steve Mason's playing at the Bluedot festival.

Excellent.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 20 May, 2016, 08:54:00 pm
IRTA "Baudot festival", which was an interesting mental image.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 20 May, 2016, 09:10:10 pm
Railway semaphore signals have a "U" section for rigidity and are absolutely huge close-up.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 May, 2016, 09:27:48 pm
That having telescopic forks doesn't necessarily mean you can ride up a kerb. Ouch.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 20 May, 2016, 09:29:55 pm
Must have been a big kerb; quite coincidentally, I was doing that on Miss Z the younger's new bike this evening to show what the forks could do!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 May, 2016, 09:34:20 pm
No, more a stupidly shallow angle of approach.  :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 20 May, 2016, 10:31:58 pm
Why sometimes there are bins overturned in the street and the refuse appears to have been rummaged through.

It's what identity thieves do apparently.
Mrs B rips names & addresses off anything that goes into the bins. They go in the fireplace.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 21 May, 2016, 11:57:03 pm
But a spoonful of nesquik does.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 May, 2016, 06:39:08 pm
so does lashings of double cream, nuts and sunflower seeds, topped with home made berry compote

On the other hand, my personal learning over the last three days - a rear mech is not just a rear mech, at least not past 10sp.  Gone are the days of cross compatibility.  Lots of swearing ensued
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 23 May, 2016, 10:08:50 am
That UK Power Networks have my mobile number. Because I got a text 10 minutes after the start of a power cut telling me there was a local problem, and offering text updates if I replied in the affirmative. I did, and I got them. I was quite impressed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 24 May, 2016, 07:41:31 pm
Jane from Rod, Jane and Freddy used to be married to Rod but is now with Freddy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 25 May, 2016, 08:32:21 am
Jane from Rod, Jane and Freddy used to be married to Rod but is now with Freddy.

Is that the recent celebrity threesome injunction ménage e tois?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 25 May, 2016, 02:42:46 pm
Jane from Rod, Jane and Freddy used to be married to Rod but is now with Freddy.

Is that the recent celebrity threesome injunction ménage e tois?

Nah. That was Bungle, George and Zippy
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 25 May, 2016, 02:52:50 pm
Didn't there used to be an unpopular beat combo called Bungle's Furry Knob?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 May, 2016, 04:24:45 pm
Cider-fuelled idiot beat combo Metal Duck did a song called Rod, Jane And Freddy's Total Noise Annihilation.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Chris S on 25 May, 2016, 06:20:53 pm
What I have learned today: Don't eat anything fboab's chopped on a chopping board, but definitely get her to do any grating  :facepalm:.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 25 May, 2016, 07:27:40 pm
What I have learned today: Don't eat anything fboab's chopped on a chopping board, but definitely get her to do any grating  :facepalm:.

You making pink macaroni cheese?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 25 May, 2016, 07:35:17 pm
Roy Wood's given name is Ulysses Adrian Wood.  Too cool.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orraloon on 25 May, 2016, 08:38:54 pm
Roy Wood's given name is Ulysses Adrian Wood.  Too cool.

Erm, too cool to be true.  (Urban) myth alert.  You might want to check his Wikipedia page.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 26 May, 2016, 09:33:24 am
Everything I know is wrong.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 26 May, 2016, 11:57:24 am
That the father of the actress Miranda Hart was the last man off HMS Coventry when it was sunk by the Fuerza Aérea Argentina in 1982 - by choice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 26 May, 2016, 02:31:57 pm
My Granddad joined the Royal Field Artillery in Feb 1914 and was discharged in Sep 1920. I knew he was a "front-line gunner" but I didn't know the dates.

(no, I'm not busy this afternoon)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 26 May, 2016, 10:49:39 pm
My Granddad joined the Royal Field Artillery in Feb 1914 and was discharged in Sep 1920. I knew he was a "front-line gunner" but I didn't know the dates.

(no, I'm not busy this afternoon)

Surely discharged must be the wrong word for a fusilier? A bit like 'fired'
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 26 May, 2016, 11:12:45 pm
My Granddad joined the Royal Field Artillery in Feb 1914 and was discharged in Sep 1920. I knew he was a "front-line gunner" but I didn't know the dates.

(no, I'm not busy this afternoon)

Surely discharged must be the wrong word for a fusilier? A bit like 'fired'

Did they have difficulty replacing him with someone of similar calibre?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 27 May, 2016, 08:40:26 am
My Granddad joined the Royal Field Artillery in Feb 1914 and was discharged in Sep 1920. I knew he was a "front-line gunner" but I didn't know the dates.

(no, I'm not busy this afternoon)

Surely discharged must be the wrong word for a fusilier? A bit like 'fired'

Did they have difficulty replacing him with someone of similar calibre?

This is like shooting fish in a barrel
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 28 May, 2016, 01:17:44 am
My Granddad joined the Royal Field Artillery in Feb 1914 and was discharged in Sep 1920. I knew he was a "front-line gunner" but I didn't know the dates.

(no, I'm not busy this afternoon)

Coinkidink. So was mine. Heavy artillery at the Somme, they had a direct hit (or a premature detonation) and a burial party came around to fill in the crater. Someone threw a shovel of earth on him and he groaned. If he hadn't I wouldn't be here.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 28 May, 2016, 01:22:37 am
How the sun moves round the sky, particularly with regard to seasons and different latitudes (and indeed hemispheres).

I've understood the principles since I was a kid, but you don't really get a proper feel for these things until you build one yourself.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 May, 2016, 10:46:13 am
^^^ The first graphics progs I wrote in C were orreries, on a 256-color VGA screen.  Even did a 3D one.  Trouble was that the screen's vertical res was only around 2/3 of the horizontal so everything was egg-shaped unless corrected.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 31 May, 2016, 08:02:27 pm
That Herr von Trapp in The Sound of Music was a submarine commander for the Austro-Hungarian navy in WW1, sinking the French armoured cruiser Leon Gambetta with the loss of 648 of her 785 crew, & his first wife was a granddaughter & heiress of Robert Whitehead, an Englishman who invented & built the first effective self-propelled naval torpedoes (including the type used by von Trapp) in Fiume (now Rijeka) in what was then Austria but now Croatia, for the Austro-Hungarian navy.

I'd heard of Whitehead, largely because his works in Fiume became Italian after WW1, & the business still exists in Italy (Whitehead Sistemi Subacquei, subsumed into a division of Finmeccanica-Leonardo last year) & still builds torpedoes, used by the Italian & many other navies. I had no idea of the Whitehead-von Trapp connection, or that von Trapp had been a submarine commander.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 01 June, 2016, 12:21:57 am
Whitehead is buried in Worth churchyard, a couple of miles from where I am right now. He owned what was then called Paddockhurst and is now Worth Abbey.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 01 June, 2016, 02:51:14 am
That eating an industrial-sized portion of chickpea and lentil curry on the eve of a long-haul flight is about as good an idea as it sounds.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 01 June, 2016, 01:37:20 pm
That there are black USAians who having lived here for a while, say such things as "I forgot I was black" when they go home, because they find that far less attention is paid to ancestral continent here than over there.

Things commented on include that the police respond to them better here, & that they don't feel out of place when there are no or very few other black people around, because non-black people aren't  reacting differently to them than the others present.

Oh, & black American women say that they find they have more choice of men here. One suggested it might be because the US stereotype of the angry black single mother doesn't exist here, so really just another aspect of the same thing.

"Weren’t tense and hostile the way that some American police officers are when I approach" - black US former airman.
"I don’t remember being followed around by store security"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 June, 2016, 01:41:45 pm
That eating an industrial-sized portion of chickpea and lentil curry on the eve of a long-haul flight is about as good an idea as it sounds.

In James Dickey's book "To the White Sea" he mentions the USN's habit of feeding its aviators on beans before flights in unpressurized planes; and unconventional uses for the flare chute.

My own alimentary mishap, never to be forgotten, involved lobster mayonnaise with a pint of Guinness and a very rough crossing of the Irish Sea.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 June, 2016, 04:43:31 pm
that Nikon ED lenses are hyperopic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Si S on 03 June, 2016, 02:37:31 pm
That there is a passenger ferry across the Manchester Ship Canal at Thelwall that takes bikes. Looks like fun.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Si S on 03 June, 2016, 03:21:17 pm
And there's another at Davyhulme that's just been upgraded to take bikes, I foresee a double ferry loop
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 03 June, 2016, 09:36:30 pm
That nothing rhymes with orange (OK, you knew that one), angel, silver, bulb or month.  Or pint.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 03 June, 2016, 09:37:01 pm
And don't say "quicksilver", that's cheating.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 03 June, 2016, 11:29:50 pm
Depends if you go literal, or take poetic license
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 04 June, 2016, 11:45:53 am
That a honey bee, in its whole life's work, makes a third of a teaspoon of honey.

Wow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 June, 2016, 12:19:16 pm
That a honey bee, in its whole life's work, makes a third of a teaspoon of honey.

obxkcd:  https://what-if.xkcd.com/144/

As a function of body mass, that's surprisingly similar.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 June, 2016, 12:48:28 pm
The obvious next question is how long it would take a hive of honey bees to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool with honey.

Isn't it?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 04 June, 2016, 08:27:20 pm
That these fine objects, known as spudgers (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Metal-Spudger-Pry-Repair-Opening-Tool-for-Apple-iPhone-iPad-iPod-Macbook-/251470857338?hash=item3a8cd4c47a:g:k08AAOxydgZTHGfX) could have a better  name, viz: The Ultimate Tool for Persuading Recalcitrant Pistachios to Yield Their Bounty. May not be as easily tripped off the tongue, but I think it is prettier.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 05 June, 2016, 10:53:03 am
That there is a passenger ferry across the Manchester Ship Canal at Thelwall that takes bikes. Looks like fun.

Last time I was there it was a gnarly old bloke with a rowing boat. Er, thanks but no thanks . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 05 June, 2016, 10:58:09 am
That there is a passenger ferry across the Manchester Ship Canal at Thelwall that takes bikes. Looks like fun.

Last time I was there it was a gnarly old bloke with a rowing boat. Er, thanks but no thanks . . .

"What's the French for have you ever lost one?" :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 05 June, 2016, 11:13:01 am
There is a free ferry at Flixton but not a clue  as to what it comprises.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 05 June, 2016, 12:31:27 pm
That there is a passenger ferry across the Manchester Ship Canal at Thelwall that takes bikes. Looks like fun.

Last time I was there it was a gnarly old bloke with a rowing boat. Er, thanks but no thanks . . .

"What's the French for have you ever lost one?" :)

Going there for my birthday . . .  ;D  ;D  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 06 June, 2016, 02:11:19 pm
You probably all know this already (and I think I may have previously known it but forgotten it) but Nottingham was originally known as 'Snottingham' -'the homestead of Snot's tribe'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 June, 2016, 02:27:52 pm
That the "Meadows" referred to in L'Anse aux Meadows - the Viking settlement in Newfoundland - refers not to fields but to jellyfish, called by ye Frenchies "Méduses".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 06 June, 2016, 03:06:02 pm
You probably all know this already (and I think I may have previously known it but forgotten it) but Nottingham was originally known as 'Snottingham' -'the homestead of Snot's tribe'.

There's a sign outside Karlsruhe that announces "KARLSRUHE - Partnerstadt mit NANCY NOTTINGHAM".  Maybe they know more about Snot than they're telling.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 06 June, 2016, 03:57:30 pm
You probably all know this already (and I think I may have previously known it but forgotten it) but Nottingham was originally known as 'Snottingham' -'the homestead of Snot's tribe'.

The initial S was dropped by the Normans.  You can see why the people of Scunthorpe were glad the Normans didn't get further north.  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 07 June, 2016, 03:52:25 pm
That the "Meadows" referred to in L'Anse aux Meadows - the Viking settlement in Newfoundland - refers not to fields but to jellyfish, called by ye Frenchies "Méduses".
I didn't know that! And I've wondered for many years how the place got a mixed French/English name.

Jellyfish Bight - much more sensible!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 June, 2016, 04:09:08 pm
Jellyfish Blight might me be even more sensible!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 07 June, 2016, 05:44:16 pm
(Off the back of a discussion of super-twat Noel Edmonds): the existence of the Cancer Act 1939, and its provisions as regards advertising.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 08 June, 2016, 10:51:17 am
Chris Boardman & Daniel Craig were in the same year at the same secondary school.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 June, 2016, 12:33:28 pm
Chris Boardman & Daniel Craig were in the same year at the same secondary school.

Chis Boardman to be the next Bond James Bond  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: matthew on 08 June, 2016, 01:29:29 pm
Do Jag or Aston Martin make a bike for Q to build a rocket launcher into?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 June, 2016, 01:43:43 pm
Back in his professional days Boardman had a Lotus Elise with a custom-made bike rack, but a Lotus wouldn't work for Bond James Bond, because he can't chase the Fiendish Hordes of $ENEMY if he's perched on the armco waiting for a breakdown truck :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 08 June, 2016, 08:55:40 pm
Via faceache. Today 31 years ago, 'Brothers in Arms' first entered the US album chart.


I. Feel. Old.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 June, 2016, 08:53:29 am
I have learned how to make custom trailers in Euro Truck Simulator 2 and as a result it is now possible to haul a cargo of Bobb's Hair across the entire EU.

valuable: true
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 June, 2016, 09:46:22 am
Via faceache. Today 31 years ago, 'Brothers in Arms' first entered the US album chart.


I. Feel. Old.

I feel older - I had to look it up.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 09 June, 2016, 07:56:49 pm
Via faceache. Today 31 years ago, 'Brothers in Arms' first entered the US album chart.


I. Feel. Old.

I feel older - I had to look it up.

I don't feel quite so old. I was 12 when it came out.  Still one of my favourite albums though, along with most of the rest of their stuff and the Moody Blues - I blame my dad.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 June, 2016, 07:20:29 am
Pablo Escobar's gang used to spend $2500 a month on rubber bands to wrap round bundles of banknotes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 13 June, 2016, 08:37:38 pm
That The Old Kent Road is the only monopoly board property, including the stations, that is sarf of the river.

Probably well known by those in that London, but new to me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 13 June, 2016, 08:43:12 pm
That The Old Kent Road is the only monopoly board property, including the stations, that is sarf of the river.

Probably well known by those in that London, but new to me.
You should visit more often  ;)
It's an awesome city.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 14 June, 2016, 09:38:24 am
that dropping a wheel on your head hurts.

Not sure if it was the skewer or cassette that caught me, but it's bloody sore.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 June, 2016, 11:03:59 am
That putti are cherubs entire, and not those disembodied wingëd kiddie-heads you see dotted about in Renaissance paintings.

So the question remains, what do you call the flying noggins?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 14 June, 2016, 11:42:02 am
Noggin the Nog - obvs...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 14 June, 2016, 11:44:58 am
that dropping a wheel on your head hurts.

Not sure if it was the skewer or cassette that caught me, but it's bloody sore.


Was this some radical attempt at solving your dropout width problem?  Bash the wheel until it's narrower?  (Hope you aren't too badly damaged)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 14 June, 2016, 11:47:50 am
Meanwhile in other news.

Dahon Jetstream P8 comes with a parallelogram linkage Kinetics front suspension fork. When the linkages wear there is a deal of slop in the front fork akin to a loose headset bearing.

No repair parts are available. You can replace THE FORK*. End of . . .






*Something close to £200. Can't see THE PUNTER going for it, somehow.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 June, 2016, 08:36:56 pm
Not to accidentally stick your boob in a tub of minty arse lard.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 14 June, 2016, 08:39:33 pm
But doing it deliberately is just fine...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 June, 2016, 08:40:33 pm
YKINMKBYKIOK, as they say on the internet.

(The lid had fallen down the back of the bathroom shelves, for those wondering...)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 14 June, 2016, 09:07:13 pm
YKINMKBYKIOK, as they say on the internet.

(The lid had fallen down the back of the bathroom shelves, for those wondering...)

I wasn't wondering where the lid was, just how your boob managed to get there. ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 14 June, 2016, 09:19:37 pm
The teeny tiny area of Darlo where I live produces more sets of twins than the nearest large city  :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 June, 2016, 10:28:54 pm
YKINMKBYKIOK, as they say on the internet.

(The lid had fallen down the back of the bathroom shelves, for those wondering...)

I wasn't wondering where the lid was, just how your boob managed to get there. ;)

Fortunately, it was barakta's.   :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 14 June, 2016, 11:47:06 pm
YKINMKBYKIOK, as they say on the internet.

(The lid had fallen down the back of the bathroom shelves, for those wondering...)

I wasn't wondering where the lid was, just how your boob managed to get there. ;)

Fortunately, it was barakta's.   :D

wasn't she using said boob herself?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 15 June, 2016, 08:24:53 am
Meanwhile in other news.

Dahon Jetstream P8 comes with a parallelogram linkage Kinetics front suspension fork. When the linkages wear there is a deal of slop in the front fork akin to a loose headset bearing.

No repair parts are available. You can replace THE FORK*. End of . . .

I've got one of those.  the rubber boot on the fork disintegrated after about 2 years, so I asked them to supply a new boot, and some clues as to disassembly.  Their answer was to supply a complete new fork, gratis.  Sadly, yes, they did want the old one back....  and yes, the rubber boot on that one fell apart after a couple of years.  I must work out how to sort it, as currently its just got plenty of grease on  the shaft to protect from muck and rusting. 

Come to think of it, you are probably referring to the later type, mine is more of a sort of leading link one, with effectively two forks, I always thought the later one seemed more sensible, although it drastically altered the whole geometry of the bike.  Mine is late 2004 vintage.

Methinks an engineering solution involving machine tools and new bushes may be your only answer, but it'll cost as much as a new fork!






*Something close to £200. Can't see THE PUNTER going for it, somehow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 June, 2016, 09:02:10 am
Noggin the Nog - obvs...

Nah. Graculus was the flying one, Noggin just sailed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 15 June, 2016, 09:04:04 am
Wasn't that Draculus?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 June, 2016, 10:24:15 am
The famous umpyre or the first-class bat?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 15 June, 2016, 12:49:35 pm
Today I have learnt that no, you should not directly substitute cayenne pepper for paprika on your melted cheese
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 June, 2016, 01:19:45 pm
Whoosh!!!!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 15 June, 2016, 01:47:20 pm
Today I have learnt that no, you should not directly substitute cayenne pepper for paprika on your melted cheese

FUUUHHHHAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWKKKK! My guess is you won't be doing that again anytime soon.  :thumbsup:

BTW you owe me a laptop. Unless you know someone who can get tomato soup out of a keyboard . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 15 June, 2016, 01:51:12 pm

I've got one of those.  the rubber boot on the fork disintegrated after about 2 years, so I asked them to supply a new boot, and some clues as to disassembly.  Their answer was to supply a complete new fork, gratis.  Sadly, yes, they did want the old one back....  and yes, the rubber boot on that one fell apart after a couple of years.  I must work out how to sort it, as currently its just got plenty of grease on  the shaft to protect from muck and rusting. 

Come to think of it, you are probably referring to the later type, mine is more of a sort of leading link one, with effectively two forks, I always thought the later one seemed more sensible, although it drastically altered the whole geometry of the bike.  Mine is late 2004 vintage.

Methinks an engineering solution involving machine tools and new bushes may be your only answer, but it'll cost as much as a new fork!



I was thinking along the same lines but machine time costs. LOTS.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 June, 2016, 12:59:44 pm
One of Donald Trump's early inspirations was Roy Cohn.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 22 June, 2016, 01:50:06 pm
One of Donald Trump's early inspirations was Roy Cohn.
The others were Juan Peron, Toscanini and Dacron.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 22 June, 2016, 01:52:42 pm
You left one out
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 22 June, 2016, 01:57:36 pm
All the preparation for a (music) practical exam can't prepare you for momentary brain-fade. :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 June, 2016, 02:16:33 pm
That daft Sunday trading laws don't apply in Scotland.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 22 June, 2016, 11:55:32 pm
Balanchine was Georgian - Balanchivadze.

And Bakst was originally Rosenberg, but changed his name because being too obviously Jewish was bad for business in Russia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 June, 2016, 09:37:04 am
That flat-bar grips which fasten with ickle boltets are much easier to fit than the slide-on ones.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 June, 2016, 09:41:44 am
^^^ "Slide" being a dirty lie.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 June, 2016, 09:42:32 am
Oh, slide is not the lie; it's on that's the lie. They slide off very well!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 June, 2016, 09:57:26 am
I once used chalk to lube them. That worked, but of course, they went right on sliding once on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 23 June, 2016, 02:35:36 pm
Comoros. Where, what, and what they produce
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 June, 2016, 02:36:29 pm
Eggs, in paper bags?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 June, 2016, 02:52:59 pm
Comoros. Where, what, and what they produce
Just another name for a shag, isn't it. Where and what are negotiable between participants, they produce shaglets.

Oh, that's cormorants. Okay.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 June, 2016, 02:56:01 pm
Comoros. Where, what, and what they produce

Islands, aren't they? Dunno what they produce - fish and pirates?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 23 June, 2016, 06:14:00 pm
Ylang-ylang
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 June, 2016, 06:50:22 pm
That "Ylang-ylang" is an "essential oil" and not, as I had previously thought, something unpleasant from the writings of L P Hovercraft.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 June, 2016, 09:44:11 am
Much the same, aren't they?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 24 June, 2016, 01:28:07 pm
That the Italian Flag and ROI flags are different colours. Seems the red bit on the Irish flag is actually orange.

#colourblind
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 24 June, 2016, 01:40:54 pm
Irish flag colours = Indian flag colours.
Italian flag colours = Hungary, Bulgaria, Uruguay, Mexico - except I think some of greens are a bit darker.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 June, 2016, 01:53:49 pm
Well very nearly. The Indian flag also has dark blue on it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 24 June, 2016, 01:58:58 pm
The origin of the phrase, Ship of Fools.  I had a vague idea of its meaning, but was inspired to find out more when it sprang to mind as I listened to Cameron's resignation speech about needing a new captain to steer us in this new direction.

Well, well, well.  It comes from Plato's Republic, where he argues that

Quote from: https://philosophynow.org/issues/101/The_Ship_of_Fools
it is not guaranteed, in fact is unlikely, that those best equipped to rule will get a chance to manage public affairs. Instead the loudest voices will dominate, irrational, ill-motivated decisions will be made and the complex arena of politics which is in need of careful ordering and management will turn into a crazy circus.

The allegory goes

Quote from: Wikipedia
Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering - every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary.

They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected of them.

Hmm.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 24 June, 2016, 02:08:36 pm
Irish flag colours = Indian flag colours.
Italian flag colours = Hungary, Bulgaria, Uruguay, Mexico - except I think some of greens are a bit darker.

Most of them the stripes go different ways or are different widths or have some kind of emblem on them.

I only found out the Irish and Italian flags weren't identical when discussing the other nights football match with a colleague.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 June, 2016, 02:08:47 pm
Loving your under-avatar line, billplumtree.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 24 June, 2016, 02:14:21 pm
Loving your under-avatar line, billplumtree.  :thumbsup:

I have Ruthie to thank for that one  ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 24 June, 2016, 02:30:50 pm
Irish flag colours = Indian flag colours.
Italian flag colours = Hungary, Bulgaria, Uruguay, Mexico - except I think some of greens are a bit darker.

Most of them the stripes go different ways or are different widths or have some kind of emblem on them.

I only found out the Irish and Italian flags weren't identical when discussing the other nights football match with a colleague.
I don't think that any flags of proper countries (I don't count Monaco) are identical.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 June, 2016, 02:32:50 pm
The origin of the phrase, Ship of Fools.  I had a vague idea of its meaning, but was inspired to find out more when it sprang to mind as I listened to Cameron's resignation speech about needing a new captain to steer us in this new direction...

I didn't know it either but I was certainly thinking it this morning.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Dibdib on 24 June, 2016, 02:53:57 pm
I'm entitled to Irish citizenship if I want it, and it's only a couple of hundred quid. I might take them up on it...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 June, 2016, 03:15:11 pm
I'm entitled to Irish citizenship if I want it, and it's only a couple of hundred quid. I might take them up on it...

*peers*

Interesting.  I might be, if I could somehow acquire a whole load of paperwork I don't have access to.  Hopefully it won't come to that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 24 June, 2016, 03:23:44 pm
That the Italian Flag and ROI flags are different colours. Seems the red bit on the Irish flag is actually orange.

#colourblind

One time I was wondering through Rome and thought I had found the Irish embassy...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Dibdib on 24 June, 2016, 03:34:01 pm
Interesting.  I might be, if I could somehow acquire a whole load of paperwork I don't have access to.  Hopefully it won't come to that.

I think either my mum or my aunt will have the documents I'd need, possibly my uncle as a last resort. I hope it doesn't come to it either, but if nothing else travelling to Europe from the UK might end up being easier with an EU rather than UK passport.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 June, 2016, 03:37:21 pm
Loving your under-avatar line, billplumtree.  :thumbsup:

I have Ruthie to thank for that one  ::-)
Stands to reason. I'll bet she was the one who persuaded you into that arduous and deeply unrewarding of the extremely unpicturesque islands too...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 24 June, 2016, 11:29:19 pm
Only one flag has just one colour, an only one flag is not rectangular.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 24 June, 2016, 11:37:11 pm
Libya? Switzerland?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 24 June, 2016, 11:38:00 pm
Libya and Nepal I think.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 24 June, 2016, 11:44:07 pm
Libya and Nepal I think.

Bingo
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 24 June, 2016, 11:52:21 pm
Arse. Falls for "square is a rectangle " move.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 25 June, 2016, 12:07:10 am
But that's the old Libyan flag, post Gadaffi it's a bit different https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Libya



Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 25 June, 2016, 07:35:08 am
But that's the old Libyan flag, post Gadaffi it's a bit different https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Libya

shhhh, don't tell 'em
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 June, 2016, 08:18:09 am
All the blether about the Irish flag had me looking it up to see if what I knew from my youth still accorded with the latest official history.  This bit on Wiki strikes me as about as reliable as a USSR school atlas :

Quote
Occasionally, differing shades of yellow, instead of orange, are seen at civilian functions. However the Department of the Taoiseach state that this is a misrepresentation which "should be actively discouraged", and that worn-out flags should be replaced. In songs and poems, the colours are sometimes enumerated as "green, white and gold", using poetic licence. Variants of different guises are utilised to include -for example, various emblems of Ireland, such as the presidential harp, the four provinces or county arms.

When I was a child I never heard it described as anything other than green, white and gold, and the idea that the flag of a nation which had spent years and lives trying to throw off union with GB should enshrine in its flag the colour of its greatest antagonist in doing so is about as daft as the idea that the Orange Order still stands for religious freedom.

As the line used to go: "Yes, Mr. Paisley, we know the grass is green, the daisies are white and the dandelions are golden but there's not a fucking thing we can do about it."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 25 June, 2016, 09:48:05 am
[insert Ian Paisley "no pot pourri" joke]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 June, 2016, 09:48:29 am
Or green, black and blue? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress_(viral_phenomenon))
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 June, 2016, 10:35:55 am
No one outside Northern Ireland thinks of orange as a British colour though. Or fruit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 25 June, 2016, 04:00:31 pm
The difference between an artists proof and a limited edition.

This came about from ordering a limited edition bronze and being supplied with an artists proof. No I am not going to tell the gallery of their mistake...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 June, 2016, 12:23:57 pm
That Art Tripp III, aka Ed Marimba, formerly of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, is now a chiropractor.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ian H on 26 June, 2016, 01:14:23 pm
...is now a chiropractor.

Why does that word always summon the mental image of something that is a cross between a dinosaur and a helicopter?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 June, 2016, 01:47:30 pm
A hotel where I once spent a couple of months hosted a chiropractors' conference one weekend. The place stank of sweat and chalk the whole time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 26 June, 2016, 05:09:08 pm
I found the cycle path to the five pound note bridge :)  First railway bridge in the world, apparently.  It's right near my house, only lived here for two years  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 June, 2016, 09:04:16 am
Five pound note bridge? Deserves more than just a photo! What is it? How come the name?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 June, 2016, 09:29:11 am
Seems the Skerne bridge on the Stockton-Darlington Railway was featured on the back of the 1990-2003 fiver along with George Stephenson.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 27 June, 2016, 02:40:51 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/b12f197b01c40dda801a5c0919ee26a8562b2c13.jpg

It was a rather splendid bridge, used for the first steam railway.  It's still rather splendid but hidden behind a lot of gas pipes and litter.  I'll go down another time if you like and get a photo?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 June, 2016, 03:29:00 pm
The word mokita comes from New Guinea and means "a truth everyone knows but nobody mentions".

It's also a brand of espresso machine, which is how I found out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 June, 2016, 03:36:56 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/b12f197b01c40dda801a5c0919ee26a8562b2c13.jpg

It was a rather splendid bridge, used for the first steam railway.  It's still rather splendid but hidden behind a lot of gas pipes and litter.  I'll go down another time if you like and get a photo?
Photo, ride report, map, etc etc. And a five pound note!  :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 27 June, 2016, 07:28:44 pm
Alexander "Boris" Johnson's other middle name is de Pfeffel  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 29 June, 2016, 08:15:35 am
That there's a thing called Gregg shorthand.  My friend does it.  It is the best thing I have ever seen.  I wish I could do it.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 June, 2016, 08:39:53 am
Not to be confused with Greggs shorthand:

ps: pies
pts: pasties
ha: myocardial infarction
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 29 June, 2016, 08:42:41 am
POTD!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 June, 2016, 08:44:47 am
BTDT. :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 29 June, 2016, 10:54:37 am
Alexander "Boris" Johnson's other middle name is de Pfeffel  ;D

Is that pronounced 'piffle' perchance?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 June, 2016, 11:05:35 am
Alexander "Boris" Johnson's other middle name is de Pfeffel  ;D

Is that pronounced 'piffle' perchance?
:D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 29 June, 2016, 12:07:53 pm
Alexander "Boris" Johnson's other middle name is de Pfeffel  ;D

Is that pronounced 'piffle' perchance?

Nope.

In that upper crust English way that Featherstone-Hough is pronounced Fanshaw, Alexander 'Boris' de Pfeffel Johnson is pronounced Boris The Fuckwit Johnson.

HTH.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 01 July, 2016, 10:46:06 am
Olivia de Havilland ain't dead yet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 01 July, 2016, 01:17:00 pm
Nope, and neither is Herman Wouk.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 01 July, 2016, 03:02:48 pm
Nope, and neither is Herman Wouk.

Crikey! I can barely remember reading The Winds of War.

Edit: I think I'll have to re-read some of his stuff.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 July, 2016, 08:59:56 am
The missus is reading a bio of Jane Austen and wherein it is noted that at around the turn of the 19th century £100/year would allow a young couple to own a comfortable fully-staffed house, to entertain as often as they desired and to keep a carriage and pair.

Our weekly grocery bill is about twice that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 04 July, 2016, 10:52:53 am
Not sure whether this should go in here or in 'I am such a feckin' div' thread?
So, here goes.....
I've always found the eazy-wheels on the Brompton a bit of a disappointment, especially their claim to making the bike easy to wheel around when it is folded.
I've always found them a bit crap in that respect.
But then, that is because I was folding the bike and pushing it around using the seat post.
 :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:
I now know that you're supposed to drop the seat post, and unfold the 'bars and pull it around with them.
I'll be clock-watching the rest of today 'cos I can't wait to get home and try this. :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 04 July, 2016, 12:11:34 pm
I didn't know that either, one of my several endearing disappointments about my Brompton was that they couldn't – on a thousand quid bike – get three little wheels to work. Are those the crappy default wheels or the special ones? All the crappy ones do is snap at my heels when I pedal.

I saw an epically shiny brand-new Brommie at the station the other day. One of the clear one (lacquered I guess). He looks at my dirt-smeared one and edges away like it might be contagious. I look up the cloudy sky threatening rain. It ain't going to stay like that, buddy. Anyway, they seem to have improved the little wheels somewhat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 July, 2016, 01:48:10 pm
Also note that the bottom of the seatpost has a rubber ferrule that serves as a parking brake for the folded bike - to roll on all four easy wheels you should raise the saddle slightly above its natural resting position and re-clamp it.

If you're in the habit of lifting the folded package by the back edge of the saddle and rolling on the front two easy wheels alone you don't have to do this.  I find that gives the best directional control, but how practical it is will depend on your height.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 04 July, 2016, 04:19:23 pm
I didn't know that either, one of my several endearing disappointments about my Brompton was that they couldn't – on a thousand quid bike – get three little wheels to work. Are those the crappy default wheels or the special ones? All the crappy ones do is snap at my heels when I pedal.

I saw an epically shiny brand-new Brommie at the station the other day. One of the clear one (lacquered I guess). He looks at my dirt-smeared one and edges away like it might be contagious. I look up the cloudy sky threatening rain. It ain't going to stay like that, buddy. Anyway, they seem to have improved the little wheels somewhat.
I'm not sure that its supposed to roll with the default wheels.
I found out today that the upgrade eazy-wheels (slightly larger Ø) allow you to pull the bike by the bars - the third wheel doesn't come into it.

@Kim - I'm rackless - so only have three wheels to contend with.

ETA: This evening I am delighted! :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 July, 2016, 09:22:10 am
The default wheels are pointless. They don't even roll over the flattest ground. But they do catch your heels. I should have bashed that other Brommie owner over the head and stole his shiny new one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 05 July, 2016, 09:40:45 am
I'm advised that if you reverse them, so that the conical bits point outwards, they're less likely to catch your heels.
If you want proper roll, a pair of eazy wheels is around £12.00 from £vans - given that their real cost is probably 25% of that, I don't know why they don't fit them as standard to, as you say, a thousand pound bike, and be done with it. Those default wheels do little other than let down an otherwise great (never thought I'd find myself saying that about a Brompton) bike.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 05 July, 2016, 10:58:27 am
The father of Linus(x) Torvalds is a member of the European Parliament.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 July, 2016, 11:13:49 am
That Nico Hülkenberg has an umlaut.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 05 July, 2016, 04:49:04 pm
That the Juno satellite aka the Jupiter probe, has three lego figurines on board.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 05 July, 2016, 05:26:50 pm
Made of titanium I believe.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 July, 2016, 05:44:38 pm
I'm advised that if you reverse them, so that the conical bits point outwards, they're less likely to catch your heels.
If you want proper roll, a pair of eazy wheels is around £12.00 from £vans - given that their real cost is probably 25% of that, I don't know why they don't fit them as standard to, as you say, a thousand pound bike, and be done with it. Those default wheels do little other than let down an otherwise great (never thought I'd find myself saying that about a Brompton) bike.

They've done away with the crap default wheels on this year's models.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 05 July, 2016, 06:52:30 pm
I'm advised that if you reverse them, so that the conical bits point outwards, they're less likely to catch your heels.
If you want proper roll, a pair of eazy wheels is around £12.00 from £vans - given that their real cost is probably 25% of that, I don't know why they don't fit them as standard to, as you say, a thousand pound bike, and be done with it. Those default wheels do little other than let down an otherwise great (never thought I'd find myself saying that about a Brompton) bike.

They've done away with the crap default wheels on this year's models.
Someone, on Planet Brompton, has woken up.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 05 July, 2016, 07:24:22 pm
I'm advised that if you reverse them, so that the conical bits point outwards, they're less likely to catch your heels.

 :thumbsup:  Thank you!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 06 July, 2016, 07:04:52 am
I'm advised that if you reverse them, so that the conical bits point outwards, they're less likely to catch your heels.

 :thumbsup:  Thank you!
Is that on Sophie?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 06 July, 2016, 07:48:16 am
Yes. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 06 July, 2016, 07:57:22 am
You know a girl with wheels? Holy Chorlton!

I think I shall have to try changing or inverting my crappy wheels. And yes, the shiny new Brompton had thinner, more practical wheels. Frankly, the entire thing was too shiny to contemplate riding. I have never seen a bike that clean.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 07 July, 2016, 08:05:38 am
That gears have been developed by evolution as well as by humanity.

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/functioning-mechanical-gears-seen-in-nature-for-the-first-time

Cool.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 July, 2016, 08:06:37 am
That TV's Mark Kermode plays double bass in a skiffle band.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jaded on 07 July, 2016, 08:34:59 am
Ha! I found that out on Tuesday  :smug:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 07 July, 2016, 11:33:14 am
That TV's Mark Kermode plays double bass in a skiffle band.
Didn't he do that years ago? They were the house band on a chat show hosted by loveable cockney, Danny Baker.
The something Rattlers IIRC.

Edit. Railtown Bottlers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 07 July, 2016, 12:16:35 pm
That hanging heavy doors on your own is bloody awkward.   Not helped by having to wield a screwdriver in my right hand.  I am not at all dexterous.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 July, 2016, 12:20:43 pm
There's always been something sinister about you, Basil.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 July, 2016, 01:08:03 pm
Use two-part hinges with pintels instead of butt hinges, then you can screw both halves on separately and then lift the door on.  You get the barrel of the hinge sticking out a bit further than with butt hinges, but it's a hell of a lot easier and you can remove the door easily if you need to.  Our front door is solid oak and uses them, as do most European wooden doors that I've seen.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 07 July, 2016, 01:58:05 pm
Use two-part hinges with pintels instead of butt hinges, then you can screw both halves on separately and then lift the door on.  You get the barrel of the hinge sticking out a bit further than with butt hinges, but it's a hell of a lot easier and you can remove the door easily if you need to.  Our front door is solid oak and uses them, as do most European wooden doors that I've seen.

That is probably why the vote was for Out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 07 July, 2016, 11:46:37 pm
There's a German language Death in Paradise page on Facebook.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 July, 2016, 01:22:56 pm
That putting a Garmin PE Watch Thingy through the washing machine is a great way to boost the day's step count.   :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pickled Onion on 10 July, 2016, 01:28:46 pm
That you can freeze hummus, but you can't freeze taramasalata.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 July, 2016, 02:52:28 pm
That Martin Scorses used rotoscoping to removed a large blob of cocaine from Neil Young's nostril in The Last Waltz.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 July, 2016, 05:06:26 pm
Use two-part hinges with pintels instead of butt hinges, then you can screw both halves on separately and then lift the door on.  You get the barrel of the hinge sticking out a bit further than with butt hinges, but it's a hell of a lot easier and you can remove the door easily if you need to.  Our front door is solid oak and uses them, as do most European wooden doors that I've seen.

That is probably why the vote was for Out.

Right enough, even UK windows open outwards. Must have had a referendum 'way back when.
Title: Re: what I have learned today . . .
Post by: Torslanda on 10 July, 2016, 09:32:45 pm
 . . . that the Yanks DO have a sense of humour.

In October 1965, to signify the dropping of the 6 millionth pound of ordnance on Vietnam a Douglas A-1 Skyraider carried a special one time addition. A toilet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_A-1_Skyraider#/media/File:A-1H_VA-25_CVA-41bomb.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 July, 2016, 12:19:32 pm
That Trio's Da Da Da has, worldwide, outsold Do They Know It's Christmas?, which I find immensely pleasing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 13 July, 2016, 01:58:44 pm
That since 11th May, only one member of Trio is still alive.
http://www.stephan-remmler.de/ (http://www.stephan-remmler.de/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 July, 2016, 09:34:03 am
A set of guitar picks - generally about a dozen in assorted widths from 0.46 to 2 mm - makes a nifty set of feeler gauges for measuring the height of the action.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 14 July, 2016, 10:45:09 pm
Lithic mulch (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00813138).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 July, 2016, 11:01:42 am
Good name for a moneylender or a Puritan patriarch.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 15 July, 2016, 11:27:46 am
That the Tour de France is a bi-athlon
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 15 July, 2016, 11:32:24 am
Lithic mulch (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00813138).
They did that on Easter Island after they used up all the trees & a lot of the soil washed into the sea.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 15 July, 2016, 12:13:12 pm
That the Tour de France is a bi-athlon
I think and hope you mean duathlon.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 15 July, 2016, 12:37:59 pm
Well, perhaps participants are now licenced to shoot spectators who block their way.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 15 July, 2016, 02:29:27 pm
That Shimano 10 speed rear mtb mechs do not work with road shifters.   Pre 10 speed the rear mechs were compatible across road and mtb with only the front mechs being incompatible. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 15 July, 2016, 02:45:47 pm
I suspect that that little bit of knowledge took a frustrating amount of time to discover ...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 15 July, 2016, 08:03:17 pm
Parma violet cheese exists http://shop.lovehearts.com/parma-violet-cheese  :sick:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 15 July, 2016, 09:29:51 pm
I suspect that that little bit of knowledge took a frustrating amount of time to discover ...

No.  I read it in an old Chris Juden CTC article.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 15 July, 2016, 09:58:28 pm
That i know more about the UK offshore medical requirements for a T1D than the occupational physicians who are supposed to give me the tick in the box
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 16 July, 2016, 08:59:58 am
That Shimano 10 speed rear mtb mechs do not work with road shifters.   Pre 10 speed the rear mechs were compatible across road and mtb with only the front mechs being incompatible.

Beware the Shimano DynaSys. It only works as a set. Not only is it different from 'old Shimano ' but also incompatible with SRAM. All the road groups now use Shimano's cable pull ratio for 11speed, too. So not only is it as ugly as fcuk, none of the older groups will function with it. A crash that breaks an STi now means a frustrating search for NOS bits or a new groupset.

Way to go Big S. NOT!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 16 July, 2016, 08:41:29 pm
Parma violet cheese exists http://shop.lovehearts.com/parma-violet-cheese  :sick:


That should be a crime.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 16 July, 2016, 08:44:58 pm
Years ago I joked that it would be possible to join together a load of sewer pipes, half fill them with mud, and charge people for an imitation caving "experience". Today, i learned that iit is possible to buy artificial caves...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 16 July, 2016, 08:46:04 pm
That i know more about the UK offshore medical requirements for a T1D than the occupational physicians who are supposed to give me the tick in the box

Figures. Last 2 offshore medicals I had they told me I should fail due to poor eyesight sans-lunettes but they passed me anyway.
(Admittedly the last doctor made me walk along a corridor and up some stairs first. )
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 July, 2016, 10:08:59 pm
Good thing it was you and not Mariah Carey (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/11231787/The-most-outrageous-celebrity-diva-demands.html), Mrs P.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 17 July, 2016, 05:23:36 pm
I am delighted to say that I am not Mariah Carey. She's completely stark raving bonkers!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 July, 2016, 05:28:44 pm
Plus we'd have two Mariah Careys (Mariahs Carey?) and no Mrs Pingu, which is clearly suboptimal.  If nothing else, the world doesn't need that much warbling.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 July, 2016, 07:20:00 pm
That police using body-worn cameras have to tell you if they're turning the camera on. I'd assumed they were just on all the time in order to record things that might happen, not just things already happening.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 July, 2016, 06:33:27 pm
That video cassette recorders are still in production – until the end of next month. And that Betamax tapes only went out of production earlier this year! What's more, apparently 58% of USA households still have a VCR (but do they use it?). My flabber is well and truly ghasted.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 July, 2016, 06:36:01 pm
We've still got a VCR.  It's sitting in the rack not doing anything other than filling a hole to keep the hot and cold side air from mixing.  As far as I know it still works.  Not that I've got anything that'll display a PAL video signal, unless you count an oscilloscope (which isn't a very exciting way to watch videos) or an MPEG2 encoder card that struggles to stay locked to  VHS output.

Are Betamax and Betacam tapes different?  Wait, it's Sony, of course they are.  The latter would have an excuse for hanging around this long...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 July, 2016, 06:39:00 pm
Only on Wednesday I plugged the VHS machine into the new distascope at Fort Larrington. I've still got one plugged in too though I can't remember the last time it was switched on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 July, 2016, 06:52:43 pm
I don't even have any audiotapes left. Or if I do, I don't know where they are or what's on them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 July, 2016, 08:41:07 pm
I've got an unopened 5-pack of C90s over there ^^^^!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 July, 2016, 08:56:19 pm
I have plenty of audiotapes, literally Discover'd a new lease of life for them when I found that as well as a 6-CD changer, my Disco-2 has a cassette machine.

VHS was ditched years ago, finally upgraded to Blurry Blue Ray this year and got rid of the final CRT
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 July, 2016, 04:15:38 pm
Jimmy Cagney once played Nick Bottom the weaver in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 23 July, 2016, 05:34:52 pm
'Footpath' often really does mean footpath.

Who am I kidding?  This isn't the first time I've 'learned' this lesson, and I'm sure I'll learn it many times more.  ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 23 July, 2016, 05:42:10 pm
According to Wikipedia, sticking a finger up your arse cures hiccups.  Does anyone care to try it and report back?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 23 July, 2016, 05:46:42 pm
According to Wikipedia, sticking a finger up your arse cures hiccups.  Does anyone care to try it and report back?

Aren't there easier ways to startle someone?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 23 July, 2016, 06:17:31 pm
According to Wikipedia, sticking a finger up your arse cures hiccups.  Does anyone care to try it and report back?

Aren't there easier ways to startle someone?

 ;D
Andrij.  I've just lost an entire swig of my ale.  Git.   ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 July, 2016, 06:22:35 pm
According to Wikipedia, sticking a finger up your arse cures hiccups.  Does anyone care to try it and report back?

Aren't there easier ways to startle someone?

 ;D
Andrij.  I've just lost an entire swig of my ale.  Git.   ;D

And I have just had to turn myself back the opposite of inside-out after an incident involving Brown Drink, a fondleslab and Andrij's soaring heights of gittery ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 23 July, 2016, 06:29:42 pm
(http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb289/albinmn/Bowing.gif)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 23 July, 2016, 08:32:08 pm
That the lady opposite us is not Welsh (he is), she is from Birmingham.  Perry Barr to be exact.  35 years ago, mind.
No. That's not true.  I found that out last week, not today.
What I learned today was that the lady 4 doors down on our side also originates from Brum.
 Guess which part.

 Yes. Perry Barr.

Also that they were both unaware of this.

Llandysul Brum club?  No, sorry.  We're from Sarf brum, dontcha know?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 24 July, 2016, 12:50:42 am
According to Wikipedia, sticking a finger up your arse cures hiccups.  Does anyone care to try it and report back?

No way am I sticking my finger up your arse. Keep asking though, somebody might?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 July, 2016, 08:02:58 am
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Bishops_Finger.JPG/800px-Bishops_Finger.JPG)

One of these, maybe?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 July, 2016, 08:25:43 pm
That plastics trauma does not necessarily mean a nightmare caused by watching Spitting Image.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 24 July, 2016, 08:43:20 pm
That a really inexpensive wire saw gives me a neat solution for cutting an awkwardly placed waste pipe in situ.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 24 July, 2016, 09:44:59 pm
That an air powered pop riveter is the coolest tool evah!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 July, 2016, 08:08:40 am
Bolivian players of Pokémon Go are being enticed into uncleared minefields.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 25 July, 2016, 08:36:58 am
There are minefields in Bolivia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 July, 2016, 08:47:51 am
See H&F post re fatigue/brain death.  Bosnia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 25 July, 2016, 09:23:38 am
There are minefields in Bolivia.
And between Chile and Peru too, which got flooded which washed them out on the roads doing a storm in 2012.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 25 July, 2016, 09:37:04 am
"Cool Running" the film about a Jamaican bob-sleigh team was released as "Rasta Rocket" in France.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 25 July, 2016, 09:38:54 am
This

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/27/worlds-most-dangerous-school-run-chinese-children-800m-cliff (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/27/worlds-most-dangerous-school-run-chinese-children-800m-cliff)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 25 July, 2016, 11:50:17 am
Ethnic minority (like just over half the population of Liangshan prefecture) & probably low priority for the local Han authorities.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 25 July, 2016, 12:27:44 pm
Do they get to miss PE at school?  They don't really need it, do they?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 25 July, 2016, 08:29:28 pm
That the river Teifi formed one of Britain's Retreat To And Defend lines in the second world war. 
I always wondered at the pill box which still exists.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 25 July, 2016, 09:20:24 pm
That the lady opposite us is not Welsh (he is), she is from Birmingham.  Perry Barr to be exact.  35 years ago, mind.
No. That's not true.  I found that out last week, not today.
What I learned today was that the lady 4 doors down on our side also originates from Brum.
Guess which part.

Yes. Perry Barr.
35 years ago I was 16 and desperate to leave Perry Barr.

Wales would have done, but I was determined to go to more exotic climes.

I'm in Derby now...

If you get the chance have a sneaky peek in her shed in case she has an incongruous red racing bike (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=95664.msg2002389#msg2002389) in there. The timing is about right, though I admit that moving to Wales after a single like theft is less likely than fencing it as quickly as possible. Even with a red bike. Still, you could pump her for information?

I know, I know, you're probably trying to settle in and make friends.

Maybe you could do it subtly? I'll leave it with you. I'll give you till the weekend before I alert the fuzz.

 ;)

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 July, 2016, 09:28:41 am
That the river Teifi formed one of Britain's Retreat To And Defend lines in the second world war. 
I always wondered at the pill box which still exists.
I sometimes wonder how they decided where to put those pill boxes. They don't always seem to be in particularly strategic or defensible places. For instance, there's a line of them along the Fosse Way just north of Malmesbury, at which point it's just a gravel byway, and others on the Frome south of Bath, which is a small river with little villages. I guess there might have been important structures though and also it's a matter of chance which ones have survived.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 July, 2016, 09:55:02 am
Heh.  We live in the middle of the Maginot Line.  In a local fort there's a map of the area showing the guns' arcs of fire and the lines of the German advance, right through the spots that weren't covered.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 July, 2016, 06:48:05 pm
Staying with forts, on 2 September 1645 Oliver Cromwell very nearly died at the end of my street. Admittedly it was the other end and, okay, there wasn't actually a street then – and of course he didn't actually die – but a shot "passed within two handbreadths" of him during an attack on a fort that was there at the time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 27 July, 2016, 09:54:15 pm
According to Wikipedia, sticking a finger up your arse cures hiccups.  Does anyone care to try it and report back?

Perhaps something a bit simpler? (http://www.mentalfloss.com/uk/health/44937/how-to-cure-your-hiccups-in-15-seconds-or-less)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 28 July, 2016, 07:19:09 am
That the river Teifi formed one of Britain's Retreat To And Defend lines in the second world war. 
I always wondered at the pill box which still exists.
I sometimes wonder how they decided where to put those pill boxes. They don't always seem to be in particularly strategic or defensible places. For instance, there's a line of them along the Fosse Way just north of Malmesbury, at which point it's just a gravel byway, and others on the Frome south of Bath, which is a small river with little villages. I guess there might have been important structures though and also it's a matter of chance which ones have survived.

Bath was home to the Admiralty wasn't it? Other government depts removed from London?

Plenty round here along the line of the Cam and out on the road to Peterborough. Looking at them the only reason I can think of them still being here is because getting rid of that munch reinforced concrete would require an assault gun or a log of explosives.

I assume we were just a delaying line for an invasion from the east
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 July, 2016, 05:03:02 pm
Hobgoblin stocks shruti boxes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 July, 2016, 06:11:17 pm
That the river Teifi formed one of Britain's Retreat To And Defend lines in the second world war. 
I always wondered at the pill box which still exists.
I sometimes wonder how they decided where to put those pill boxes. They don't always seem to be in particularly strategic or defensible places. For instance, there's a line of them along the Fosse Way just north of Malmesbury, at which point it's just a gravel byway, and others on the Frome south of Bath, which is a small river with little villages. I guess there might have been important structures though and also it's a matter of chance which ones have survived.

Bath was home to the Admiralty wasn't it? Other government depts removed from London?

Plenty round here along the line of the Cam and out on the road to Peterborough. Looking at them the only reason I can think of them still being here is because getting rid of that munch reinforced concrete would require an assault gun or a log of explosives.

I assume we were just a delaying line for an invasion from the east
The Admiralty was in the Empire Hotel opposite Parade Gardens but I don't know about other depts. I'd presume they all had further fall back locations in the event of an invasion though there must have been a point beyond which the practical options were reduced to Dublin or New York! 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 03 August, 2016, 01:55:17 pm
That Witham is pronounced Wit-ham.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 03 August, 2016, 02:16:14 pm
That Witham is pronounced Wit-ham.

I find that a bit of a joke
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 August, 2016, 06:18:35 pm
That Witham is pronounced Wit-ham.

Unless it's the river that flows through Lincoln...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 04 August, 2016, 12:25:42 pm
That the Dutch for cellar isn't keller.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 04 August, 2016, 09:08:54 pm
Kelder, isn't it? (Alternately, 'The Dutch don't have a word for it because all their cellars would be underwater'?)

[ETA: silence, puny autocorrect! (correct term added)]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 04 August, 2016, 09:13:44 pm
I've been to enough good Belgian bars to know that  :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 04 August, 2016, 09:36:57 pm
That the river Teifi formed one of Britain's Retreat To And Defend lines in the second world war. 
I always wondered at the pill box which still exists.
I sometimes wonder how they decided where to put those pill boxes. They don't always seem to be in particularly strategic or defensible places. For instance, there's a line of them along the Fosse Way just north of Malmesbury, at which point it's just a gravel byway, and others on the Frome south of Bath, which is a small river with little villages. I guess there might have been important structures though and also it's a matter of chance which ones have survived.
They were planned & built in a great hurry when many other things also needed the attention of the people who knew most about defensive lines, & mistakes were made. I recall reading about complaints at the time that many pillboxes were badly built & worse sited.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 August, 2016, 04:32:11 pm
Actually a thing I learned last week, but it's an important thing that bears repeating:

Children don't wake up to the sound of smoke alarms.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110311121842.htm
https://www.strath.ac.uk/press/newsreleases/2013/headline_728294_en.html

There's some evidence that a recording of a parent's voice is more effective (but far from reliable).  No idea about low-frequency alarms, flashing lights or vibrators, which are the off-the-shelf (if expensive) alternatives.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TimC on 06 August, 2016, 02:10:51 pm
That the Iron Maiden stage crew stay in my local before and after every tour because the warehouse they use is close by, and that we have a number of friends in common!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 August, 2016, 02:23:11 pm
Actually a thing I learned last week, but it's an important thing that bears repeating:

Children don't wake up to the sound of smoke alarms.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110311121842.htm
https://www.strath.ac.uk/press/newsreleases/2013/headline_728294_en.html

There's some evidence that a recording of a parent's voice is more effective (but far from reliable).  No idea about low-frequency alarms, flashing lights or vibrators, which are the off-the-shelf (if expensive) alternatives.
I didn't know that but it does seem to me that smoke alarms are less loud than burglar alarms (both seem equally liable to false triggerings). Why did they stop the test at 30 seconds in the Australian research? That's not how smoke alarms actually behave. And do they wake up adults? Because surely any parent's initial reaction to a fire in the night is going to be to get the kids out?*

*After the bikes, obvs.**
**Ob cycling content.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 August, 2016, 03:21:12 pm
Burglar alarms are outside though, smoke alarms are in the room with you - or at least an adjacent one.

I can imagine plenty of situations where adults might expect to rely on older children waking to smoke alarms - adults with hearing or mobility impairments, for example.  It also seems likely that residential institutions would have fire procedures that begin with "when you hear the alarm..." rather than designated adults waking all the children manually.


Anyway, this was brought to light by a friend of a friend with a faulty smoke alarm outside the kids' bedroom wondering why they hadn't woken up in the time it took to kill it...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 August, 2016, 04:12:17 pm
I think most burglar alarms have sounders inside and outside. I hadn't thought of the other points you raise though. And thankfully it was "it" that was killed in your friends' case.  :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: yellowsubmarine on 07 August, 2016, 04:55:00 am
do not go to bed at 9.. you´ll wake up 5 in the morning and cant sleep anymore :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 August, 2016, 08:08:21 am
If I could get 8 hours' uninterrupted sleep I'd be delighted no matter when I awoke. One or two piddle pauses and the fabrikratten heading off to Germany at 4 am, that's what I get.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 07 August, 2016, 05:09:18 pm
There's a single Kakapo parrot on mainland New Zealand, he's only 19 and he could live to be a hundred.  World's loneliest parrot  :'(  He goes out every night calling for a mate.  Aw  :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 August, 2016, 05:22:45 pm
You'd think that they might employ the local freelance kakapo tracker and the local freelance kakapo tracker's kakapo tracking dog to round up the unhappy example of the world's fattest and least able to fly parrot and haul him off to one of the islands with lady parrots.  On it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 07 August, 2016, 05:24:23 pm
That would be the kind thing to do, wouldn't it? 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 07 August, 2016, 05:37:55 pm
I love kakapo <3
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 07 August, 2016, 06:02:10 pm
The explanation above notwithstanding I still wouldn't admit to that.  :o

Especially on the internet . . .  :hand:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 August, 2016, 08:28:41 pm
Penguins, parrots?  Nah, it'd never work ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 07 August, 2016, 09:00:48 pm
That 'Shed of the Year' is a thing.

I'm not impressed with the entrants in this edition - Not one Seekrit Bunkah to be seen.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 08 August, 2016, 01:12:57 pm
That Millenarianism has absolutely nothing to do with hats. Made a podcast make a whole lot more sense once I found that out!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 08 August, 2016, 01:29:38 pm
That an Osnabruck mile is the distance a man (I think it's specifically a man) can walk in 2 hours.

That must make designing maps, speedometers and arranging meetings a nightmare.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 08 August, 2016, 02:53:08 pm
When I was young I & a friend got a lift from someone in Sweden who didn't speak English. :o Well, that was long ago & he was old.  He carefully explained in simple words that even my limited understanding of Swedish was enough for (my companion knew even less, but she was much better in German than I was, which came in handy in the BRD & DDR) that he was turning off in two miles, which made us wonder why he'd bothered picking us up.

By the time he stopped at his turn-off, a lot more than 3.218 km down the road, we were wondering whether he'd tried to make it easy for us but didn't know old English measurements, or whether Swedish miles were different.

The latter. They're 10 km.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 August, 2016, 03:22:35 pm
That Millenarianism has absolutely nothing to do with hats. Made a podcast make a whole lot more sense once I found that out!

Reminds me of a translation I did for a French exam at school, all about this bloke who, on the first day of his retirement, opened a cupboard at home to disclose a rack full of cans of peaches. He selected a couple, then went and sat on the river bank and cast with a can into the river. At that point I realised that "canne à pêche" meant fishing-rod.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 09 August, 2016, 02:52:04 pm
It appears that Custard Filled Speed Bumps (TMThe Half-Bakery, c 1990 (http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Custard-Filled_20Speed_20Bumps) - the 2001 date is from the Great Rebuilding, not the original) are now a real thing!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxpvwKiOpag

Yay!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 09 August, 2016, 08:40:51 pm
The Secrets of the Wood Wide Web (http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-secrets-of-the-wood-wide-web)*

* Not a steam-punk internet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 09 August, 2016, 09:10:38 pm
And another thing!  I'll have to forget something to make room...

The Ukrainian word for watermelon - кавун [kavun] - is a borrowing of the Turkish word for muskmelon (Cucumis melo) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskmelon): kavun.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: meddyg on 10 August, 2016, 09:08:46 pm
I thought it was bound to be 'Arbus'
which is it in Russian арбус
(pace Soviet realist novelist Alexei Arbusov which promoted sixth form sniggering).

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 10 August, 2016, 09:25:25 pm
Ukrainian has the word гарбуз [harbuz], which mean pumpkin.  I assume same original source word, but I don't know what it is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 10 August, 2016, 09:26:12 pm
That among other things, Alfred Nobel invented several bicycle designs
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 10 August, 2016, 09:28:57 pm
That among other things, Alfred Nobel invented several bicycle designs
As well as dynamite and intumescent paint.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 10 August, 2016, 09:30:04 pm
That among other things, Alfred Nobel invented several bicycle designs
As well as dynamite and intumescent paint.

I learned a new word.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 August, 2016, 09:30:24 pm
Arbuz, which is watermelon in Polish too, is originally from Persian via Turkish, I think.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 10 August, 2016, 09:33:24 pm
That among other things, Alfred Nobel invented several bicycle designs
As well as dynamite and intumescent paint.

I learned a new word.
It should serve you well.
Feel free to come back and ask for another  :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 10 August, 2016, 10:17:48 pm
That among other things, Alfred Nobel invented several bicycle designs
As well as dynamite and intumescent paint.

I learned a new word.
It should serve you well.
Feel free to come back and ask for another  :P

I googled it too.  Must confess, I was a bit disappointed.   :-\
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 11 August, 2016, 06:30:29 am
That among other things, Alfred Nobel invented several bicycle designs
As well as dynamite and intumescent paint.

I learned a new word.
It should serve you well.
Feel free to come back and ask for another  :P

I googled it too.  Must confess, I was a bit disappointed.   :-\

I didn't mention the dynamite, gelignite, smokeless gunpowder as I thought everyone knew them.

He also pioneered the use of aluminium after the Paris world fair, designing and building his own motor yacht.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 11 August, 2016, 09:10:43 am
Arbuz, which is watermelon in Polish too, is originally from Persian via Turkish, I think.
Paradicsom, which is Hungarian for tomato, and means fruit of paradise, is from a similar source, I think.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 11 August, 2016, 01:48:52 pm
As we're on fruit, did you know the apple can be traced back to Kazakhstan, something they are very proud of apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 12 August, 2016, 09:27:33 pm
You can't get an erection in space.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 12 August, 2016, 09:34:47 pm
You can't get an erection in space.

Really?  Why?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 12 August, 2016, 09:42:00 pm
I'm not sure.  I'm guessing the changed fluid dynamics make it impossible.  When you're weightless there are significant fluid shifts and you carry more fluid in your upper body, and therefore possibly less in your lower body.

My son asked Cdr Chris Hadfield about masturbating in zero-G, and he said it's almost impossible to get an erection.  This should also be in the tenuous claims to fame thread, I reckon.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 12 August, 2016, 09:45:43 pm
And a quick google says I'm right - it's the altered body fluid dynamics.


It's fascinating stuff.

AC Clarke wrote about intimacy in space, and suggested that falling asleep in one another's arms would actually be possible in space, since you wouldn't get a dead arm.  But it seems penetrative acts would be difficult or impossible.  You'd just have to do it orally - and talk about it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 12 August, 2016, 09:56:31 pm
You can't get an erection in space.

I expect that's not true.
If the normal blood flow and pressure through my body required to keep me alive still works, then I can't see why other functions of blood pressure would not also continue to work.

All you lose is gravity, and the loss of h-rho-g hydrostatic head.
But if you are on Earth, lying flat on a bed, the h term in the equation becomes zero, and so g becomes irrelevant.
The pump ( heart )  still provides sufficient head for the purpose.

Now, if you were thrown out indo deep space ( perhaps after listening to Vogon poetry ), the pressure differential may indeed enhance your erection as in the manner of the manhood-enhancing vacuum pumps offered on the Internet (or is that just my Internet? ).

Anyways, enough of this...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 12 August, 2016, 10:04:16 pm
I'm not sure.  I'm guessing the changed fluid dynamics make it impossible.  When you're weightless there are significant fluid shifts and you carry more fluid in your upper body, and therefore possibly less in your lower body.

My son asked Cdr Chris Hadfield about masturbating in zero-G, and he said it's almost impossible to get an erection.  This should also be in the tenuous claims to fame thread, I reckon.
Weightless globules drifting around. Eew.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 August, 2016, 10:09:09 pm
You can't get an erection in space.
All you lose is gravity, and the loss of h-rho-g hydrostatic head.
But if you are on Earth, lying flat on a bed, the h term in the equation becomes zero, and so g becomes irrelevant.
The pump ( heart )  still provides sufficient head for the purpose.

There's probably more to it than that, as erections work just fine while lying in bed...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 12 August, 2016, 10:11:35 pm
Yes, that's what I was saying.

G is irrelevant.
The hydrostatic head provided by h-rho-g is irrelevant, as demonstrated by lying in bed.

All that counts is the differential provided by the pump ( heart ).



Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 12 August, 2016, 10:11:58 pm
You can't get an erection in space.

I expect that's not true.
If the normal blood flow and pressure through my body required to keep me alive still works, then I can't see why other functions of blood pressure would not also continue to work.

All you lose is gravity, and the loss of h-rho-g hydrostatic head.
But if you are on Earth, lying flat on a bed, the h term in the equation becomes zero, and so g becomes irrelevant.
The pump ( heart )  still provides sufficient head for the purpose.

Now, if you were thrown out indo deep space ( perhaps after listening to Vogon poetry ), the pressure differential may indeed enhance your erection as in the manner of the manhood-enhancing vacuum pumps offered on the Internet (or is that just my Internet? ).

Anyways, enough of this...

Your blood pressure is much lower in zero-g.  That's one factor.  And the flow of blood and other fluids is significantly altered.  Think about it:  at 1G your heart needs to work against gravity to perfuse your brain.  It doesn't need to work nearly so hard in zero G.  During the first few days in space astronauts get facial and eye oedema, as the fluid pumping systems (you have more than one, and they interact) adapt to zero G.  All sorts of other stuff happens too that I can't remember.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 August, 2016, 10:16:54 pm
But but but... if it's impossible to get an erection in space then the only way all those sci-fi characters can procreate on their space ships floating through deep intergalactic space is by using sperm banks collected on various planets. Or are Vogons, Vulcans and Velogalacticas evolutionarily adapted to deep space zero-g sex?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 12 August, 2016, 10:20:38 pm
Maybe they freeze gametes ready for colonising the new planets?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 August, 2016, 10:27:46 pm
Gametes? Wot, like pheasants and partridges?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 12 August, 2016, 10:28:24 pm
Gametes? Wot, like pheasants and partridges?

Yeah, them. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 12 August, 2016, 10:32:20 pm
You can't get an erection in space.

I expect that's not true.
If the normal blood flow and pressure through my body required to keep me alive still works, then I can't see why other functions of blood pressure would not also continue to work.

All you lose is gravity, and the loss of h-rho-g hydrostatic head.
But if you are on Earth, lying flat on a bed, the h term in the equation becomes zero, and so g becomes irrelevant.
The pump ( heart )  still provides sufficient head for the purpose.

Now, if you were thrown out indo deep space ( perhaps after listening to Vogon poetry ), the pressure differential may indeed enhance your erection as in the manner of the manhood-enhancing vacuum pumps offered on the Internet (or is that just my Internet? ).

Anyways, enough of this...

Your blood pressure is much lower in zero-g.  That's one factor.  And the flow of blood and other fluids is significantly altered.  Think about it:  at 1G your heart needs to work against gravity to perfuse your brain.  It doesn't need to work nearly so hard in zero G.  During the first few days in space astronauts get facial and eye oedema, as the fluid pumping systems (you have more than one, and they interact) adapt to zero G.  All sorts of other stuff happens too that I can't remember.

No, I don't agree.
( My background is in an industry where we design hydraulic systems to work on the surface and also and extreme depths of 20k psi, so there may indeed be differences I have not appreciated. )

At 1G whilst standing up, you have a closed circuit of fluid going up one way from the pump, down to the bottom, and then back up to the pump.
A loop of fluid in this system is entirely in equilibrium.
The hydrostatic head on the down leg exactly equals the hydrostatic head on the up leg.
So H-rho-g on one side of the system equals h-rho-g on the other,

The pump really does not have to work too hard: it does not need to work against gravity; because gravity both helps and hinders in equal measure. It helps by providing a down-force on one side of the pump, and hinders on the up-ward suction side of the pump.

So lying down on the job makes no difference.
And for the same reason, I think zero G is the same.

Someone should tweet that astronaut chap who was in the space thing and ask him.



Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 12 August, 2016, 10:40:33 pm
You can't get an erection in space.

I expect that's not true.
If the normal blood flow and pressure through my body required to keep me alive still works, then I can't see why other functions of blood pressure would not also continue to work.

All you lose is gravity, and the loss of h-rho-g hydrostatic head.
But if you are on Earth, lying flat on a bed, the h term in the equation becomes zero, and so g becomes irrelevant.
The pump ( heart )  still provides sufficient head for the purpose.

Now, if you were thrown out indo deep space ( perhaps after listening to Vogon poetry ), the pressure differential may indeed enhance your erection as in the manner of the manhood-enhancing vacuum pumps offered on the Internet (or is that just my Internet? ).

Anyways, enough of this...

Your blood pressure is much lower in zero-g.  That's one factor.  And the flow of blood and other fluids is significantly altered.  Think about it:  at 1G your heart needs to work against gravity to perfuse your brain.  It doesn't need to work nearly so hard in zero G.  During the first few days in space astronauts get facial and eye oedema, as the fluid pumping systems (you have more than one, and they interact) adapt to zero G.  All sorts of other stuff happens too that I can't remember.

No, I don't agree.
( My background is in an industry where we design hydraulic systems to work on the surface and also and extreme depths of 20k psi, so there may indeed be differences I have not appreciated. )

At 1G whilst standing up, you have a closed circuit of fluid going up one way from the pump, down to the bottom, and then back up to the pump.
A loop of fluid in this system is entirely in equilibrium.
The hydrostatic head on the down leg exactly equals the hydrostatic head on the up leg.
So H-rho-g on one side of the system equals h-rho-g on the other,

The pump really does not have to work too hard: it does not need to work against gravity; because gravity both helps and hinders in equal measure. It helps by providing a down-force on one side of the pump, and hinders on the up-ward suction side of the pump.

So lying down on the job makes no difference.
And for the same reason, I think zero G is the same.

Someone should tweet that astronaut chap who was in the space thing and ask him.

Err they did.  My son.  He asked Chris Hadfield.  Who said you can't get an erection in space.

The 'loop'  you described isn't really a closed circuit.  There are compensatory feedback mechanisms all the way round working in combination.  Relatively small episodes of vascular damage (say, in diabetics) can cause a failure of the erectile mechanism, whilst still allowing for the maintenance of blood pressure and brain function.  Another factor is the influence of baroreceptors - their function changes massively in space, to the extent that people tend to faint when they get back to Earth.

 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/cciss_feature.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 12 August, 2016, 10:44:58 pm
You can disagree all you like but the spaceman said it can't happen. So it don't happen.

I wouldn't disagree with him. He spent however long in space. Not theorising.*

Do turkey basters work in zero g?



*Bit of a bastard if your fantasies as a teenager were based on Barbarella...

Edit. X posted
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 12 August, 2016, 10:45:08 pm
OK, fine, I accept the evidence.
I can believe there are biological factors which make it different from a mechanical hydraulic system.
I never had to add blue pills to the mechanical hydraulic systems...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 August, 2016, 10:47:40 pm
Not even Fernox?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 12 August, 2016, 10:57:19 pm
OK, fine, I accept the evidence.
I can believe there are biological factors which make it different from a mechanical hydraulic system.
I never had to add blue pills to the mechanical hydraulic systems...

There's some interesting research for when humans have to colonise space...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 12 August, 2016, 11:04:47 pm
Are there hydraulic systems in which the flow away from the pump is active due to mechanically active vessels, but the flow back to the pump is a system of one-way valves through passive vessels?  Where the tubes expand and contract under chemical influences and peripheral systems can shut down altogether?  And in which the different areas of the same system operate at vastly different pressures from each other, and at different times? 

It would be interesting to know which mechanical systems are analagous to the human body, and how their feedback mechanisms regulate.

When you think about it, the times of highest demand and fluid through-put are likely to be when the body is vertical - flying or fighting.  But the system also needs to function when the body is horizontal or even inverted for short periods, as when you get your foot stuck in a tree and then fall, hanging upside down.  Although you probably can't do that for long.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 13 August, 2016, 10:57:02 am
May be there is a simpler reason... finding the necessary privacy on a space station.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 August, 2016, 07:19:37 pm
That there is no such thing as The Baptist Church. Each Baptist church is completely autonomous and governed by its congregation.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 14 August, 2016, 10:09:11 pm
Autonomous of what?

God?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 August, 2016, 10:31:18 pm
Of everything apart from God, presumably! They have absolutely no hierarchy, all decisions are taken by the congregation, who also appoint their own minister, and there is no linkage other than two basic tenets – believers' baptism and congregational decision making – or coordination between churches. A decision taken by Xville Baptists might be totally contradicted by the decisions of Baptist Church of Yton. Autonomous in that sense. So I learned today from an ex-baptist.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 14 August, 2016, 10:33:23 pm
Splitters?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ben T on 15 August, 2016, 09:59:51 pm
Would the reverse be true? i.e. if you went to a planet with high gravity, would it be the equivalent of having a f-off overdose of Viagra?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 15 August, 2016, 10:07:55 pm
Would the reverse be true? i.e. if you went to a planet with high gravity, would it be the equivalent of having a f-off overdose of Viagra?

It's hard to say, isn't it?  But we evolved to function optimally in 1G, so chances are there'd be problems.  If your willie was double the weight, would it need twice as much blood in it to get it off the ground, as it were?  If so, it would be even heavier ...  hmm ...

Or you could lie face-down with your willie hanging down, and see if gravity did the work for you?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 August, 2016, 10:14:40 pm
Is this why they call it the G-spot?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 17 August, 2016, 02:27:05 pm
Stepson was considering getting artificial turf for the lawn outside his new house, because "its just the same as a real lawn" (yes, he's that sort of person). I suddenly wondered how you prevented wind-blown soil from building up and plants taking root in it.

Vacuuming, apparently. You go out each weekend and vacuum your lawn.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 17 August, 2016, 03:03:36 pm
I have seen Flemish women folk washing and vacuuming street paving in years gone by. They do like a good scrub over there.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 17 August, 2016, 05:05:41 pm
That Rain-X smells like grappa.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2016, 05:51:36 pm
Stepson was considering getting artificial turf for the lawn outside his new house, because "its just the same as a real lawn" (yes, he's that sort of person). I suddenly wondered how you prevented wind-blown soil from building up and plants taking root in it.

Vacuuming, apparently. You go out each weekend and vacuum your lawn.
Reality overtakes the surreal in a new way each day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 August, 2016, 06:34:06 pm
That the iconic piano intro to "Free Bird" was written by Lynyrd Skynryd roadie Billy Powell, who was invited to join the band forthwith when Ronnie van Zandt heard him mucking about on a piano.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 17 August, 2016, 10:18:47 pm
Since it was disbanded in the 4th century, there have been over half a dozen attempts at reëstablishing the Sanhedrin, most recently in 2004 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_attempt_to_revive_the_Sanhedrin).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 18 August, 2016, 12:48:55 pm
That in 1994 a large quantity (about 1000 tons) of fuel oil was extracted from the wreck of the German heavy cruiser Blücher, sunk by Norwegian coastal defences on 9th April 1940 - and sold. The reason for extracting it was because it was leaking out & polluting the area, but it was sold to defray costs, after being cleaned.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 August, 2016, 05:45:44 pm
Robert Browning used the word "twats" in his drama "Pippa Passes". He thought it was an article of clothing for nuns.

Then, owls and bats, cowls and twats,
Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods,
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry !
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 18 August, 2016, 08:12:19 pm
That people actually ride Pederson bicycles, saw one by the Bastille today

Also that Parisians seem to have a thing for front racks on bikes of any kind
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 August, 2016, 07:36:37 am
The pressed steel car wheel was invented by a bloke called Sankey, whose previous experience was in making tea trays.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 24 August, 2016, 01:46:29 pm
There is such a thing as an 'isosceles trapezium'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 24 August, 2016, 02:15:35 pm
Also that the most bombed real estate on the planet is Laos. SITRO 2,000,000 tons of ordnace dropped on the poor buggers during the Vietnam war

and

according to official estimates it may well be 700 years before the French Zone Rouge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge)* is finally cleared of all unexploded munitions. I wonder if they have taken account of lunch breaks...?





*Originally designated as "Completely devastated. Damage to properties: 100%. Damage to Agriculture: 100%. Impossible to clean. Human life impossible"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 August, 2016, 02:19:27 pm
Disappointed that the See also (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge#See_also) of that article doesn't mention Edmonton.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 August, 2016, 04:50:08 pm
Good place to put Pokémon Go whatsits.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 25 August, 2016, 05:08:03 pm
This exists (http://www.taylorsbutchers.com/pies.html)

If I still had a waistline, it would now have disappeared.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 25 August, 2016, 05:44:43 pm
This exists (http://www.taylorsbutchers.com/pies.html)

If I still had a waistline, it would now have disappeared.
I think we have a new home page for YACF.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 25 August, 2016, 09:06:46 pm
This exists (http://www.taylorsbutchers.com/pies.html)

If I still had a waistline, it would now have disappeared.
I think we have a new home page for YACF.

FBOAB you are a norty gurl.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 25 August, 2016, 09:12:40 pm
It's not just cities which can be twinned - toilets can be twinned as well (http://www.toilettwinning.org/). (SFW)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 25 August, 2016, 09:25:19 pm
It's not just cities which can be twinned - toilets can be twinned as well (http://www.toilettwinning.org/). (SFW)

Yes they can and it is a good thing too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 26 August, 2016, 07:01:04 am
This exists (http://www.taylorsbutchers.com/pies.html)

If I still had a waistline, it would now have disappeared.

Nah, what you need is a Lochinver pie.... http://www.piesbypost.co.uk/catalog.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 26 August, 2016, 09:58:38 am
In Dundee there is always (as in 24 hours ) the options of a Clarks Bakery pie. It has been said that the recipes were discovered in the manuscripts of the great piemaker CMOT Dibbler, and that the concept of 23 types of pie (including chicken tikka, cheesy mac and steak pie with haggis ) are an abomination. But at 2am and pissed, with the choice of 23 pies or a helicopter burger, life does start to look made of gravy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 26 August, 2016, 10:03:40 am
IRTA helicobacter burger.  Same general principle, I suppose.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 27 August, 2016, 10:01:05 am
That Kirkenes, in northern Norway near the border with Russia, where I spent a day of my hols this year,is further east than Istanbul, and yet is in the same time zone as Galicia in western Spain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 August, 2016, 11:00:29 am
The speed cameras on French autoroutes are installed and run by private companies rather than the police. This came to light a while back when Electricité de France cut off power to a series of them because the company hadn't paid the bill.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 27 August, 2016, 06:27:31 pm
There is such a thing as an 'isosceles trapezium'.

wot's that, all four sides different lengths?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 27 August, 2016, 10:02:11 pm
That Kirkenes, in northern Norway near the border with Russia, where I spent a day of my hols this year,is further east than Istanbul, and yet is in the same time zone as Galicia in western Spain.
Spain is in the wrong time zone. It's arguable that so is France.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 August, 2016, 08:33:09 am
^^^Given that time zones are administrative constructs, there's no reliable definition of "wrong".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 28 August, 2016, 09:16:38 am
No, but there is a reliable definition of 'doesn't bear any sensible relationship to sun time.'
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 28 August, 2016, 06:02:16 pm
That feet first is definitely the way forward.

After 200km on an upright I have sore hands, a sore neck and a sore arse.  No more than 100km on one of those things for me in future.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 28 August, 2016, 11:12:52 pm
One of my stepfather's uncles was a sergeant pilot in WW2, & was killed when his Hurricane was shot down on 23-11-1941, in Libya. He's buried there. He was 24.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 September, 2016, 12:16:52 am
The recent presidential election in Gabon resulted in a narrow win for incumbent Ali Bongo over challenger Jean Ping :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 06 September, 2016, 12:32:48 pm
Not surprised. A Bongo is very nearly an anagram of Gabon.

I have learned today that Jean Ping is the son of Cheng Zhiping and, as a young boy, was referred to as 'Son of Ping' by his fellow Gabonese villagers.

I have also learned (it's been a busy day) that the phrase 'Stiff upper lip' originates from the United States.

Time for a rest.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 06 September, 2016, 12:48:30 pm
Well, I am surprised, since President of the Magic Circle and legendary illusions creator Ali Bongo died in 2009.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: billplumtree on 06 September, 2016, 01:17:17 pm
See?  Magic, innit
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 September, 2016, 03:27:09 pm
Well, I am surprised, since President of the Magic Circle and legendary illusions creator Ali Bongo died in 2009.

As a result of The Curse of Half Man Half Biscuit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 September, 2016, 09:45:14 am
That the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda are not competing tribes but different castes of the one Banyarwanda people. Tutsis are the aristocratic cattle-owning caste, Hutus the farmers and there is also a very small labourer and servant caste, Twa.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 14 September, 2016, 10:19:14 am
That the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda are not competing tribes but different castes of the one Banyarwanda people. Tutsis are the aristocratic cattle-owning caste, Hutus the farmers and there is also a very small labourer and servant caste, Twa.

Blame the Belgians, they decided they needed to put Hutu or Tutsi on the identity cards they issued, so duly did so thus conveniently stratifying Rwandan society. We know how that panned out.

Kigali is probably the tidiest African capital I've been to.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 September, 2016, 10:27:05 am
Belgian stirring of the conflict pot goes back to the 50s according to what I've read, when they switched from using the Tutsis as their channels of power to the Hutus, because the better educated Tutsis were getting too uppity and demanding independence. Mitterand is also to blame, indirectly, for the 1994 massacre by sending paras to repel the 1990 invasion in the name of Francophonie. A conflict going back to Fashoda. Apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ianrauk on 14 September, 2016, 11:14:15 am

Vacuuming, apparently. You go out each weekend and vacuum your lawn.

My aged MIL replaced a patch of grass in her back garden with fake grass. It looks surprisingly real and she does actually hoover it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 14 September, 2016, 12:10:45 pm
Friends of mine got that fake grass and have been delighted with it, think they wash it once a yr (or pay a person to come and do it) and otherwise it needs no maintenance.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 14 September, 2016, 12:42:06 pm
Belgian stirring of the conflict pot goes back to the 50s according to what I've read, when they switched from using the Tutsis as their channels of power to the Hutus, because the better educated Tutsis were getting too uppity and demanding independence. Mitterand is also to blame, indirectly, for the 1994 massacre by sending paras to repel the 1990 invasion in the name of Francophonie. A conflict going back to Fashoda. Apparently.
The IMF is more to blame.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 14 September, 2016, 01:35:48 pm
That the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda are not competing tribes but different castes of the one Banyarwanda people. Tutsis are the aristocratic cattle-owning caste, Hutus the farmers and there is also a very small labourer and servant caste, Twa.
Banyarwanda just means 'people of Rwanda'. It's a name derived from the state, not an ethnic label. Like Canadian or American. More or less the same language (called Kirundi instead of Kinyarwanda) & same three castes are found in Burundi, but the people there aren't Banyarwanda, because they don't live in Rwanda. Note that both states long predated European colonisation.

Unfortunately for the idea of them being purely castes, it's usually possible to identify which group a person belongs to from physical characteristics, & the fact that historically, most Tutsi weren't aristocratic (only members of specific aristocratic lineages), but were still Tutsi. The 'castes of one people' idea seems to be another over-simplification by outsiders, like the colonial rigid racial classification but in reverse.

The Twa are generally thought to have been there first, living as hunter-gatherers, then Bantu-speakers arrived between 1000 & 1500 years ago. According to local oral histories, the Tutsi arrived maybe 5-600 years ago & adopted the Bantu language of the Hutu, leading Tutsi families establishing themselves as a ruling caste. It's all a bit confused by intermarriage & groups & individuals managing to switch status.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 14 September, 2016, 01:59:09 pm
Belgian stirring of the conflict pot goes back to the 50s according to what I've read, when they switched from using the Tutsis as their channels of power to the Hutus, because the better educated Tutsis were getting too uppity and demanding independence. Mitterand is also to blame, indirectly, for the 1994 massacre by sending paras to repel the 1990 invasion in the name of Francophonie. A conflict going back to Fashoda. Apparently.
The IMF is more to blame.
It began before the IMF existed. Dammit, why this knee-jerk rejection of analysis? Allocate blame to the usual suspects, then look for evidence.  :facepalm:

Same with the Belgian pot-stirring. That began sort of accidentally, from the Belgians imposing their own over-simplified interpretation of society on their colonies, while thinking that what they were doing was describing reality. And it was mixed up with actions taken by Rwandan kings, such as taking Hutu chiefs (yes, there were such) into the small aristocratic elite around the royal family when, with Belgian help, they integrated Hutu-run districts which had previously been outside their control into the kingdom. Some locals seem to have found the Belgian tidy-mindedness & resultant simple classification a useful tool to help along an already begun (in the 19th century, before the Germans arrived, let alone the Belgians) process of strengthening & making more rigid a division that was previously rather flexible.

The more I read about it (& I've been reading about the histories of Rwanda & Burundi since my attention was drawn to them by the 1972 Burundi massacres), the more complicated I find it is.

The 1972 massacres were far from the first, by the way.

Next, why Tamerlane's conquests were caused by the IMF.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 14 September, 2016, 03:15:09 pm
Belgian stirring of the conflict pot goes back to the 50s according to what I've read, when they switched from using the Tutsis as their channels of power to the Hutus, because the better educated Tutsis were getting too uppity and demanding independence. Mitterand is also to blame, indirectly, for the 1994 massacre by sending paras to repel the 1990 invasion in the name of Francophonie. A conflict going back to Fashoda. Apparently.
The IMF is more to blame.
It began before the IMF existed. Dammit, why this knee-jerk rejection of analysis? Allocate blame to the usual suspects, then look for evidence.  :facepalm:

No kneejerk.  This is the result of a great deal of research.  Yes, there were conflicts there, and a divide.  But the difference between Rwanda & Burundi, which meant one descended into brutal civil war, and, despite violence, the other did not, was very much the use of Structural Adjustment Programmes as an act of war.

Fwiw, I am usually the one calling the cause earlier - for example, the cause of the First World War has nothing to do with defending British freedom, or student revolutionaries in Sarajevo.  It most clearly dates back to the Scramble for Africa, and the Berlin Conference of 1884-5.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 14 September, 2016, 03:25:26 pm
Belgian stirring of the conflict pot goes back to the 50s according to what I've read, when they switched from using the Tutsis as their channels of power to the Hutus, because the better educated Tutsis were getting too uppity and demanding independence. Mitterand is also to blame, indirectly, for the 1994 massacre by sending paras to repel the 1990 invasion in the name of Francophonie. A conflict going back to Fashoda. Apparently.
The IMF is more to blame.
It began before the IMF existed. Dammit, why this knee-jerk rejection of analysis? Allocate blame to the usual suspects, then look for evidence.  :facepalm:

No kneejerk.  This is the result of a great deal of research.  Yes, there were conflicts there, and a divide.  But the difference between Rwanda & Burundi, which meant one descended into brutal civil war, and, despite violence, the other did not, was very much the use of Structural Adjustment Programmes as an act of war.

Fwiw, I am usually the one calling the cause earlier - for example, the cause of the First World War has nothing to do with defending British freedom, or student revolutionaries in Sarajevo.  It most clearly dates back to the Scramble for Africa, and the Berlin Conference of 1884-5.

Of course it doesn't have anything to do with defending freedom or Sarajevo - that was just an excuse to start it.  It was entirely about control of trade, with the British still based on a seagoing empire and seeing Germany partly as a threat to that power and to our trade with Europe, much the same as today.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 September, 2016, 09:01:46 pm
The first massacre mentioned by Kapuściński is 1959. As for Banyarwanda meaning 'people of Rwanda', that's pretty evident from the word. Whether it derives from the name of the state or the state from it is a bit like asking whether France came from French or vice versa.

How reliable Kapuściński is, I don't know, but he's interesting. You can read it on this slightly dodgy site (ignore the Russian adverts!), starting near the bottom of p34.
http://mreadz.com/read-265722/p34
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 15 September, 2016, 12:29:28 pm
Belgian stirring of the conflict pot goes back to the 50s according to what I've read, when they switched from using the Tutsis as their channels of power to the Hutus, because the better educated Tutsis were getting too uppity and demanding independence. Mitterand is also to blame, indirectly, for the 1994 massacre by sending paras to repel the 1990 invasion in the name of Francophonie. A conflict going back to Fashoda. Apparently.
The IMF is more to blame.
It began before the IMF existed. Dammit, why this knee-jerk rejection of analysis? Allocate blame to the usual suspects, then look for evidence.  :facepalm:

No kneejerk.  This is the result of a great deal of research.  Yes, there were conflicts there, and a divide.  But the difference between Rwanda & Burundi, which meant one descended into brutal civil war, and, despite violence, the other did not, was very much the use of Structural Adjustment Programmes as an act of war.
Burundi didn't descend into brutal civil war? In which universe? A few hundred thousand dead (again) is just 'violence'.

Of course, the attempt to exterminate the Tutsi population of Rwanda had nothing to do with a small Hutu clique exploiting tensions to try to destroy the internal power base of the mostly expatriate Tutsi army which invaded from Uganda, but was everything to do with an IMF 'act of war'. And the structural adjustment explains why Rwanda descended further into horror even than Burundi. Never heard of the IMF structural adjustment programmes in Burundi, have you, or you'd know that both Rwanda & Burundi had more or less simultaneous programmes in the early 1990s?

Now do you see what I mean? In the selected sources you rely on, the fact that Rwanda had a structural adjustment programme just before the genocide is obviously the cause of the genocide. Since Burundi didn't have an equally* ghastly episode, then clearly it didn't have a structural adjustment programme.  :facepalm: Rwandan politics, such as the existence of a large & organised (with the co-operation of a neighbouring state) expatriate population dating back to inter-ethnic conflict over 30 years earlier, don't count. Nor do the ambitions of the leaders of neighbouring states. The poor natives are helpless puppets dancing on the strings pulled by white people, & incapable of having their own motivations, or acting on their own initiative.

*Unutterably horrible, but much less intense.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 20 September, 2016, 05:04:13 pm
The person who is the most cited author on Google Scholar with an H-Index of 333..

https://scholar.google.nl/citations?user=qGuYgMsAAAAJ&hl=en
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 20 September, 2016, 07:11:36 pm
 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: lou boutin on 20 September, 2016, 07:33:10 pm
 ;D ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 20 September, 2016, 08:03:25 pm
 :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 20 September, 2016, 08:19:36 pm
 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 21 September, 2016, 08:26:42 am
That there is logic to my casual referring to our no2 cat as "coarsefur cat".  I measured one of his hairs from the middle of his back, and it was 0.1mm diameter.  I later grabbed one from Baggins' (AKA silkyfur cat) back and it was 0.06mm diameter.  So it wasn't just my imagination, and the fact that Alfie is a scruffy git.  In contrast one of Mrs W's hairs was 0.04mm.

Really changes my life, that  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 21 September, 2016, 09:07:47 am
That there is logic to my casual referring to our no2 cat as "coarsefur cat".  I measured one of his hairs from the middle of his back, and it was 0.1mm diameter.  I later grabbed one from Baggins' (AKA silkyfur cat) back and it was 0.06mm diameter.  So it wasn't just my imagination, and the fact that Alfie is a scruffy git.  In contrast one of Mrs W's hairs was 0.04mm.

Really changes my life, that  ;D

I needed to read that twice. At first I thought "my casual" was a fancy modern way of referring to your paramour.  What Mrs W might say about that I really don't know.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 21 September, 2016, 09:20:43 am
Yes, sloppy writing, there... I have enough trouble with Mrs W and my female colleagues, but to think I was getting over amorous with the cat, well :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 September, 2016, 09:35:47 am
From my doc, that the WHO have just revised their recommended upper figure for HbA1c from 6 to 7%.  This after years of beating me morally about the head for not managing to get it under 6%.

This, too, after I read last week that there is a higher incidence of cardiovascular events* among diabetics who strive to get their HbA1c under 7% than among those who remain a bit over.

Personal observation: fasting blood glucose < 120** => I feel like shit.  130 < FBG < 140 => I feel fine.

*event: medical euphemism for one's personal WW2, Hiroshima, 1970 World Cup, etc.
** conversion factor is 18.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 21 September, 2016, 10:13:38 am
From my doc, that the WHO have just revised their recommended upper figure for HbA1c from 6 to 7%.  This after years of beating me morally about the head for not managing to get it under 6%.

This, too, after I read last week that there is a higher incidence of cardiovascular events* among diabetics who strive to get their HbA1c under 7% than among those who remain a bit over.

Personal observation: fasting blood glucose < 120** => I feel like shit.  130 < FBG < 140 => I feel fine.

*event: medical euphemism for one's personal WW2, Hiroshima, 1970 World Cup, etc.
** conversion factor is 18.

Personally I've heard a lot said that the reason for upping the target is due to a dismal failure to achieve the 6% target.  The implication of actually getting to 6% which may reduce the risk of other complications, is that much greater access is needed to testing equipment and strips for T2s like yourself to allow better self management, along with the appropriate education for all of us.  But nobody wants to pay for it.

As for me, HbA1C has always been in the mid to low 40's mmol/mol (<6% in old money) and I've never been given any caution about cardio risk, just the potential for hypos
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 September, 2016, 02:16:29 pm
Central Marseille has been invaded by bed-bugs, to the extent that residents are having to burn their bedding, carpets and furniture - and even, in at least one case, demolish hearth and chimney-breast because the buggers take refuge therein.

Travel tip: hotels in Marseille are really cheap right now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 September, 2016, 02:18:57 pm
That the man who invented Time Zones was born in Kirkcaldy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 24 September, 2016, 05:45:33 pm
Herne Bay has a cycling policeman.  Observed on Sea Esplanade yesterday and  today. Mid to late afternoon.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 24 September, 2016, 10:47:05 pm
Sandra Kuntz-Ficker is a Mexican professor of economic history.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 27 September, 2016, 08:56:53 pm
Natural Hero Hot Ginger Muscle Rub is no longer available.
Anywhere.


ETA: Voluntary Liquidation Dec 2014.

/wonders if I can get the R&D at work to match it...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 29 September, 2016, 08:04:48 pm
When you receive a positive compliment, the body releases Oxytocin, which makes you feel good for 5 mins. WHen you receive a negative comment, the body releases cortisol, which lasts about an hour. So every negative compliment should be countered by 12 positive ones. I told my boss.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 29 September, 2016, 10:38:58 pm
 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: lou boutin on 29 September, 2016, 11:09:15 pm
 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 29 September, 2016, 11:12:37 pm
 :thumbsup:
That's the 3rd one.  We need nine more, peeps.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 29 September, 2016, 11:17:43 pm
 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 29 September, 2016, 11:31:11 pm
 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ashaman42 on 30 September, 2016, 05:59:12 am
 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 30 September, 2016, 08:22:19 am
 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 30 September, 2016, 08:25:35 am
 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 September, 2016, 08:41:51 am
 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 30 September, 2016, 08:43:11 am
 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 September, 2016, 09:29:29 am
 :thumbsup: ;D :thumbsup: Well done!


(is anyone counting? :D)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 30 September, 2016, 09:56:36 am
Nein
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 30 September, 2016, 10:16:09 am
Zen
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 September, 2016, 10:17:27 am
Mu
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 30 September, 2016, 11:42:49 am
 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 30 September, 2016, 02:58:58 pm
Wonder Woman is on the other bus (http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/37518991/comic-book-writer-says-wonder-woman-is-queer)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 September, 2016, 03:06:52 pm
Wonder Woman is on the other bus (http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/37518991/comic-book-writer-says-wonder-woman-is-queer)

So who's going to be the first to go to Themyscrira and yell "Your all gay"?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 30 September, 2016, 03:20:41 pm
Wonder Woman is on the other bus (http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/37518991/comic-book-writer-says-wonder-woman-is-queer)

I'm surprised that was even a question...

(Not a fan of bus metaphors for bisexuality.  It's just not cricket.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 October, 2016, 04:58:24 pm
Hard to keep up with sexual metaphors when you're not immersed in the language.  A few years back I engendered on-line merriment by referring to our store-room as the office glory hole.

Meanwhile, what I have learnt today is that the real palaeolithic diet, as opposed to the Paleo diet, included wheat. Shove that up yr glory hole, faddists.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 01 October, 2016, 05:38:01 pm
Hard to keep up with sexual metaphors when you're not immersed in the language.

Yeah, but this is YACF.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 October, 2016, 06:41:39 pm
Hard to keep up with sexual metaphors when you're not immersed in the language.  A few years back I engendered on-line merriment by referring to our store-room as the office glory hole.

If you've got one of these

(https://c8.staticflickr.com/9/8313/29573504415_9247220b26_o.jpg)

in yr office I'm glad I never worked there ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 01 October, 2016, 11:39:46 pm
Please stop showing that. It makes me shudder, & not in a nice way.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 02 October, 2016, 08:17:18 am
I like that photo, the perfect calm of the lake, uniformity of the torus and a hint of what lies beneath

We need a house poet for photos like that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 October, 2016, 10:43:22 am
The video is even scarier.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 02 October, 2016, 10:51:31 am
I like that photo, the perfect calm of the lake, uniformity of the torus and a hint of what lies beneath

We need a house poet for photos like that.

Me!  Me!

There was a big hole in da water
That frightened the fisherman's daughter
She fell off the front
Her face took the brunt
And she knew then she shouldn't have oughter

Do I win?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 October, 2016, 02:50:46 pm
Being an uneducated oaf I had assumed, based entirely on listening to the Pink Floyd track of the same name, that Cymbeline was a woman.  Today I have found that this is not, in fact, the case.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 October, 2016, 02:54:51 pm
Hard to keep up with sexual metaphors when you're not immersed in the language.  A few years back I engendered on-line merriment by referring to our store-room as the office glory hole.

If you've got one of these

(https://c8.staticflickr.com/9/8313/29573504415_9247220b26_o.jpg)

in yr office I'm glad I never worked there ;D

Now I'm jealous.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 October, 2016, 12:57:14 pm
That Euler's Seven Bridges of Konigsberg (https://nrich.maths.org/2484) problem does have a solution; you just have to transfer it to the 43 bridges of Bristol! Apparently this is not cheating, because
Quote
Then, just three years ago, German mathematician Dr Thila Gross, who teaches at the University of Bristol, noticed there were many similarities between Königsberg and Bristol. The cities are a similar size, the same distance from the sea and had the same number of islands. However, there was one catch, Bristol had 43 bridges instead of seven.
So he went on to devise a solution.
Quote
“It's not easy - the fact that is is possible in Bristol is fairly unique,” said Gross. “Although in Bristol many things are possible which are not possible elsewhere.”
Like bumping into the Teutonic Knights on Wine Street?
http://www.bristol247.com/channel/news-comment/features/investigations/the-bristol-bridges-walk-challenge
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Deano on 03 October, 2016, 01:35:19 pm
Behold! National Grid Watch:

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 03 October, 2016, 01:57:40 pm
There's a top-level domain for "People named Kim"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 04 October, 2016, 11:00:03 pm
That Euler's Seven Bridges of Konigsberg (https://nrich.maths.org/2484) problem does have a solution; you just have to transfer it to the 43 bridges of Bristol! Apparently this is not cheating, because
Quote
Then, just three years ago, German mathematician Dr Thila Gross, who teaches at the University of Bristol, noticed there were many similarities between Königsberg and Bristol. The cities are a similar size, the same distance from the sea and had the same number of islands. However, there was one catch, Bristol had 43 bridges instead of seven.
So he went on to devise a solution.
Quote
“It's not easy - the fact that is is possible in Bristol is fairly unique,” said Gross. “Although in Bristol many things are possible which are not possible elsewhere.”
Like bumping into the Teutonic Knights on Wine Street?
http://www.bristol247.com/channel/news-comment/features/investigations/the-bristol-bridges-walk-challenge
It is not a direct transfer because there are an odd number of bridges which do not connect two nodes but effectively just connect their ends. Topologically many of the bridges are not crossing an otherwise uncrossable river.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 October, 2016, 07:23:53 am
There's a top-level domain for "People named Kim"

I heard that the displaced immigrants from Le Jungle are having a whip-round to buy that particular instance new baubles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 October, 2016, 01:58:28 pm
There's a top-level domain for "People named Kim"

I heard that the displaced immigrants from Le Jungle are having a whip-round to buy that particular instance new baubles.
Spiritual discovery or people's democracy? Cannons by old forts?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: lou boutin on 06 October, 2016, 05:32:14 pm
I'm a complete dv. Despite my gut telling me not to, I ordered a (cheap) bracelet off the internet.  It was a teal heart with 'survivor' on it - teal relates to gynae cancers  - I liked the look of it and thought I'd treat myself. The company is fraudulent and is playing in the vulnerability of cancer survivors. I'm very annoyed with myself for not doing my research thoroughly enough.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 06 October, 2016, 06:38:28 pm
That there was a murder in the house two doors down a couple of years ago.  Seems she killed her partner.  Don't know what happened to her.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 06 October, 2016, 10:00:48 pm
Caecilius est in domus. Domus electronic est.

http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/house-caecilius-iucundus-pompeii-04248.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 07 October, 2016, 09:02:06 am
A peak-time return ticket from Huntingdon to central That London costs more than half of the price of a return flight from Luton to Glasgow
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 October, 2016, 12:34:15 pm
That every six months Kindles re-index their contents which can lead to an inability to search books, a prematurely flat battery and, in all probability, a loss of memory when it comes to speaking to the Devil's Radio.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 October, 2016, 01:35:24 pm
That the word collimate originated as a misreading of the Latin collineare, meaning to bring into a straight line.  I must write to the Daily Mail about that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 07 October, 2016, 02:48:02 pm
Caecilius est in domus. Domus electronic est.

http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/house-caecilius-iucundus-pompeii-04248.html
Ooooh, did you have those Latin books?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 07 October, 2016, 03:19:39 pm
I did. Caecilius est pater.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 07 October, 2016, 07:33:16 pm
That a rubber hammer is still a hammer. Also that if your thumb is in the way (and you are slightly distracted) hitting your thumb with the hammer results in dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath, etc. etc.

Five hours later it still hurts like fuck. I can still move it but won't be fitting any tyres this weekend if I can help it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 07 October, 2016, 07:49:13 pm
Sorry. I hope you don't mind. I had to laugh at that. It sounds like quite a whack.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 07 October, 2016, 09:26:57 pm
I'm cringing at the thought, but also slightly chucking.

Ouch
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 08 October, 2016, 10:13:36 am
That there's a bunkhouse (http://'http://www.horseandgroomcourt.co.uk/index.php') in Egremont. I've lived here for 7.5 years, at one point only about 200m from it and had no idea it was there. :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 08 October, 2016, 01:26:50 pm
Caecilius est in domus. Domus electronic est.

http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/house-caecilius-iucundus-pompeii-04248.html
Ooooh, did you have those Latin books?
Oh yes. Latin was the one O'Level I failed due to thinking that memorising set texts was not proper learning so I treated them as unseen.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pickled Onion on 09 October, 2016, 11:39:54 am
The person who is the most cited author on Google Scholar with an H-Index of 333..

https://scholar.google.nl/citations?user=qGuYgMsAAAAJ&hl=en

All those papers, but not a single one as First Named Author.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 09 October, 2016, 07:03:01 pm
That today is National Fungus Day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 09 October, 2016, 11:20:03 pm
Does Fungus know this?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 October, 2016, 11:34:11 pm
That "quax: (v)" means to do one's shopping by public transport, on foot or by bike.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 09 October, 2016, 11:39:29 pm
That there is a brewery in the West Bank making beer according to the Rheinheitsgebot. And it has the only female brewer in Palestine.

http://taybehbeer.com/activity/drink/ (http://taybehbeer.com/activity/drink/)

There's an outlet in Shibuya, so maybe I can try some next time I visit Tokyo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 11 October, 2016, 10:34:05 am
I have come across a headset design I've never seen before.
( The bike is a Canyon. )
There's nothing inside the steerer at all!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVHiQSnrq0o

A couple of observations:
1) The tiny screw which expands the doofer doesn't have any kind of locking mechanism on it.
2) The bike in question has a bunch of spacers on top of the stem ( he's not cut the steerer down because he wants to sell the bike on ).  Then, there's just a decorative push-on top cap.   This means the spacers above the stem are not under any pre-load compression at all, in fact they are quite loose and rattly.


Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 11 October, 2016, 12:56:05 pm
I did. Caecilius est pater.
Flavia puella est. Marcus sub arbore sedet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 October, 2016, 01:13:05 pm
I did. Caecilius est pater.
Flavia puella est. Marcus sub arbore sedet.

Caesar adsum iam forte.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 October, 2016, 01:15:46 pm
I did. Caecilius est pater.
Flavia puella est. Marcus sub arbore sedet.

Carpe clunem.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 11 October, 2016, 02:02:23 pm
I did. Caecilius est pater.
Flavia puella est. Marcus sub arbore sedet.

Caesar adsum iam forte.
Brutus aderat
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 October, 2016, 03:04:31 pm
I did. Caecilius est pater.
Flavia puella est. Marcus sub arbore sedet.

Caesar adsum iam forte.
Brutus aderat
Caesar sic in omnibus.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 11 October, 2016, 03:08:28 pm
I did. Caecilius est pater.
Flavia puella est. Marcus sub arbore sedet.

Caesar adsum iam forte.
Brutus aderat
Caesar sic in omnibus.

I have a clean up kit for that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 11 October, 2016, 04:06:08 pm
I did. Caecilius est pater.
Flavia puella est. Marcus sub arbore sedet.

Caesar adsum iam forte.
Brutus aderat
Caesar sic in omnibus.
Brutus sic inat
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 11 October, 2016, 07:26:21 pm
Stale buns to many of you I daresay, but I've been on me hols for a fortnight.

Bernie Sanders  (yes the famous, or is that notorious? usanian leftwing firebrand* politician) has a brother, Larry. 

Larry is a member of the Green Party and is moreover intent on becoming the new MP for Witney.

Larry Sanders (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/23/bernie-sanders-larry-sanders-brother-to-fight-david-camerons-old-seat-for-greens)

*Or, depending on your point of view, the only sane usanian politico in existence.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 12 October, 2016, 12:41:28 pm
Is he still played by Garry Shandling?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 12 October, 2016, 06:30:42 pm
Cat litter contains elevated levels of thorium-232.

also..

Thorium-232 is now classified as carcinogenic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 12 October, 2016, 06:51:07 pm
Cat litter contains elevated levels of thorium-232.

also..

Thorium-232 is now classified as carcinogenic.

What sort of cat litter? Before or after use?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 12 October, 2016, 08:17:34 pm
I, for one, welcome our new mutant kitty overlords.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 12 October, 2016, 08:44:58 pm
They might find your lack of hake disturbing! *

Not 100% about litter being radioactive but it certainly smells like that's what the cats are leaving in the tray . . .












*IGMC
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 12 October, 2016, 09:47:46 pm
Thanks to Svante Pääbo, I now know that very roughly half the Neanderthal genome has so far been found to be still floating around - in us. And the more people are tested, the more is found.

My mind is boggled.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 12 October, 2016, 09:58:38 pm
Uuurgghh rurrrgh.  Nggghhh ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 12 October, 2016, 10:26:27 pm
Uuuurrrrrggggh nnnnrrrrggggh!

Oh, sorry. The Archers thread is thataway >>>>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 12 October, 2016, 10:29:42 pm
Thanks to Svante Pääbo, I now know that very roughly half the Neanderthal genome has so far been found to be still floating around - in us. And the more people are tested, the more is found.

My mind is boggled.

A fascinating program.   Amazing  that new hominids are being identified even when they have  left no physical trace.  Only residual non-modern human DNA still surviving in isolated clusters.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 12 October, 2016, 10:54:54 pm
Yeah. Impressive enough that a test to see whether a bone was us or Neanderthal could find a completely unexpected new type of human, so we now know of a type of human which was definitely distinct, but which we know nothing about the appearance of, it being known only from a couple of teeth & a bone or two. And then the 'no physical trace' ones - wow!

The discussion of Neanderthal populations & genetic diversity or lack of was also fascinating. What did they think they were? Cheetahs?

A proper Horizon. I liked it a lot. Now I have some reading to do.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 12 October, 2016, 11:00:42 pm
Damn - missed it. I'm good friends with Janet Kelso, one of the bioinformatics group leaders in Pääbo's department. Have to get it on iPlayer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 12 October, 2016, 11:03:22 pm
That it's 50 years since the Aberfan disaster.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 12 October, 2016, 11:04:13 pm
Damn - missed it. I'm good friends with Janet Kelso, one of the bioinformatics group leaders in Pääbo's department. Have to get it on iPlayer.
She's in it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 13 October, 2016, 12:54:24 pm
That it's 50 years since the Aberfan disaster.

I only caught the last 3 minutes of the programme last night (The Young Wives' Club) but I was in tears at the final scene. I found it on +1 and recorded it. I'll watch when I'm feeling strong.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 October, 2016, 12:56:15 pm
That it's 50 years since the Aberfan disaster.

I wonder how many people of my age or younger have even heard of it?

I only became aware when it came up in a Geography lesson at GCSE.  It must be prehistoric for the younger generations.  I suppose the same can probably be said for coal mining.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 13 October, 2016, 01:04:44 pm
I was 14, and remember arriving at my grandmother's house and finding her in tears, in a terrible state, being quite reasonably upset by what had happened to all those unsuspecting children.  From what I gathered at the time (I've not remotely studied the subject) it was another corporate carelessness job, leavened with a lack of knowledge about watercourses or something.

Whatever, it should be a lesson for the future.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 13 October, 2016, 03:50:54 pm
A Welsh university lecturer with a bent for process safety.  One of those sad case studies that every chemical engineer should learn about.

Along with
Bhopal
Alexander Keilland
Piper Alpha
Seveso
Texas City
Feyzin
Deepwater Horizon
... (unfortunately we keep repeating these)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 13 October, 2016, 04:01:01 pm
Reviewing engineering failures is part of the first year of engineering courses in Oz. I hadn't come across Aberfan before now, not unexpectedly. Also not too surprising that it made a big impression in the UK.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 13 October, 2016, 04:02:03 pm
Flixborough too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 13 October, 2016, 04:10:53 pm
Alexander Kielland was an interesting case. My father lost a number of friends that day. It certainly had an impact on testing and certification.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 13 October, 2016, 04:56:45 pm
Ronan Point (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Point) is one of the big ones for us structural engineers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 October, 2016, 05:08:31 pm
I remember that. Quite a kerfuffle it caused.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 13 October, 2016, 05:23:53 pm
That it's 50 years since the Aberfan disaster.

I only caught the last 3 minutes of the programme last night (The Young Wives' Club) but I was in tears at the final scene. I found it on +1 and recorded it. I'll watch when I'm feeling strong.

The thing that struck me was the stoicism demonstrated by the residents and rescue workers. One guy was asked a question by a young reporter and replied his mother was 'probably in there' before going back to digging. Another man interviewed said he was looking for his son, his daughter had already been found safe.

Difficult to watch, can only thank the stars and hope to never have that experience.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 13 October, 2016, 06:30:56 pm
That is a day I will never forget. I was delivering morning newspapers carrying the Aberfan headlines and came across a BISF (British Iron and Steel) house roaring in flame and watched the asbestos roof explode. (Occupant had been smoking in bed). I was 13.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: matthew on 13 October, 2016, 11:10:38 pm
Reviewing engineering failures is part of the first year of engineering courses in Oz. I hadn't come across Aberfan before now, not unexpectedly. Also not too surprising that it made a big impression in the UK.

I had the same in 2000 as part of the first year of my chem eng course, 'what happens if we make a mistake'. Buildings blown out, Piper Alpha, Bhopal etc. were all part of it.

Texas City was while I was post grad as was Bunsfield.

They were all examples of doing things without full thought or full quality control during construction. Most of the fatalities at Texas City would have been avoided by following protocol and telling next door what you were about to do, the meeting would have been held elsewhere. Though the route cause of the incident is more involved the consequences would have been much reduced.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 14 October, 2016, 08:48:04 am
Adding to the list: DH Comet, Liberty ship hull failures. We had examples brought up through the various modules on my aero eng degree, but I always thought a second- or final-year seminar course on engineering failures would be a useful introduction to engineering practice; get given a classic case study to read up on and discuss every week.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 14 October, 2016, 08:50:30 am
The shuttle's tiles ?  One of our Uni lecturers was involved with sticking them on, or perhaps was consulted when they had failed to stick on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Quisling on 14 October, 2016, 09:26:28 am
A Welsh university lecturer with a bent for process safety.  One of those sad case studies that every chemical engineer should learn about.

Along with
Bhopal
Alexander Keilland
Piper Alpha
Seveso
Texas City
Feyzin
Deepwater Horizon
... (unfortunately we keep repeating these)

Seveso was so important that there's an entire EU Directive named after it.  "The Directive is widely considered as a benchmark for industrial accident policy and has been a role model for legislation in many countries world-wide."[http://ec.europa.eu/environment/seveso/index.htm]
The production director of the Seveso chemical plant was subsequently shot and killed by a terrorist organisation.  This incident led to much of our current understanding of the dangers of dioxins.

Back OT, I learned about the structure of the foot in a dissection programme on BBC4 last night.  Gross, but fascinating.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 October, 2016, 09:49:36 am
Reviewing engineering failures is part of the first year of engineering courses in Oz. I hadn't come across Aberfan before now, not unexpectedly. Also not too surprising that it made a big impression in the UK.

Similar in development to the Shenzen landslide last December.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Shenzhen_landslide
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 October, 2016, 10:45:51 am
That cardinals over 80 do not have the right to vote for the next pope. At present only 111 of the 211 cardinals are entitled to take part in a conclave, which means if Francis were to die right now, they'd have to do something special: they need a minimum of 121 voters to choose a pope.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 October, 2016, 10:52:52 am
That cardinals over 80 do not have the right to vote for the next pope. At present only 111 of the 211 cardinals are entitled to take part in a conclave, which means if Francis were to die right now, they'd have to do something special: they need a minimum of 121 voters to choose a pope.

God will provide ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 14 October, 2016, 03:30:18 pm
The not-yet-declared new king of Thailand used to have a poodle called Fufu (or Foo Foo - 1997-2015). It is said to have been made an Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Thai Air Force, at his instigation, & often attended official occasions where it was treated as a guest, e.g. seated at table alongside humans. It featured prominently in a low-resolution video (probably shot from a phone) of its 2007 birthday party, in which the then crown princess fed it birthday cake while wearing only a g-string (the princess, not the poodle).

Ah, the lives of royalty!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 14 October, 2016, 06:21:10 pm
Alexander Kielland was an interesting case. My father lost a number of friends that day. It certainly had an impact on testing and certification.

They have a piece of the leg in the oil museum in Scavenger, quite sobering to see such thick steel twisted like rubber.

The Buchan, is a sister vessel, still in use as a floating production platform, but with severe restrictions on wave height before they need to downman. They will have to cease operations next year as they will not pass the latest safety case regulations.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 15 October, 2016, 06:28:10 pm
The not-yet-declared new king of Thailand used to have a poodle called Fufu (or Foo Foo - 1997-2015). It is said to have been made an Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Thai Air Force, at his instigation, & often attended official occasions where it was treated as a guest, e.g. seated at table alongside humans. It featured prominently in a low-resolution video (probably shot from a phone) of its 2007 birthday party, in which the then crown princess fed it birthday cake while wearing only a g-string (the princess, not the poodle).

Ah, the lives of royalty!


King Walter?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 20 October, 2016, 11:53:22 am
It's best not to honk out of the saddle when towing a Bike Hod.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 20 October, 2016, 04:29:40 pm
That Ben, the fillum with the twee Michael Jackson theme song, is actually a horror movie.  :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 20 October, 2016, 07:08:27 pm
Isn't that anything with Michael Jackson?  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 October, 2016, 07:09:45 pm
Is it the one where his nose falls off?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 21 October, 2016, 09:52:20 pm
There is a ship called Dongbang Giant . . . Yes, really!
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:674576/mmsi:441941000/imo:9379923/vessel:DONGBANG_GIANT_NO_5 (http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:674576/mmsi:441941000/imo:9379923/vessel:DONGBANG_GIANT_NO_5)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 23 October, 2016, 05:37:13 pm
Many others here may already know it, but I found out today that Schwalbe means swallow. The bird, that is...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cycleman on 23 October, 2016, 06:24:34 pm
Won't you choke if you swallow a bird   ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 23 October, 2016, 06:48:49 pm
Won't you choke if you swallow a bird   ;D

to catch a spider?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cycleman on 23 October, 2016, 07:15:18 pm
To catch a fly  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 23 October, 2016, 08:59:02 pm
But I don't know why you'd swallow a fly . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 23 October, 2016, 09:16:09 pm
That the Lodges in East Anglia (primarily Breckland) e.g. Red Lodge, were fortified Rabbit warren keepers houses.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 23 October, 2016, 09:25:18 pm
But I don't know why you'd swallow a fly . . .

Perhaps you'll die.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 24 October, 2016, 12:14:27 am
The USA has a Guano Islands Act.



















No shit!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 November, 2016, 12:52:46 pm
In 1872 or thereabouts the archives of the Confederacy were sold to the government of Mexico for $75,000.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C07E0DC1E38EF34BC4851DFB1668389669FDE

Not the charging Pickett, he was a general.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 05 November, 2016, 01:19:17 pm
The 'Mr Benjamin' & 'J P Benjamin' mentioned was a minister of the Confederate government who illustrated the peculiarities of Confederate prejudices. AFAIK Judah Benjamin wasn't handicapped much, if at all, by his religion or ethnicity.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 07 November, 2016, 09:20:28 pm
That duct tape is otherwise known as 'Havana chrome'.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 07 November, 2016, 10:28:14 pm
That duct tape is otherwise known as 'Havana chrome'.  ;D

Yes.  I started to watch Rich Hall, but as I fell asleep, I decided it wasn't really grabbing me and so returned to R4.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 November, 2016, 07:38:09 am
That a quarter of USAnians believe that the sun goes round the Earth.  This is new to me: I thought it was a third.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 08 November, 2016, 07:44:07 am
Many others here may already know it, but I found out today that Schwalbe means swallow. The bird, that is...

It's also a dive in football.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 15 November, 2016, 09:10:13 am
That one can pay in cheques to my bank account (in this case HSBC) at the Post Office. Which is handy as I have a rebate cheque  ::-) from HMRC (who I pay electronically...)  and my local HSBC branch, 2 doors from the PO, has closed recently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 15 November, 2016, 09:16:02 am
How to isolate and remove a radiator.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 16 November, 2016, 09:54:07 am
That duct tape is otherwise known as 'Havana chrome'.  ;D

In a song by Jim White it's Alabama chrome.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 17 November, 2016, 11:05:33 am
That having the cracked fireback in our fireplace replaced will mean the installer confirming we have a CO alarm, as it is now required by law. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 17 November, 2016, 11:30:08 pm
Fiver on Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/sv3/iMusi-Carbon-Monoxide-Detector-Poisoning-Warning-Detection/B01IOJYM66/). I'm sure you'll cope ...

In truth, we should probably acquire one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 18 November, 2016, 02:01:33 pm
That when repairing a puncture or replacing a tyre in the cold, inflating to max pressure should be avoided if the storage space for the bike at work is a warm room.

I have a brace of CHP engineers in my plant room who nearly had a heart attack :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 November, 2016, 06:31:55 pm
Is that some sort of belated exchange program with the California Highway Patrol?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: matthew on 18 November, 2016, 07:03:59 pm
Combined Heat and Power, so basically a boiler that is producing steam for electrisity and using the low grade heat from the back end to heat the school.

I wouldn't have thought the temp difference was more than 30 deg K or about 11% and I wouldn't have thought a 10psi increase would cause a rim failure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 November, 2016, 07:12:15 pm
Combined Heat and Power, so basically a boiler that is producing steam for electrisity and using the low grade heat from the back end to heat the school.

Bonus points for large installations with a conspicuous lack of black start capability...


Quote
I wouldn't have thought the temp difference was more than 30 deg K or about 11% and I wouldn't have thought a 10psi increase would cause a rim failure.

Enough to tip it over the edge if something's about to go kaboom anyway, thobut.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 18 November, 2016, 07:21:56 pm
If the rim is scored (like from a sharp stone embedded in the brake pad) it will fail pretty easily. Also, cheap rims that don't have a hook to hold the tire bead in place will fail at about the tire's  recommended maximum pressure. The flange of the rim flexes just enough to let the tire bead slide off the rim and the tube blows.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JonBuoy on 18 November, 2016, 07:32:56 pm
The gritty stuff in Swarfega Orange hand cleaner is cornmeal not polymer microbeads.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 18 November, 2016, 09:27:31 pm
I can track-stand.

But I put my skill in the same category as moms lifting cars off of trapped children - something that only happens in the heat of the moment and cannot be repeated on demand.

After the peds saw sense and cleared the path, I almost fell over when I realised what I was doing.  Thankfully forward motion won out over sideways.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 November, 2016, 12:55:35 pm
That Val McDermid based the character of Jacko Vance on Jimmy Savile, and was surprised that so few people seemed to notice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 19 November, 2016, 05:31:25 pm
Our CHP is a Mercedes V8 marine diesel converted to run on natural gas. The unit was having a topped rebuild (cylinder heads off, pistons and liners out etc). Pistons are about 6" diameter.

The rim was fine. I think I may have been a bit careless in fully seating the bead of the tyre but it remained in place for an 8 mile commute.......
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 19 November, 2016, 06:20:33 pm
We have little ones with Sachs motorcycle engines in them (Senertec), at 3 of our sheltered blocks.  At the last place, we had a Wartsila ship engine powered one, that is bigger than my house.  Admittedly, that heated a bit more than one building!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 20 November, 2016, 09:02:22 pm
Today I learned that dolphins are jungle animals. Cool.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 November, 2016, 09:16:25 pm
It seems to me that most dinosaurs were actually burrowing creatures.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 21 November, 2016, 10:24:47 am
That trying to shove a lithium 2032 into a 2025 orifice doesn't work, Doh!  :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 21 November, 2016, 01:19:10 pm
It will be 0.7mm too thick.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 November, 2016, 04:54:08 pm
That the US constitution still permits slavery, as part of punishment for crime.  The measure was included as an exemption to the general ban on slavery, so as to cover forced labour in prisons.

In the recent election, Colorado had a question on their ballot papers as to whether a similar exemption should be removed from the state constitution, but it was so confusingly worded that the majority would appear to have mistakenly voted to keep it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 21 November, 2016, 07:19:53 pm
When Donald Trump's grandfather, Friedrich, returned to Bavaria as an old man, having previously trotted off to USAnia as a young man, he was turfed out in short order, by royal decree, for not having done mandatory military service and dodging emigration paperwork.   Oh and he (it is alleged) ran a brothel in one of the gold rush areas in USAnia.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 21 November, 2016, 08:05:42 pm
More 'what I have relearned today' . . .

The reason I stopped using an electric razor <mumble> years ago. The skin around my collar line looks like someone took a belt sander to it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 21 November, 2016, 10:59:37 pm
That when repairing a puncture or replacing a tyre in the cold, inflating to max pressure should be avoided if the storage space for the bike at work is a warm room.

I have a brace of CHP engineers in my plant room who nearly had a heart attack :-[

That's the funniest thing I've read in days.

Go on, do another one ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 22 November, 2016, 09:44:42 am
More 'what I have relearned today' . . .

The reason I stopped using an electric razor <mumble> years ago. The skin around my collar line looks like someone took a belt sander to it.

You are not the only one to suffer with that, despite the time savings that can be had from using an electric, I haven't used one for *mumblemumble* years
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 November, 2016, 09:51:54 am
45 years for me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 22 November, 2016, 11:35:06 am
Never in my case, and I'm not convinced they save much if any time anyway.  Maybe I'm just a sloppy shaver.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 November, 2016, 12:08:22 pm
beard for me
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 22 November, 2016, 12:53:22 pm
More 'what I have relearned today' . . .

The reason I stopped using an electric razor <mumble> years ago. The skin around my collar line looks like someone took a belt sander to it.

You are not the only one to suffer with that, despite the time savings that can be had from using an electric, I haven't used one for *mumblemumble* years

But if and when you have grandchildren, it is a law that you have to pretend to shave them by rubbing the other side of the activated electric razor over their faces, causing squeals and giggles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 22 November, 2016, 01:11:31 pm
When Donald Trump's grandfather, Friedrich, returned to Bavaria as an old man, having previously trotted off to USAnia as a young man, he was turfed out in short order, by royal decree, for not having done mandatory military service and dodging emigration paperwork.   Oh and he (it is alleged) ran a brothel in one of the gold rush areas in USAnia.
Friedrich Trump was 35 when he returned to Germany, supposedly because his wife (who he'd met & married the previous time he'd been back) was homesick. So, not quite an old man. His home town is in the Pfalz, which was part of of the Kingdom of Bavaria, but not in Bavaria proper, or the modern German state.

And it wasn't a royal decree as in an order made personally by the king or even that the king knew of, but an order issued by officials in the Ministry of the Interior, which like all such paperwork at the time was in the king's name.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 24 November, 2016, 08:43:47 am
 :sick: after eating blueberries is the most astonishing red colour.  DAMHIKT.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 November, 2016, 09:37:42 am
That the human body reflects FM signals better than it transmits them.  My FM radio/clock is tuned at last.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 24 November, 2016, 10:36:08 am
There's a very popular "radio aid" system (extra gadget for deaf ppl to add to hearing aids to aid hearing - often used in situations with big rooms or lots of people and therefore background noise) which doesn't work if there are people between the speaker and deaf person cos human bodies block the signal  :facepalm:

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 24 November, 2016, 05:47:01 pm
When Donald Trump's grandfather, Friedrich, returned to Bavaria as an old man, having previously trotted off to USAnia as a young man, he was turfed out in short order, by royal decree, for not having done mandatory military service and dodging emigration paperwork.   Oh and he (it is alleged) ran a brothel in one of the gold rush areas in USAnia.
Friedrich Trump was 35 when he returned to Germany, supposedly because his wife (who he'd met & married the previous time he'd been back) was homesick. So, not quite an old man. His home town is in the Pfalz, which was part of of the Kingdom of Bavaria, but not in Bavaria proper, or the modern German state.

And it wasn't a royal decree as in an order made personally by the king or even that the king knew of, but an order issued by officials in the Ministry of the Interior, which like all such paperwork at the time was in the king's name.
Aww spoilsport.  None of that unimportant detail made it into the article I read.  Anyway, what have facts and accuracy got to do with anything when it comes to Agent^wPresident-Elect Orange?  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 26 November, 2016, 05:03:58 pm
I has learned how easy and effective it is to cut wire ( actually stainless steel) rope with a cold chisel. Wrap with tape to keep the ends tidy, place on an anvil (a lump of 1" plate in my case)  and whop.  Reckon it has application to bikey things, too, only not straightforward to get the end somewhere whopable.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 November, 2016, 03:52:55 pm
That in 1959 the tobacco industry was aware that smoking delivered polonium-210 and lead-210 to the lungs, but refused to remove them because doing so would make nicotine-delivery less efficient. Clicky (http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2012/05/24/tobacco-firms-have-failed-to-act-on-radioactivity-in-cigarettes-heres-why/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 30 November, 2016, 09:31:55 pm
And on a related note, tonight I discovered that my mother's first job was as an assistant in the MRC unit in Gower Street, transcribing data and plotting graphs for Sir Richard Doll in his ground breaking study on smoking. She worked there for two weeks and was paid £4 10' per week.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 02 December, 2016, 11:30:39 am
Gene Rodenberry was led into writing Star Trek after co-piloting a passenger aircraft that crashed into the desert

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/plane (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/plane)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 December, 2016, 01:10:23 pm
The Emerald Ash Borer eats its way under the bark of ash-trees and kills them. Europe is on its line of march:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_ash_borer
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 08 December, 2016, 09:56:56 am
Not all AA batteries are the same size :demon:.  We've got a baby monitor that recharges its batteries when sitting on its base, so I can quite understand if non-rechargeables were minutely bigger than rechargeables (THAT would be a clever bit of poka-yoke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke)) to safeguard against putting the wrong type in, but even the new rechargeable ones I've bought won't fit...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 December, 2016, 12:59:58 pm
Rechargables are marketed by their capacity, so it's common for manufacturers to take liberties with the tolerances to squeeze a few more mAh in.  On the other hand there seems to be some sort of gentlemen's agreement between manufacturers never to mention the actual capacity of primary cells, so they tend to stick to the official physical spec for those.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 15 December, 2016, 09:24:41 am
Today I have learned something of the private lives of fairies. They are very sociable creatures, apparently.

Since December 1 I have had a Christmas tree on my bike, and in residence atop the said tree is Cheery, a fairy (first cousin of Cheery Littlebottom, Dwarf). She has been throwing parties and inviting her friends every day. Apparently the Puncture Fairy could only make it three times.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 15 December, 2016, 02:13:58 pm
And on a related note, tonight I discovered that my mother's first job was as an assistant in the MRC unit in Gower Street, transcribing data and plotting graphs for Sir Richard Doll in his ground breaking study on smoking. She worked there for two weeks and was paid £4 10' per week.

She wasn't also there when he was working with Mr Peto on their stuff on effects of asbestos, was she?  That was a brilliant work, and has had considerable influence on part of my career (and on a court case relating to the death of a friend).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 15 December, 2016, 03:53:01 pm
No. I think it was a two week summer job.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 15 December, 2016, 07:43:22 pm
That Shimano Alfine lubricating oil must be the most expensive I have ever come across.

A small bottle sufficient for a hub service is over a tenner. That makes it over £200 per litre...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 December, 2016, 12:44:04 pm
Not all AA batteries are the same size :demon:.  We've got a baby monitor that recharges its batteries when sitting on its base, so I can quite understand if non-rechargeables were minutely bigger than rechargeables (THAT would be a clever bit of poka-yoke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke)) to safeguard against putting the wrong type in, but even the new rechargeable ones I've bought won't fit...
I've noticed Vapex are a bit bigger than Duracell rechargeables.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 23 December, 2016, 10:57:36 pm
That the tune originally written for 'While shepherds watched their flocks' was later taken up for a popular song regarding someone dying in Yorkshire and being eaten by waterfowl.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 23 December, 2016, 10:59:59 pm
That the tune originally written for 'While shepherds watched their flocks' was later taken up for a popular song regarding someone dying in Yorkshire and being eaten by waterfowl.

This was referred to by that Kate Rusby in York on Sunday night  8)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 23 December, 2016, 11:11:53 pm
bar t'at
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 December, 2016, 08:05:08 am
Alehouse decoration or Jewish festival?

Baht'at and nowt to do wi' sock-washers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 24 December, 2016, 09:06:30 am
bar t'at

Aye, and wi'out 'tshoes wi' ribbons on.

She was lovely  :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 December, 2016, 02:55:20 pm
That our post-office has been closed for the last month because somebody nicked the 30 metres of copper cable connecting it to the outside world.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Phil W on 26 December, 2016, 03:08:04 pm
That it takes 8 days for a caterpillar to  transform  into a butterfly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 December, 2016, 09:07:00 pm
That the Pyongyang metro is so obviously based on Moscow's even the trains are the same colours.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 01 January, 2017, 07:06:42 pm
Inspired by driving back yesterday through c 900Km of freezing fog (a fun activity I can recommend to those of masochistic tendency) I now know what freezing fog is.

On the road, I was befuddled by the contradictory information lodged in my brain: Water freezes at 0o and fog is water vapour. How, I asked myself could water vapour stay watery at -6o?

It turns out that water needs something to freeze on, in the absence of which it remains liquid. Thus, providing a wondrous show of rime on the roadside vegetation, and depositing thick ice layer onto any car surface it could.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 02 January, 2017, 09:46:56 pm
Cool. So is every snowflake formed around a speck of airborne dust, or is the inside of the cloud cold enough to cause spontaneous formation of ice crystals?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 02 January, 2017, 10:14:16 pm
Wikipedia tells us that each flake forms around a particle, unless the temperature is below -35C. Excellent article, actually.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 03 January, 2017, 03:36:34 pm
Inspired by driving back yesterday through c 900Km of freezing fog (a fun activity I can recommend to those of masochistic tendency) I now know what freezing fog is.

On the road, I was befuddled by the contradictory information lodged in my brain: Water freezes at 0o and fog is water vapour. How, I asked myself could water vapour stay watery at -6o?

It turns out that water needs something to freeze on, in the absence of which it remains liquid. Thus, providing a wondrous show of rime on the roadside vegetation, and depositing thick ice layer onto any car surface it could.
One of my runs to the Alps (in December '88) was in a 6 pot Landy that had no heater matrix fitted. I had freezing fog from somewhere just a bit South of Calais for hours and the rime accumulation on the front of the vehicle was something to behold.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 05 January, 2017, 12:45:45 pm
Mount Athos is the spiritual capital of the Orthodox Christian world

Quote
Women are not allowed within 500 metres of the shore, and even female animals are prohibited from walking on Mount Athos. This is because the Virgin Mary is said to have visited the peninsula and prayed to have it as her own.

So, Virgin Mary, a woman, prayed to have the peninsula as her own and now woman are not allowed within 500m of the place by the very church that venerates her?

Irony, much?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 January, 2017, 01:49:28 pm
Warning: Danger of Parthenogenesis Beyond This Point.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 05 January, 2017, 02:29:39 pm
Mount Athos is the spiritual capital of the Orthodox Christian world

Quote
Women are not allowed within 500 metres of the shore, and even female animals are prohibited from walking on Mount Athos. This is because the Virgin Mary is said to have visited the peninsula and prayed to have it as her own.

So, Virgin Mary, a woman, prayed to have the peninsula as her own and now woman are not allowed within 500m of the place by the very church that venerates her?

Irony, much?

If you haven't already read From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Holy_Mountain), I highly recommend it if your interest in the Orthodox church has been recently piqued.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 05 January, 2017, 02:32:21 pm
Ooo yes, and also Patrick Leigh Fermor's posthumously edited and published The Broken Road. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broken_Road_(Leigh_Fermor_book))
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 05 January, 2017, 02:49:51 pm
Mount Athos is the spiritual capital of the Orthodox Christian world

Quote
Women are not allowed within 500 metres of the shore, and even female animals are prohibited from walking on Mount Athos. This is because the Virgin Mary is said to have visited the peninsula and prayed to have it as her own.

So, Virgin Mary, a woman, prayed to have the peninsula as her own and now woman are not allowed within 500m of the place by the very church that venerates her?

Irony, much?

If you haven't already read From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Holy_Mountain), I highly recommend it if your interest in the Orthodox church has been recently piqued.
er, my disgust in their hypocrisy was recently tweaked.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 January, 2017, 02:50:15 pm
Or anything else by Patrick Leigh Fermor, but not necessarily to learn about Orthodox Christianity (though that certainly gets a mention in Between the Woods and the Water, along with Greek Catholicism).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 05 January, 2017, 02:55:58 pm
Mount Athos is the spiritual capital of the Orthodox Christian world

Quote
Women are not allowed within 500 metres of the shore, and even female animals are prohibited from walking on Mount Athos. This is because the Virgin Mary is said to have visited the peninsula and prayed to have it as her own.

So, Virgin Mary, a woman, prayed to have the peninsula as her own and now woman are not allowed within 500m of the place by the very church that venerates her?

Irony, much?

If you haven't already read From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Holy_Mountain), I highly recommend it if your interest in the Orthodox church has been recently piqued.
er, my disgust in their hypocrisy was recently tweaked.
:-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fd3 on 06 January, 2017, 09:09:41 pm
Teaching astrophysics for the first time today, found out about the history of astrometry and how the radius of the earth was determined by looking down wells.  Pretty cool ... but then you have to recalibrate for my interpretation of cool.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 06 January, 2017, 09:52:52 pm
Your interpretation of cool sits well with me.   :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 06 January, 2017, 10:10:59 pm
That was a Greek chap wasn't it ?   About 2500 years ago ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 January, 2017, 01:49:45 pm
Eratosthenes? Prime fella.

Anyway, wot I lurnt today was that pre- and maybe post-WW2 French bistros had a supply of writing-paper for the use of their clients. Simone de Beauvoir used to repair to the local bistro every time she wanted to write a letter, and mentions a barman telling someone "no, I can't give you writing-paper unless you order something".  People used to sit there writing all day, drinking coffee, eating lunch, dinner etc.  Nice work if you can get it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 January, 2017, 02:14:38 pm
Anyway, wot I lurnt today was that pre- and maybe post-WW2 French bistros had a supply of writing-paper for the use of their clients. Simone de Beauvoir used to repair to the local bistro every time she wanted to write a letter, and mentions a barman telling someone "no, I can't give you writing-paper unless you order something".  People used to sit there writing all day, drinking coffee, eating lunch, dinner etc.  Nice work if you can get it.

Thereby conclusively answering the question of what people used to do before they invented WiFi...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 09 January, 2017, 04:21:36 pm
Inspired by driving back yesterday through c 900Km of freezing fog (a fun activity I can recommend to those of masochistic tendency) I now know what freezing fog is.

On the road, I was befuddled by the contradictory information lodged in my brain: Water freezes at 0o and fog is water vapour. How, I asked myself could water vapour stay watery at -6o?

It turns out that water needs something to freeze on, in the absence of which it remains liquid. Thus, providing a wondrous show of rime on the roadside vegetation, and depositing thick ice layer onto any car surface it could.

Bubbles are the same, they need soemthing to nucleate on, typically the microscopic imperfections and impurities on the surface of the glass.

Not sure where you are but a few years ago round here we had freezing fog for days in a row.  Just going out to empty the bins you'd end up with frost on your jumper.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 January, 2017, 06:19:58 pm
Anyway, wot I lurnt today was that pre- and maybe post-WW2 French bistros had a supply of writing-paper for the use of their clients. Simone de Beauvoir used to repair to the local bistro every time she wanted to write a letter, and mentions a barman telling someone "no, I can't give you writing-paper unless you order something".  People used to sit there writing all day, drinking coffee, eating lunch, dinner etc.  Nice work if you can get it.

Thereby conclusively answering the question of what people used to do before they invented WiFi...
Plus ca change... But whereas wifi is arguably easier for writing, it's less versatile: you can't doodle on it, wrap sandwiches in it, smoke it or wipe your arse with it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 January, 2017, 06:35:14 pm
The scary thing though is that the hipster on the next table might actually be the next Simone de Beauvoir or Jean-Paul Sartre.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andyoxon on 09 January, 2017, 11:09:44 pm
That it's worth searching the day you were born on google images, if you've not before.  :)  Did it for the first earlier; some interesting stuff: newpaper pages, cartoon strips, comics, etc etc.   
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 January, 2017, 08:49:08 pm
Not to buy cheap no-name 3.5mm jack plugs.

I was expecting dubious tolerances, an outer shell made of cheese, or a strain relief that didn't.

What actually happened was the tip of the plug broke off inside a socket.  The socket in question being the one in barakta's phone, rather than anything that could be opened up to access the socket from the rear or easily replaced.

Miraculously, with a fair bit of fucking about with assorted sharp implements and harsh language, I was eventually able to retrieve the broken bit.  Without damaging anything (apart from barakta's hand, which should grow back) *or* resorting to adhesives.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 14 January, 2017, 09:00:53 pm
Not to buy cheap no-name 3.5mm jack plugs.

I was expecting dubious tolerances, an outer shell made of cheese, or a strain relief that didn't.

What actually happened was the tip of the plug broke off inside a socket.  The socket in question being the one in barakta's phone, rather than anything that could be opened up to access the socket from the rear or easily replaced.

Miraculously, with a fair bit of fucking about with assorted sharp implements and harsh language, I was eventually able to retrieve the broken bit.  Without damaging anything (apart from barakta's hand, which should grow back) *or* resorting to adhesives.

Mine broke off inside the car's CD player.  Had to GAMI to sort it out and it was never the same again.  So I sold the car.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 January, 2017, 09:04:03 pm
Mine broke off inside the car's CD player.  Had to GAMI to sort it out and it was never the same again.  So I sold the car.

That's the same trick my parents used when they got fed up listening to ABBA's Greatest Hits.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 17 January, 2017, 07:54:02 pm
Inspired by driving back yesterday through c 900Km of freezing fog (a fun activity I can recommend to those of masochistic tendency) I now know what freezing fog is.

On the road, I was befuddled by the contradictory information lodged in my brain: Water freezes at 0o and fog is water vapour. How, I asked myself could water vapour stay watery at -6o?

It turns out that water needs something to freeze on, in the absence of which it remains liquid. Thus, providing a wondrous show of rime on the roadside vegetation, and depositing thick ice layer onto any car surface it could.

Bubbles are the same, they need soemthing to nucleate on, typically the microscopic imperfections and impurities on the surface of the glass.

Not sure where you are but a few years ago round here we had freezing fog for days in a row.  Just going out to empty the bins you'd end up with frost on your jumper.
Back in the days when I didn't shave my face I often got frosted foliage in winter.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 January, 2017, 09:54:43 pm
Starting reading my new book today - The Philosophy of Mathematics.   Learned the proof of Pythagoras theorem, very simple and elegant but I'd never thought about it before.

I think the first couple of chapters would even be accessible by my daughter
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 17 January, 2017, 11:14:04 pm
It's nothing to do with native american babies on hides is it?

Sounds good. Which of the many books of that title is it?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 18 January, 2017, 08:07:22 am
Starting reading my new book today - The Philosophy of Mathematics.   Learned the proof of Pythagoras theorem, very simple and elegant but I'd never thought about it before.

I think the first couple of chapters would even be accessible by my daughter

Yeah? But what about us simpletons?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 18 January, 2017, 09:43:32 am
Learned the proof of Pythagoras theorem, very simple and elegant but I'd never thought about it before.
Which one? (http://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 18 January, 2017, 01:55:37 pm
Learned the proof of Pythagoras theorem, very simple and elegant but I'd never thought about it before.
Which one? (http://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/)

I'd hazard the three squares one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 18 January, 2017, 03:05:44 pm
That it is considered acceptable by the Head of Planning of AVDC (one Susan Kitchen) to give outline planning permission to a development that, as part of providing access to a site, requires the demolition of an end of terrace property (in a terrace of three 2-up, 2-down 1740 farm workers cottages of "no architectural merit" and flimsy single brick on dead wood and mud foundation construction). Said property is empty, but the (currently) mid-terrace one isn't. Presumably such considerations as the physical and mental well-being of the occupant of thet mid (soon to be end) terrrace isn't worthy of consideration (she doesn't want to move) nor legally of any import in granting the permission. I suspect Ms Kitchen sleeps very well at night.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 18 January, 2017, 08:43:40 pm
It's nothing to do with native american babies on hides is it?

Sounds good. Which of the many books of that title is it?

It's simply called Philosophy of Mathematics, by James Robert Brown






Starting reading my new book today - The Philosophy of Mathematics. 

Learned the proof of Pythagoras theorem, very simple and elegant but I'd never thought about it before.

I think the first couple of chapters would even be accessible by my daughter

Yeah? But what about us simpletons?

Yes, even you  :P



Learned the proof of Pythagoras theorem, very simple and elegant but I'd never thought about it before.
Which one? (http://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/)

I'd hazard the three squares one.

Two Squares
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 28 January, 2017, 12:04:04 pm
That marriages in which the woman is older than the man are getting more common in Japan
1975: Man older = 68.0%, woman older = 11.4%
1995: Man older = 64.4%, woman older = 18.0%
2015: Man older = 55.0%, woman older = 24.2%


I'm proofreading the translation of a report on marriage trends in Japan. It's Table 15. Ages in years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 January, 2017, 08:19:38 pm
That when Tenzing and Hillary reached the summit of Everest, Tenzing's water bottle contained "a delicious brew of water, sugar, lemon crystals, and raspberry jam." Makers of energy gels take note!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 31 January, 2017, 09:06:54 pm
What I have leaned today is
Not much Welsh.

First two hour class for numpties tonight.  Unfortunately I missed the first week of term as i had to be in Reading last week. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 01 February, 2017, 02:19:45 pm
Some quiz programme was on the wireless as I was painting this morning.
Q.  Which school did Virginia Woolf attend?

The correct answer was that she never attended any school.
(Although her brothers were sent to public school and to Oxford)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 01 February, 2017, 02:26:58 pm
That Messrs Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins ahd to fill out an immigration landing card on arrival in Hawaii post vacation-

http://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/image-of-apollo11_customs_immigration_form.jpg
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 02 February, 2017, 12:56:03 pm
Shitting into a cardboard potty and then scooping it into a testtube isn't nearly as much fun as it sounds. Especially if you have a cat who wants to help.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 02 February, 2017, 01:07:15 pm
Shitting into a cardboard potty and then scooping it into a testtube isn't nearly as much fun as it sounds. Especially if you have a cat who wants to help.

A Dr on TV advised putting some clingfilm over your toilet, and depositing onto that. Remember not have the cling film too taut.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 February, 2017, 08:38:37 pm
That there actually is a (Dr) Ron Hill, purveyor of Ronhill Tracksters.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 02 February, 2017, 08:49:43 pm
Shitting into a cardboard potty and then scooping it into a testtube isn't nearly as much fun as it sounds. Especially if you have a cat who wants to help.

A Dr on TV advised putting some clingfilm over your toilet, and depositing onto that. Remember not have the cling film too taut.

I ws sent a sheet of paper to put in the toilet, that would float on top and remain intact long enough to collect the sample, then dissolve after flushing. At least that's what the instructions said, and my toilet works fine after I followed the instructions.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: eck on 02 February, 2017, 08:50:58 pm
That there actually is a (Dr) Ron Hill, purveyor of Ronhill Tracksters.
And most excellent distance runner in the 60's   :thumbsup:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-38814518 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-38814518)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 02 February, 2017, 09:04:27 pm
That the prison transport truck I frequently see taking the short cut restricted to buses and bikes does, in fact, meet the legal definition of a bus, and that I should stop sending ranty emails to the company about this therefore.

 :-X
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ashaman42 on 02 February, 2017, 09:29:51 pm
Ah I've had a couple prison vans (presumably heading towards Lewes) overtake me on the bus lane out of Brighton before. I did wonder if they were allowed or not.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 03 February, 2017, 01:27:07 am
IIRC, if it says 'Buses,' then anything minibus-sized or above (9+ passenger seats?) can be legally driven on it, but if it says 'Local buses' then it's actually got to be, well, a local bus (ie a stage service).

I did a bit of a double take when I first saw prison vans using a bus lane but yes, they've got plenty of passenger seats ...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 03 February, 2017, 07:27:55 am
... but no stop-on-request bell.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 February, 2017, 04:32:02 pm
I've also seen "scheduled buses" on signs, presumably to keep out tourist coaches and random minibuses but allow non-local buses which are timetabled.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 03 February, 2017, 04:40:40 pm
Canterbury, popular tourist coach destination that it is, could have done with a "Buses driven by experienced local drivers who can reliably thread the needle through the Westgate (https://youtu.be/zkY7h-VKgWw?t=53s) rather than getting stuck and gridlocking the ring road" variant...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 03 February, 2017, 11:24:51 pm
I've also seen "scheduled buses" on signs, presumably to keep out tourist coaches and random minibuses but allow non-local buses which are timetabled.

Pretty sure that's not a permitted variant, so it probably means the whole thing is unenforceable on a technicality ...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 03 February, 2017, 11:28:43 pm
Shitting into a cardboard potty and then scooping it into a testtube isn't nearly as much fun as it sounds. Especially if you have a cat who wants to help.

A Dr on TV advised putting some clingfilm over your toilet, and depositing onto that. Remember not have the cling film too taut.

I ws sent a sheet of paper to put in the toilet, that would float on top and remain intact long enough to collect the sample, then dissolve after flushing. At least that's what the instructions said, and my toilet works fine after I followed the instructions.

Mrs P has a story about this  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 05 February, 2017, 06:20:59 pm
That audax and randonneur are different.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 05 February, 2017, 06:37:06 pm
That audax and randonneur are different.

Not in the UK.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 05 February, 2017, 07:50:35 pm
That when the youth talk about a person they find attractive and beautiful they said that they are - tidy. As in - Damn, she is tidy.

I better stop using sick, which is sooo 2012.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 05 February, 2017, 10:26:49 pm
That falcons are more closely related to parrots than to hawks
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 February, 2017, 10:29:44 pm
That some of the people living in the Chartists settlement at Snigs End are the descendants of the original Chartists of 1847. And that Chartist colours were green and pink.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 07 February, 2017, 05:46:55 pm
That Dr Angela Merkel has a PhD in quantum chemistry

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 07 February, 2017, 08:18:10 pm
What I have leaned today is
Not much Welsh.

First two hour class for numpties tonight.  Unfortunately I missed the first week of term as i had to be in Reading last week.

Oh my brane fecking hurts.   :-\
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 08 February, 2017, 08:21:53 am
That a mass of starlings (as in those doing ariel ballet and turning the sky into an art gallery) is called a Murmaration. Lovely word.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 08 February, 2017, 03:43:48 pm
That power ballad deluxe I Found Someone, made popular by poodle-haired Cher, was in fact written by poodle-mulletted soft-rock nabob Michael Bolton for Laura Branigan, whose woefully underpowered version sounds almost as wrong as Russ Ballard's original Since You've Been Gone.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 08 February, 2017, 04:16:42 pm
That a mass of starlings (as in those doing ariel ballet and turning the sky into an art gallery) is called a Murmaration. Lovely word.

There is another group of birds (I forget which, not the Spice Girls ;) ) that is called a sussuration
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 08 February, 2017, 04:19:26 pm
There is another group of birds (I forget which, not the Spice Girls ;) ) that is called a sussuration
sparrows.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 15 February, 2017, 10:03:55 pm
That my Dad's Dad was a commandant in the Irish Army and was in the guard of honour at the funeral of Michael Collins.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 19 February, 2017, 12:26:15 am
That in Denmark they have special bins for recycling flamingos.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 19 February, 2017, 07:26:55 pm
That in Denmark they have special bins for recycling flamingos.
???

Anyway.  I may be the last person on earth to learn this, but during a chat with farmer type in pub tonight, I learned that the David Brown of tractor fame is the DB of Aston Martin DBn.
Gear boxes, apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 February, 2017, 07:58:20 pm
That in Denmark they have special bins for recycling flamingos.
I need to know about this. More precisely, Bairdy otp needs to know about this.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feline on 19 February, 2017, 10:38:52 pm
Today I learned that there are certain people who have it in for you no matter what. The best way to deal with them is to be right up in their face to spite them for ever  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 February, 2017, 10:42:38 pm
Chipshop vinegar isn't vinegar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-brewed_condiment
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 25 February, 2017, 12:38:35 am
Chipshop vinegar isn't vinegar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-brewed_condiment

Depends on the chipshop.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 25 February, 2017, 01:15:52 am
I just figured out how and why I know the difference.  Having lived near Worcester famous for the sarson factory and the sauce it was one of the things we learnt.

Also look at things like the mother of vinegar.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 February, 2017, 09:23:50 am
Chipshop vinegar isn't vinegar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-brewed_condiment

The French have a saying "you don't catch flies with vinegar", but the funny thing is that it's the acetic acid released by decomposing fruit that attracts them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 25 February, 2017, 09:46:17 am
Last night...

It's not only cyclists who like to gather at Hyde Park Corner, skaters meet there for their Friday Night Skate to the Coast.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 February, 2017, 11:36:48 am
Chipshop vinegar isn't vinegar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-brewed_condiment

Len Deighton mentioned this in "Horse Under Water": when the drugs expert asks "Harry Palmer" if he knows what acetic acid is, "Harry" replies "Yes, it's what my local supermarket sells as vinegar".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spokenword on 25 February, 2017, 01:31:45 pm
Chipshop vinegar isn't vinegar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-brewed_condiment

To save on carriage it also comes sans water, i.e. as a concentrate, and is imbibed in this state to prove ones manliness amongst the staff!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Aunt Maud on 25 February, 2017, 05:53:20 pm
That in Denmark they have special bins for recycling flamingos.

In Danish, flamingo can also mean polystyrene.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 25 February, 2017, 07:17:47 pm
Chipshop vinegar isn't vinegar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-brewed_condiment

How much vinegar would you have to be getting through for it to make a dent in your profits? Isn't malt vinegar about a pound a litre?

(In the brewed-but-not-distilled column, aren't most alcopops brewed to strength rather than spirits+mixer? I was always surprised trading standards allowed Smirnoff Ice to get away with that.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 25 February, 2017, 08:43:25 pm
Is vinegar legitimate food for certain faiths if it is brewed?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 February, 2017, 09:23:23 am
That in Denmark they have special bins for recycling flamingos.

In Danish, flamingo can also mean polystyrene.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Flamingo_1.jpg/200px-Flamingo_1.jpg)

(yeah, I know they were polywhateverelse.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 February, 2017, 10:48:29 am
Chipshop vinegar isn't vinegar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-brewed_condiment

How much vinegar would you have to be getting through for it to make a dent in your profits? Isn't malt vinegar about a pound a litre?

(In the brewed-but-not-distilled column, aren't most alcopops brewed to strength rather than spirits+mixer? I was always surprised trading standards allowed Smirnoff Ice to get away with that.)

Dunno, but most cheap super-strength "cider" has never been within shouting distance of an apple.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 26 February, 2017, 01:04:11 pm
As far as I know 'white' cider is made from fermented apple mush and then the resultant apple 'wine' is part-distilled, filtered and concentrated and then watered back down to the correct strength for street drinkers. It's basically the same method as making neutral spirit from apples but there's no actual apple taste in the result, that's just a post-dilution flavouring. You could make it with any other neutral spirit but I suspect you can't call the result 'cider.'

I think non-brewed condiment (acetic acid and caramel colouring) is a tradition, it was when I was a lad. They probably invented it in the war to get around vinegar shortages and Hitler was a known hoarder. He loved pickles, did the Führer.

What does make me angry is cheap brown sauce, especially when cafes have obviously refilled HP bottles with it. Seriously, how much money do they save on not buying HP and everyone knows that the only brown sauce that matters.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 26 February, 2017, 01:09:49 pm
Is vinegar legitimate food for certain faiths if it is brewed?

Strictly orthodox Jews will not consume grape-based products that have not been produced under religious auspices. This includes grape juice, wine and wine vinegar.

There is no problem with other fruit.

Passover brings another bunch of grain-based issues but that's only a week.

We had chemical acetic acid supplied by our Kosher grocer to use as vinegar.

Fermentation per se is not prohibited by Jews but there are caveats about what is fermented.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 26 February, 2017, 04:56:40 pm
Didn't wine play quite a big part in the old and new testaments?

I Knew that a lot of the temperance movements shunned vinager on the grounds it might have been made from wine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 February, 2017, 05:25:00 pm
There are more than a few bonkers christian fundies who insist that when the bibble refers to "wine" it really means "grape juice".  How Lot's daughters got him rat-arsed enough to commit incest is, curiously, something about which they are uncharacteristically silent.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 26 February, 2017, 05:56:17 pm
There are more than a few bonkers christian fundies who insist that when the bibble refers to "wine" it really means "grape juice".  How Lot's daughters got him rat-arsed enough to commit incest is, curiously, something about which they are uncharacteristically silent.

whereas rationally, fermentation, pickling, smoking, salting, cheesing etc were all methods of preserving calories from harvest for later consumption or famine.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 March, 2017, 02:15:34 pm
That Zoopla is part owned by the Daily Mail. House hunting can cause/cure cancer!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 04 March, 2017, 04:35:13 pm
That this design for a home-made nipple driver what I found on the internet is vastly superior to the tool I paid £18 for...
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/625/32863231670_5bf682f32c_c.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 07 March, 2017, 11:45:29 am
Chipshop vinegar isn't vinegar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-brewed_condiment
Kim, you have had a sheltered life if you've just found that out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 07 March, 2017, 11:54:47 am
That my Dad's Dad was a commandant in the Irish Army and was in the guard of honour at the funeral of Michael Collins.

Blimey.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 March, 2017, 05:05:14 pm
Just how much work can be involved in flattening the sole of a cheap plane.  And just how soft (badly-tempered or just plain un-) the blades can be. Shall have a go at that with the blow-torch and a bowl of water.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 07 March, 2017, 07:49:55 pm
That if you fail to put the cat out and it suffers a gastric emergency at 2am you're gonna need a new duvet - and sleep with the windows open* . . .  :sick:


* No amount of febreze, V I Poo or anything else will mitigate the stink. Think the bin men got a surprise this morning but no reports of anyone in HazMat suits!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 07 March, 2017, 07:56:40 pm
That if you fail to put the cat out and it suffers a gastric emergency at 2am you're gonna need a new duvet - and sleep with the windows open* . . .  :sick:


* No amount of febreze, V I Poo or anything else will mitigate the stink. Think the bin men got a surprise this morning but no reports of anyone in HazMat suits!

More importantly,  is the cat ok?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 08 March, 2017, 10:57:51 am
Just how much work can be involved in flattening the sole of a cheap plane.  And just how soft (badly-tempered or just plain un-) the blades can be. Shall have a go at that with the blow-torch and a bowl of water.

Get thee to a car boot sale and buy old planes form the 60s and before. Flat as a flat thing and super hard blades.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 09 March, 2017, 07:04:53 pm
If you bank with RBS* it is possible, at the moment, to opt to receive only chip and pin cards instead of contactless cards.


*Likewise National-Westminster
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 10 March, 2017, 06:52:54 am
Lloyds too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 March, 2017, 09:41:45 am
Just how much work can be involved in flattening the sole of a cheap plane.  And just how soft (badly-tempered or just plain un-) the blades can be. Shall have a go at that with the blow-torch and a bowl of water.

Get thee to a car boot sale and buy old planes form the 60s and before. Flat as a flat thing and super hard blades.

Such is my intent, although car boot sales are unknown animals in France. We do have fleamarkets, though. Annoyingly they're almost always on Sundays, the best day of the week for cycling.

I did give my old 1970-ish Stanley N° 4 a going-over, and it's taking better and easier shavings now than it did new. Have also inherited the Inlaw Paw's N° 4 from the same period, and after grinding out the nicks it's cutting beautifully; so I now have a couple of N°4s when I would really like a 4 & a 5 or 5½.

Currently letching at an Axminster 5½...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 10 March, 2017, 12:46:03 pm
Just how much work can be involved in flattening the sole of a cheap plane.  And just how soft (badly-tempered or just plain un-) the blades can be. Shall have a go at that with the blow-torch and a bowl of water.

Get thee to a car boot sale and buy old planes form the 60s and before. Flat as a flat thing and super hard blades.

A Glocester Meteor or Vickers Viscount?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 March, 2017, 03:56:16 pm
Just how much work can be involved in flattening the sole of a cheap plane.  And just how soft (badly-tempered or just plain un-) the blades can be. Shall have a go at that with the blow-torch and a bowl of water.

Get thee to a car boot sale and buy old planes form the 60s and before. Flat as a flat thing and super hard blades.

A Glocester Meteor or Vickers Viscount?

I saw somewhere that the light-sabre handles in the first Star Wars were Gloucester Meteor fuel injectors. How are the mighty fallen and all that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 10 March, 2017, 04:01:41 pm
*Gloster
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 11 March, 2017, 07:40:41 pm
That the 15th of March is Hungary's (sort of) national day marking the revolution of 1848/9 and its, short lived, independance from the Habsburg Empire.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 March, 2017, 08:57:32 am
*Gloster

Right enough.  Goes against the grain, though.

ETA originally Gloucestershire Aircraft Company, renamed because furriners couldn't pronounce it (Wiki dixit).

I wonder when that bunch Fotheringay are going to realize they're really fungi.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 12 March, 2017, 01:18:52 pm
Hucclecote Aircraft company ;)

My first full time job was in one of the old GAC hangers in Hucclecote.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 12 March, 2017, 08:55:04 pm
Why A4 is 21 x 29.7 cm.

It all starts with a 1m2 sheet that can be folded and retain the same proportions, which means you solve for

2-2 x L x H = 1m2, which has one answer, H = 0.8409 cm, L =1.1892 - That's A0. Fold 4 times and you get A4

(in French, here (http://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/les-pourquoi/les-pourquoi-pourquoi-le-papier-a4-mesure-t-il-21-x-29-7-cm_2072685.html))
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 March, 2017, 09:07:51 pm
^ This is why leftpondian "PC LOAD LETTER" paper sizes are silly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ian H on 12 March, 2017, 10:12:30 pm
^ This is why leftpondian "PC LOAD LETTER" paper sizes are silly.

Are you saying they should wear the fools cap?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 12 March, 2017, 10:16:43 pm
They could turn over a new leaf?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 12 March, 2017, 11:51:37 pm
Somebody Page the doorman, ask hi to bring various coats!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 13 March, 2017, 12:10:48 am
Just how much work can be involved in flattening the sole of a cheap plane.  And just how soft (badly-tempered or just plain un-) the blades can be. Shall have a go at that with the blow-torch and a bowl of water.

Get thee to a car boot sale and buy old planes form the 60s and before. Flat as a flat thing and super hard blades.

A Glocester Meteor or Vickers Viscount?
Vickers VC10? English Electric Lightning? SAAB Draken?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 March, 2017, 08:12:32 am
^ This is why leftpondian "PC LOAD LETTER" paper sizes are silly.

Aye well, they still use "gotten" a century or so after we planed it down a bit.

My father was an old-school draughtsman - to him, "new technology" meant a pencil with a collet and replaceable leads - and he spoke of using double elephant (http://www.papersizes.org/old-english-uncut.htm) back before WW2.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 13 March, 2017, 12:22:20 pm
Teachers in Japanese state schools can be transferred from school to school, town to country, etc. by the education authority. Some education authorities state in their policies that they take account of the family circumstances of teachers when making decisions on transfers, but others are ominously silent.

Among the stated objectives of compulsory transfers are ensuring that all schools have a good 'faculty structure' (e.g. age & sex mix, experience, qualifications) & all the suitably qualified teachers they need, & giving teachers a wide range of experience. Spending a teaching career at one school looks unlikely. Some policies explicitly say that teachers are forced to transfer if they've been in one place too long.

[I'm proofreading the English translation of an education ministry document]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 14 March, 2017, 10:10:28 am
There exist such things as 'Time Crystals' and these are perpetual motion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal)

Hand me my sonic screwdriver
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 March, 2017, 11:03:00 am
That the South-West England region in the European Parliament includes Gibraltar.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 14 March, 2017, 11:12:51 am
You can not see the moon detritus Moon lander base, moon rover flat etc) from earth with mirror telescope.  You would need a mirror 50 times the size of the mirror used on the hubble
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 14 March, 2017, 09:06:57 pm
That Project HARP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP) was an experiment using a big gun to launch projectiles into space. Their record stood at a 110 mile straight up shot of a 400lb projectile :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ashaman42 on 14 March, 2017, 09:36:55 pm
You think that's mental just look up Project Orion next.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 17 March, 2017, 10:55:54 am
In France you can tell how old a donkey is from its name. There names start with a letter based on the year in which they were born like UK car registrations. So one year all the names start with A the next B etc. Must get difficult when its  Z or U year.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 March, 2017, 11:24:32 am
That goes for all pedigree animals, I believe - certainly for dogs.  Our two have names beginning with E, for 2009: Erasmus and Ezra, although Erasmus only answers to Raz.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 17 March, 2017, 11:35:40 am
And race horses.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 17 March, 2017, 11:36:31 am
And (also in France) it used to be that a child's first name had to be that of a saint.
Title: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 17 March, 2017, 11:47:18 am
I knew about the saints names in France but despite my catholic upbringing I never knew there was a Saint Kevin until I worked in a French secondary school in the early 90s, a time when Kevin was a bizarrely popular boys name in France - apparently after Costner rather than the saint though.

Didn't know about the animal names thing until today though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 17 March, 2017, 12:07:09 pm
And (also in France) it used to be that a child's first name had to be that of a saint.
That used to be the case with Polish names as well.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 March, 2017, 08:30:25 pm
And (also in France) it used to be that a child's first name had to be that of a saint.
That used to be the case with Polish names as well.
Nie sądzę... It still is common for parents to name children after the saint's day they happen to be born on, or one that's close in the calendar, but you don't have to. There is a law that names must fit the child's gender, not be liable to ridicule and be spelled according to Polish orthography (so Kevin is out, at least in theory).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 March, 2017, 12:28:19 am
That robot jockeys are a thing, and it's just as well:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_jockey
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 March, 2017, 09:58:39 am
That robot jockeys are a thing, and it's just as well:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_jockey

Wiki: "The robots are remote controlled by operators being driven alongside the race track in SUVs."

Probably more fun to watch than the camels.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 21 March, 2017, 07:57:54 am
...that sleeping on an air mattress can be sub-optimal when there are are cats in the house.

And

Gaffer tape can be deployed as an emergency patch - provided you remove the flock surface.

Don't ask . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 21 March, 2017, 11:09:42 pm
...that Fred, the last ship's cat in the Royal Navy, once received a disciplinary notice for "disgraceful behaviour" at a fish market.

Source: https://twitter.com/mgdever/status/844159251853574148
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 22 March, 2017, 11:27:14 am
That Project HARP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP) was an experiment using a big gun to launch projectiles into space. Their record stood at a 110 mile straight up shot of a 400lb projectile :o
That's where Gerald Bull worked, until the money went away. When it was dropped, he went into designing shells & guns for sale (to Israel, South Africa, China, Iraq - he wasn't fussy, as long as they paid), to finance his work on guns for launching things into space, & ended up designing the Iraqi super-guns, which is probably why he was murdered. His shell designs are used by all major armies & navies nowadays.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 March, 2017, 09:08:23 am
That Thanksgiving Day is illegal. Well, not exactly. In 1859 the aldermen of Washington, DC voted 7 to 5 to ban it on the grounds that it promoted 'drunkenness and disorder' and, worse, had been established by 'New England people.' Damn Yankees!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 24 March, 2017, 08:32:51 pm
The RAF had a specialist ECM unit , No. 100 (Bomber Support) Group, as early as November 1943 and, amongst other aircraft, they flew B-17s, Flying Fortresses.   It's not clear, but I think they were designated Fortress III in RAF use.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 24 March, 2017, 10:17:00 pm
The RAF had a specialist ECM unit
Who'd have thought that the RAF would be into Scandinavian jazz?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 March, 2017, 08:58:05 am
That there's a simple version of Wikipedia for ignorami such as i who want a vague idea of what Higgs energy might be without delving into the grimier underdrawers of the Standard Model.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 27 March, 2017, 12:42:25 am
...that if your seatpost slips when you're on a ride, don't just carry on and complete it unless you have shares in Germolene. My things may spontaneously combust later!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 27 March, 2017, 09:15:45 pm
That the Welsh name for Japanese knotweed translates into English as Devil's vegetables.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 30 March, 2017, 05:18:51 pm
That Sheryl Crow's song  "My Favourite Mistake" is about a relationship she had with Eric Clapton.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 31 March, 2017, 11:07:16 am
From the Chronicles of County Wexford:

On the Cromwellian Distribution of 1654, Clogh East [Castle] fell to
Captain Richard Waddy, who very prudently married the
heiress of Clogh East, and with her received all the deeds.


What can you expect of a family whose members include blokes with names like Baruck and Cadwallader?

Richard's family tree feeds into our distaff side in the 19th century.

He was from Yorkshire. Just sayin'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 31 March, 2017, 06:17:26 pm
That a parish lengthsman is a thing, and it doesn't involve being guardian of the sacred tape measure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 31 March, 2017, 08:30:39 pm
That my colleague who dropped us in the SH!t two years ago and almost did the same last year hasn't turned it around - Here I am again, waiting for him to do stuff for clients for an absolutely mandatory 31st March deadline that involves all sorts of horrible fines and EU sanctions.  Yet again he's completely failed to prioritise stuff to spot problems early.  I certainly won't be "taking one for the team" if it goes pear shaped.

I know  - the Rant thread is >>>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 April, 2017, 01:24:54 pm
That EU passports are pink.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 02 April, 2017, 03:25:49 pm
That EU passports are pink.

Yeah - I saw that quote somewhere as well.

I always thought the passport was brown although apparently it's called burgundy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 April, 2017, 07:24:25 pm
To me it looks on the red side of the blood/poo ambiguity line, which sounds about right for burgundy.  Certainly not pink.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 03 April, 2017, 10:27:37 am
Idly looking at passport colours I see there is a colour called Cordovan described as "a rich shade of burgundy and a dark shade of rose.".   ???

Also it seems EU passports don't have to be Burgundy anyway, the Croatians have blue ones.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 April, 2017, 11:25:17 am
Also it seems EU passports don't have to be Burgundy anyway, the Croatians have blue ones.

Wait... WHAT??!?  Then the whole Brexit omnishambles was FOR NOTHING!!1!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 April, 2017, 11:29:01 am
CROATIAN CYANOSIS EPIDEMIC ! !
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 03 April, 2017, 02:43:44 pm
Also it seems EU passports don't have to be Burgundy anyway, the Croatians have blue ones.

Wait... WHAT??!?  Then the whole Brexit omnishambles was FOR NOTHING!!1!

Yup all for nothing

I'm waiting for the first numbskull to rejoice over not having to have the EU flag on their number plate.

That's not compulsory either ;D

Think I'll order a nice burgundy cover if they change the colour for my next passport
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 03 April, 2017, 03:45:13 pm
Surely a proper Brit-port is the most royal blue imaginable. A pigment enriched by millennia of lordly tradition. And the size and weight of a paving slab. Like they used to be when we owned the world and everyone had their own gunboat.

You still get the idiots (guaranteed to be over 60 and clutching a copy of the Daily Mail) who encase their current passport in a giant blue cover and then have to faff around to extract it in the immigration queue.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 April, 2017, 05:01:26 pm
The blue I remember was virtually black.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 April, 2017, 05:03:39 pm
Something I learned through experience yesterday, or proved in practice as it's fairly obvious really; but I'm mentioning it because it was fun.  ;D Riding over the cattle grid at the north end of Sodbury Common at ~22mph is not only smoother than normal speeds, but makes my shiny brass Lion Bellworks bell ring itself in a very pleasing manner. (Presumably any cattle grid would do, but I'm highly unlikely to ever reach such speeds over any other cattle grid.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 03 April, 2017, 05:43:06 pm
Surely a proper Brit-port is the most royal blue imaginable. A pigment enriched by millennia of lordly tradition. And the size and weight of a paving slab. Like they used to be when we owned the world and everyone had their own gunboat.
First issued in 1920, so not quite millennia
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 04 April, 2017, 01:34:10 pm
That one week of my summer holibob wil be spent landscaping an enclosure for a Spotted Genet (http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_small-spotted_genet.html) and keeping him entertained :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 05 April, 2017, 03:39:07 pm
Is he called Jean?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 05 April, 2017, 04:53:26 pm
From the Guardian TV pullout

When the Queen visited the Game of Thrones studios in Belfast she had to decline the offer to sit on the Iron Throne as she's not allowed to sit on the throne of any foreign kingdom.

Even one that doesn't exist and has dragons.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 05 April, 2017, 05:09:16 pm
That one week of my summer holibob wil be spent landscaping an enclosure for a Spotted Genet (http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_small-spotted_genet.html) and keeping him entertained :thumbsup:
Surely that link should be in NSFW...

(you can see its genet tail 'ere)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 06 April, 2017, 08:55:46 am
That one week of my summer holibob wil be spent landscaping an enclosure for a Spotted Genet (http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_small-spotted_genet.html) and keeping him entertained :thumbsup:
Surely that link should be in NSFW...

(you can see its genet tail 'ere)

Here you go Legs, this kagoul is yours isn't it?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 06 April, 2017, 09:02:59 am
(https://regmedia.co.uk/2008/07/31/comment_corner_door.gif)

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: meddyg on 06 April, 2017, 10:31:17 pm

Quote
Wait... WHAT??!?  Then the whole Brexit omnishambles was FOR NOTHING!!1!
Quote
Also it seems EU passports don't have to be Burgundy anyway, the Croatians have blue ones

You mean , I could just have taken Croatian nationality ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 10 April, 2017, 01:48:47 pm
That James Rand, magician and most excellent sceptic and debunker of Uri Geller and US TV faith healers is gay.

Apropos nothing other than it was a shame it took him so long to find happiness in his personal life. It was just a small part of a documentary on his life the other night. He's getting very frail now:(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 April, 2017, 02:59:32 pm
That there is such a thing as ytong, what is another name for aerated concrete blocks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 10 April, 2017, 04:32:45 pm
That James Randi, magician and most excellent sceptic and debunker of Uri Geller and US TV faith healers is gay.

Apropos nothing other than it was a shame it took him so long to find happiness in his personal life. It was just a small part of a documentary on his life the other night. He's getting very frail now:(
Was it this excellent Storyville? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04ndsb3)

Have to say, he'd definitely be one of my Fantasy Dinner Party guests...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 10 April, 2017, 04:37:08 pm
That James Randi, magician and most excellent sceptic and debunker of Uri Geller and US TV faith healers is gay.

Apropos nothing other than it was a shame it took him so long to find happiness in his personal life. It was just a small part of a documentary on his life the other night. He's getting very frail now:(
Was it this excellent Storyville? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04ndsb3)

Have to say, he'd definitely be one of my Fantasy Dinner Party guests...

Indeed it was.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 10 April, 2017, 08:21:07 pm
That there is such a thing as ytong...
...iddle I po,
Iddle I po!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 11 April, 2017, 08:15:57 pm
that's Yingtong
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 11 April, 2017, 08:26:11 pm
that's Yingtong
Thank $deity$ someone got the "joke". :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 11 April, 2017, 08:30:54 pm
More than you imagine thinks lol.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 17 April, 2017, 02:37:46 am
That the sainted Terry Pratchett authored the book 'Where's My Cow?', which Vimes reads to Young Sam in 'Thud'.

Now I want a copy...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rr on 17 April, 2017, 04:06:34 pm
The old stiff British passports with sharp corners were a right pain in a money belt, for this reason, as well as others, i rejoiced when i got my first bendy, round cornered EUROPEAN passport.

Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 17 April, 2017, 04:22:59 pm
That the sainted Terry Pratchett authored the book 'Where's My Cow?', which Vimes reads to Young Sam in 'Thud'.

Now I want a copy...

That was TLD's introduction to the ouvre.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 24 April, 2017, 03:41:36 pm
I have a copy as it was put on sale for Amazon pre-release along with Thud and - as ever with a TP - I bought it. When it arrived I had a bit ovva surprise.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 24 April, 2017, 11:33:47 pm
I now HAZ a copy!

Well, I did for all of two minutes before the youngest nicked it, read it from cover to cover giggling like a loon. Something he does all too well for a 10 yr old . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 24 April, 2017, 11:49:32 pm
That the sainted Terry Pratchett authored the book 'Where's My Cow?', which Vimes reads to Young Sam in 'Thud'.

Now I want a copy...

That's not my cow. That's a Foul ole Ron and it say's "Bug'rem, bug'rem, bug'rit"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 April, 2017, 02:09:10 am
I now HAZ a copy!

Well, I did for all of two minutes before the youngest nicked it, read it from cover to cover giggling like a loon. Something he does all too well for a 10 yr old . . .

Next up: "The World Of Poo", another favourite of vimes 2.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 25 April, 2017, 11:35:14 am
Millenium Hand and Shrimp - would be a great name for a hipster bar
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 25 April, 2017, 11:47:42 am
Just been searching online for pictures of the old CTC Winged Wheel plaque and found a website that lists locations of ones that are still in existence:
http://www.wingedwheels.info/

And so it is that I have also discovered that there is one in Charing, just down the road from me. I pass through Charing on my bike often, but I have never noticed it before. Just looked it up on Google Street View, and what do you know, there it is...
https://goo.gl/maps/x81MyvwqJN42

ETA:
And another not much further away in Bethersden: https://goo.gl/maps/cTGWNSfk7gy
And one in Lenham: https://goo.gl/maps/wmWNuhp2ZLR2

This is starting to look like the basis for a route...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 25 April, 2017, 12:39:17 pm
Thanks for the reminder.  I've just sent him the street view link to the "Headquarters" Winged Wheel on the Porth Hotel in Llandysul.
 
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.0427034,-4.3072917,3a,36.5y,162.15h,104.91t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s5pjnQD1A6J1AA2vNWcJGlw!2e0

He doesn't have it listed and I've been meaning to do it for about a year now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 25 April, 2017, 12:57:33 pm
That's a nice one!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 25 April, 2017, 01:18:47 pm
Actually Citers, were you aware that a Winged Wheel thread exists?
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=23251.0
 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 25 April, 2017, 01:24:12 pm
Well, that's another thing I've learned today. Cheers!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 25 April, 2017, 04:12:46 pm
That the sainted Terry Pratchett authored the book 'Where's My Cow?', which Vimes reads to Young Sam in 'Thud'.

Now I want a copy...
The first words of one of my cousins were "Where have my cows gone?"

This was prompted by the cows which were usually in the field next door having been replaced by a lot of camping Girl Guides (what they were called at the time).

Until then he'd made unintelligible to anyone else noises to his slightly older sister & she'd spoken for him.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Chris N on 25 April, 2017, 04:52:41 pm
That the sainted Terry Pratchett authored the book 'Where's My Cow?', which Vimes reads to Young Sam in 'Thud'.

Now I want a copy...

I never knew that existed.  My eldest will be getting a copy for his fourth birthday. :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 25 April, 2017, 06:59:40 pm
You're welcome . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 25 April, 2017, 09:59:09 pm
Alessandro Volta & I have the same birthday.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 April, 2017, 09:09:40 am
The dying words of Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, struck by a cannonball at the battle of Sasbach in 1675, were "I did not mean to die today".

IMHO it was a very considerate cannonball that left him the time to say anything.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 April, 2017, 09:39:01 am
At least he was spared the fate of Viscount Medardo of Terralba, split into two separate Viscounts by a Turkish cannonball somewhere in Bohemia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 26 April, 2017, 10:17:12 am
that Judge Jules is Rick Stein's nephew.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 April, 2017, 10:22:39 am
I reckon Tom Morello of RATM/Audioslave has that beaten - his great-uncle was Jomo Kenyatta.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 April, 2017, 11:20:45 am
At least he was spared the fate of Viscount Medardo of Terralba, split into two separate Viscounts by a Turkish cannonball somewhere in Bohemia.

Ruthless buggers these Calvinists.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 01 May, 2017, 09:51:10 pm
That it's not a good idea to take a new bike you don't yet fully trust down a 1:4. I was more than a little scared heading off of Honister pass today and eventually gave up and walked a bit :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 May, 2017, 03:56:27 pm
You can buy tin pants. Only they're not.

https://youtu.be/Kr4SwxniDVE
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 10 May, 2017, 08:00:31 pm
That the bods who run West Wings (AKA Pro Scale) will be retiring in July and that if they can't find a buyer for the business that'll be one less supplier of aero-modelling stuff. :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 May, 2017, 09:42:42 am
You can buy tin pants. Only they're not.

https://youtu.be/Kr4SwxniDVE

Matches the metal bras of which Shakespeare wrote centuries before Madonna had the idea.  "Now sir, young Four Tin Bras.  Of unimproved mettle hot and full."

(http://legslarry.org.uk/BikeStull/coat_48.png)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 11 May, 2017, 10:24:57 am
That Freud based his 'castration complex theory' on the reports by the father of a child. The father was in therapy and a devotee of Freud's theories, so all reports to Freud were tainted by what he thought Freud wanted to hear.

This I learned by reading this wonderful essay:
http://celestenewbrough.net/assets/kindekirchekuche_weis28723.pdf (http://celestenewbrough.net/assets/kindekirchekuche_weis28723.pdf)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 11 May, 2017, 11:50:52 am
I have learned that the Leftpondian city of Cleveland, in the state of Ohio, has a suburb called Shaker Heights, so named because there was formerly a Shaker community in the area, & that Shaker heights was developed as a planned community* by a rather odd pair of brothers named Mantis & Oris Van Sweringen, who had unsuccessfully run a cycle shop before becoming property developers.

A lot of things suddenly make sense. http://yehudamoon.com/comic/2016-10-25/ (http://yehudamoon.com/comic/2016-10-25/)



*Of the well-off. Restrictive covenants to control development.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 May, 2017, 01:17:29 pm
You can buy tin pants. Only they're not.

https://youtu.be/Kr4SwxniDVE

Matches the metal bras of which Shakespeare wrote centuries before Madonna had the idea.  "Now sir, young Four Tin Bras.  Of unimproved mettle hot and full."

(http://legslarry.org.uk/BikeStull/coat_48.png)

She walks in pewter, like the knight
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 11 May, 2017, 06:31:32 pm
I have learned that the Leftpondian city of Cleveland, in the state of Ohio, has a suburb called Shaker Heights, so named because there was formerly a Shaker community in the area, & that Shaker heights was developed as a planned community* by a rather odd pair of brothers named Mantis & Oris Van Sweringen, who had unsuccessfully run a cycle shop before becoming property developers.

A lot of things suddenly make sense. http://yehudamoon.com/comic/2016-10-25/ (http://yehudamoon.com/comic/2016-10-25/)



*Of the well-off. Restrictive covenants to control development.

The also spelled Cleveland wrong (it's named after Moses Cleaveland not Grover). The story (probably disappointingly apocryphal) is that they dropped the 'a' because it wouldn't fit on the newspaper masthead without scrunching up the letters.

A lot of Ohio (the Western Reserve) was founded by Connecticutians (the Connecticut Land Company) and looks curiously New Englandish to this day. Connecticut's original charter let it run all the way to the Pacific which would have made it made it the fettucine state, owing to its long extruded nature. Alas it was cruelly snipped by circumstance.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2017, 06:53:59 pm
That the fairy has it in for me.
Front wheel blowout at about 40mph. More to come when I've been rescued.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 May, 2017, 07:06:25 pm
Shit! Hope you're ok. And the bike?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ashaman42 on 11 May, 2017, 07:21:06 pm
Ditto, hope neither you nor the bike are mangalated.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2017, 08:37:25 pm
From what I've seen it's going to need a new front mech, rim, tyre, dynamo wiring and some work on the seat.  Chainset may be damaged, dunno.  Pedals were already tatty.

Road rash and bruises.  Right elbow, bizarrely symmetrical arse.  Sitting down may be challenging for the foreseeable.  No broken bones.  Neither my arse nor my elbow were wearing a helmet.  Barakta has just taped our one remaining unscented sanitary towel to my arm.

Also managed to scrape the front wing of an oncoming Audi as I ablated myself to a stop.  Hopefully the CTC can handle that..?  We exchanged details.  Dunno what's next.

Nikki OTP is a star, who not only recovered my bike, but let me bleed all over her car.

Wibble.


I'm really fucking lucky it  a) wasn't a DF road bike  and  b) the oncoming car wasn't any closer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 11 May, 2017, 08:40:18 pm
Ooowwwweeeeeee. Bloody hell. Sounds like that could have been a lot worse. Chapeau to Nikki. And GBS.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 11 May, 2017, 08:40:53 pm
"What's next ?"  Painkillers I presume.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 11 May, 2017, 08:44:12 pm
Yikes! Very glad that you are relatively OK Kim.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2017, 08:44:40 pm
While working out what to do, I repaired the puncture, thinking I'd have to walk.  The tyre has sidewall damage from being scraped across the road, but the only apparent cause of deflation was a couple of bog standard flint-type nicks in the tread.  It held air.  I walked back up the road to keep warm, and there wasn't a pothole or anything.  Must just have caught a bit of gravel (I felt a bump, then about 1-2 seconds later the steering went vague, then I was sliding towards an oncoming car).  Scary.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pickled Onion on 11 May, 2017, 08:50:33 pm
Yikes, that sounds like quite a scary one. GWS!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 11 May, 2017, 08:51:24 pm
If it is any consolation, it is pretty rare to ride a front rapid deflation to a stop from a high speed.

Commiserations for the road rash and other damage. It might take a little while for you to properly enjoy a fast downhill again. Don't beat yourself up about that either.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 11 May, 2017, 08:57:38 pm
Heal well Kim, sounds a bit sore!

Nil points to the Audi driver who should have noted what a state you were in and taken it on the chin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2017, 09:27:08 pm
Heal well Kim, sounds a bit sore!

Less than anticipated.  Unless I move.  Or change temperature.

I've now forced myself to eat some food (having decided there was nothing hospital-worthy), which might make me feel a bit less wobbly, maybe.  Dunno.  Might have another cry.  Or throw up.


Quote
Nil points to the Audi driver who should have noted what a state you were in and taken it on the chin.

No, he was fine.  The fairy got me while I was descending at speed, and it ended with a scrape to his car.  Only right that my insurance should pay for it.  He did all the right things in the immediate aftermath, and was generally a fine example of the species.

Kudos also to random roadie #1 who was behind me when it happened.  And to random roadie #2 who stopped for a "I'm worried you're going to go into shock" chat about bikes while I waited for nikki to arrive.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2017, 09:44:15 pm
If it is any consolation, it is pretty rare to ride a front rapid deflation to a stop from a high speed.

The more I think about it the more bemused I am by the general lack of injury/damage.  Other than a substantial chunk of front rim that got worn away, and a less substantial amount of seat, shorts and skin, I'm not really sure where all the energy went.  There were scrape marks in the road...

(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/gore/2017_05_11_18_06_30.sized.jpg)

The little puddle is where my water bottle leaked at the end.

Here's the graph for the lols:
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/gore/baron_crash_analysis.png)
https://www.strava.com/activities/981894941


Quote
It might take a little while for you to properly enjoy a fast downhill again. Don't beat yourself up about that either.

Indeed.  If nothing else, I can see myself spending a lot of money on just-in-case tyre replacements in future.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 11 May, 2017, 09:47:50 pm
Bollocks. That sounds like Type 2 fun. Or even type 3.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2017, 09:53:57 pm
Bollocks. That sounds like Type 2 fun. Or even type 3.

Definitely hit type 3 fun for about 2.5 seconds.

Obgore: https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=19419.msg2166621#msg2166621
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 11 May, 2017, 10:12:18 pm
Ouch - heal well! Impressively low HR around the incident, mind.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2017, 10:15:29 pm
Ouch - heal well! Impressively low HR around the incident, mind.

I wouldn't say 182 was impressively low.  Indeed, it's a rare day I see 190.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 11 May, 2017, 10:40:45 pm
Ah - I misread the legend as 152 max. GWS!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 11 May, 2017, 10:51:39 pm
Another ouch.  Sending healing thoughts & matey hugs.    The Bloody Baron is probably getting revenge for your innapropriate use of him at that windmill.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 11 May, 2017, 10:54:14 pm
Wow!  I actually came across the graphic injuries thread first, and now feel guilty for being somewhat flippant.
I'm relieved you're apparently relatively undeconstructed.
I hope you've washed out the gravel rash.  I know it hurts, but it's important.

Bad luck matey.  Rest well.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2017, 11:01:42 pm
Yes.  Once I was in a much-needed warm shower it reached peak pain, and giving it a good scrub didn't really make things worse.  There's a flap of skin that might benefit from further attention, but I cleaned underneath and will re-assess tomorrow.

Arse seems a lot less deeply abraded, albeit over a large area.  It will bruise spectacularly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feline on 11 May, 2017, 11:28:46 pm
Eeps  :o GWS Kim!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 11 May, 2017, 11:39:03 pm
If it is any consolation, it is pretty rare to ride a front rapid deflation to a stop from a high speed.

I deflated both tyres at 26mph when I struck a brick BANG BANG! They were my first visits in 15 months. Thankfully came to a controlled upright stop. Only had one spare inner tube and not puncture kit cos I was on an 8 mile commute and had rather infrequent visitations...

Mend well and fast Kim!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2017, 11:47:57 pm
Any top tips for rapid healing of babboon style road rash?  It's not particularly deep, but it's quite a large area.

Sweat and bodily functions mean it's not exactly an area that's conducive to the hydrocolloid dressing and come back next week approach.  Having soaked through some clean pants, my pajama bottoms and half a towel, I think it's going to get left open overnight as the least-worst option (fresh bedsheets will doubtless be needed).

I'll seek out a sufficiently large hydrocolloid dressing for the arm in the morning when the chemist is open, that's a bit more practical than sanitary towels, and means I'll be able to wear jumpers without sticking to them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 12 May, 2017, 12:13:15 am
Cripes, Kim, that sounds a bit rough. GWS.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jaded on 12 May, 2017, 12:52:44 am
Tegaderm. Clean up, let it dry, apply Tegaderm, leave for a week or so.

If you were any nearer you could have some of mine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 12 May, 2017, 07:16:11 am
Eeek! The vision and (imaginary - for me anyhow) memory of that will doubtless serve to further enhance my carp descending skilz, GWS!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 12 May, 2017, 07:55:16 am
That looks painful, and tegaderm sounds like a good idea.

You might have some gnarly scars
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 May, 2017, 08:06:01 am
Just read through the above, wincing all the way. Haven't seen the Gore Gallery yet, I've just had breakfast. GWS.

Last time I braked to a halt with my arse it was monolateral and manageable, looks like you're going to be eating like an ancient Roman for a week or two. Stay off the dormice, though, they're rubbish.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Samuel D on 12 May, 2017, 08:14:59 am
So there was no slash in the old tube that would have caused a rapid deflation? You don’t say if you patched or replaced the tube.

Could your machine have shimmied while coasting at speed on that smooth road (ideal conditions), perhaps in part because a normal puncture reduced the tyre pressure? Lower pressures reduce the onset speed and increase the amplitude of any shimmy.

I think you have disc brakes that rule out tyre blow-off from braking heat, right?

Heal up!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Si S on 12 May, 2017, 08:53:39 am
Bleedin heck Kim. Looks nasty but could of been so much worse.

Only ever had a front wheel blowout once, coming down the Pass of Llanberis, it's not an experience I ever want to repeat. The stuff of nightmares.

GWS
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 May, 2017, 09:07:34 am
69.1 km/h. I don't think I've ever even been that fast on a bike. You seem to have come out of it relatively well, all things considered. That road scrape tells a scary story. Well hey, at least you've got the upwrong to ride when you recover...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 12 May, 2017, 09:20:30 am
That the fairy has it in for me.
Front wheel blowout at about 40mph. More to come when I've been rescued.

Having seen the photo, I can show you what it will look like in 6 months time.  Not pretty, but I'm way past worrying about that!  Mine was much the same but a bit more chewed up and the hole at the elbow was deeper, and I only came off at 20mph but chose a gravelly rural chip and seal surfaced lane when the front blew on my Performer SAKI.  I picked up the otherwise undamaged bike when a car arrived, but it was clear that no way was I going to be able to change the tube and finish the ride (another 50k).

I can still feel the impact as I hit the deck, and the few milliseconds between realising that something wasn't right, and landing on the deck is imprinted on my mind forever.  I now wear MTB elbow pads, but it was about 3 months before the scabs would let me put them on.  I've not been over 33mph since......

I also had to rely on the generosity of others to get me home (and to A&E to check the elbow joint out - you really don't want a joint infection - DAMHIKT).  My casquette kept the blood off the kind lady's car seats.  The wife was away at the time, but I got the full on sympathy failure when she came home.

Like you, I'm glad I was on a recumbent, at 62 after exiting a DF a broken collar bone could have been much worse.

Take it easy, it really shook me up and I'm still a bit wary of that front wheel.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 12 May, 2017, 09:38:52 am
That the bods who run West Wings (AKA Pro Scale) will be retiring in July and that if they can't find a buyer for the business that'll be one less supplier of aero-modelling stuff. :(

That's a shame. My aero modelling is normally of a rather larger scale (particularly twins) but I used to have to live abroad for weeks at a time on engineering projects so built some of these to keep me sane at weekends.   The Spitfire I left for the young son of a Turkish colleague.  Bet it didn't last long!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 May, 2017, 12:19:30 pm
Tegaderm. Clean up, let it dry, apply Tegaderm, leave for a week or so.

That's the plan for the arm.  I'm not too worried about it TBH, I've had similar several times on the other side (mostly from off-roading).

Leaving anything in place for a week isn't conducive to having a poo, thobut, and the arse wound is I think too weepy for hydrocolloid (it certainly won't dry if left to its own devices) so some alternative strategy will be required.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 12 May, 2017, 12:53:33 pm
Can you go to a walk in centre & see what they can do for you ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 May, 2017, 01:10:44 pm
Sure.  A nice long wait in vinyl seats is exactly what I need.   :P

(I could probably get an appointment with a nurse at the GP across the road if necessary)

Barakta has returned from the pharmacy with an assortment of dressings and micropore, and I've had a proper steady-handed poke at the dodgier bit of my arm in search of hidden gravel.  In the absence of infection, I think it's mostly a case of containing the ooze.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 12 May, 2017, 01:18:44 pm
A slightly of the wall suggestion as I've no knowledge of such stuff, but would adult nappies on top of sterile dressings be an idea ? Hold everything in place, contain any ooze & provide some padding .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 12 May, 2017, 01:34:50 pm
Adult nappies or sanitary towels have been suggested. In many ways sanitary towels with their top layer containment of bodily fluids are ideal, they're just not quite big enough.

Kim is allergic to the medical profession thoughbut... I'll drag her that way if it becomes necessary, but will otherwise stick to annoying her with suggestions of such every now and then...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 12 May, 2017, 02:04:37 pm
How about a dressing with a hole in it for the necessary functions, backed up with another dressing slightly larger than the hole to cover it when functions aren't being performed?

Kinda like a long johns bomb hatch......
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 May, 2017, 02:24:59 pm
I don't think there's any way that such an arrangement is conducive to hygiene.  Keep it simple and replaceable is clearly the best approach.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 12 May, 2017, 02:55:36 pm
Yikes!

GWS, Kim.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 12 May, 2017, 03:17:52 pm
Bloody hell, Kim, that's really nasty. But, any impact at that speed could have been one hell of a lot worse. Hugs!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jaded on 12 May, 2017, 03:23:30 pm
How about a dressing with a hole in it for the necessary functions, backed up with another dressing slightly larger than the hole to cover it when functions aren't being performed?

Kinda like a long johns bomb hatch......

With molishing skills you could fashion a length of hosepipe and a bag attached to your knee into a sort of artheter.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 May, 2017, 03:28:34 pm
Sure.  A nice long wait in vinyl seats is exactly what I need.   :P

(I could probably get an appointment with a nurse at the GP across the road if necessary)

Barakta has returned from the pharmacy with an assortment of dressings and micropore, and I've had a proper steady-handed poke at the dodgier bit of my arm in search of hidden gravel.  In the absence of infection, I think it's mostly a case of containing the ooze.

Gravel embedded under the elbow is great fun once the skin has healed over it.  Third parties are better at finding it and medicals with tweezers & scalpels better at extraction.

After one of my spills I needed a bit of pipe insulation on the arm of my office chair for two years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 May, 2017, 05:26:40 pm
Bloody hell, Kim, that's really nasty. But, any impact at that speed could have been one hell of a lot worse. Hugs!

Indeed.  Colliding with a solid object rather than sliding along the road would have ended very badly.  The fall from an upwrong would likely to have resulted in some broken bones or worse.

Although it also occurs to me that I could have been going half the speed and sustained roughly the same amount of damage (although there'd probably be a bit more aluminium left on the bike).  When I came off the Streetmachine on diesel a few years ago (resulting in a similar arm injury and a patch of more manageable road rash on the left thigh/knee), I was probably doing about 15mph.

So I shouldn't really be beating myself up for going too fast.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 12 May, 2017, 05:45:46 pm
Barakta has returned from the pharmacy with an assortment of dressings and micropore, and I've had a proper steady-handed poke at the dodgier bit of my arm in search of hidden gravel.  In the absence of infection, I think it's mostly a case of containing the ooze.
When I presented my elbow at A&E after my off they washed out the hole and then simply dry dressed it, the logic being that they wanted it to heal from the bottom up, pushing out the rest of the road surface (plus horse muck etc. this being Shropshire) along with the ooze.  My local GP practice then changed the dressings with manuka honey gauze every few days.  Seemed to work but took a couple of weeks to dry up.  You really, really don't want a joint infection so keep an eye on it.  I ended up in hospital for 3 weeks on an antibiotic IV after shoulder joint keyhole surgery got infected - despite all the pre and post-op precautions.  Not doing that again.......
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 12 May, 2017, 08:50:44 pm
Ouch! :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 12 May, 2017, 09:09:13 pm
When the road removed all the skin off my forehead (I was literally a bone head) that all grew back despite the ominous chirps of the doctors about skin grafts (I could have gone from bone head to butt head). Well, I'm not sure they take it from your butt, we didn't get that far, so impressed were the medical profession with my recuperative abilities (I credit beer and narcotics). But to be honest, there's no other part of my body that I want on my forehead. It's a rule I have.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Morat on 12 May, 2017, 10:14:02 pm
That's a really bad slice of luck Kim :(
Heal fast and best wishes!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 12 May, 2017, 10:20:09 pm
Late to the party, Kim.
But GWS.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 12 May, 2017, 10:22:39 pm
Yes, heal well and remember that chicks dig scars.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 May, 2017, 10:42:33 pm
Yes, heal well and remember that chicks dig scars.

Over 24 hours!  YACF is slacking.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Samuel D on 12 May, 2017, 10:47:08 pm
Have you had time to think why this accident happened? I ask because I wonder if recumbents like yours shimmy as uprights do but perhaps at a higher speed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 May, 2017, 11:06:42 pm
Have you had time to think why this accident happened? I ask because I wonder if recumbents like yours shimmy as uprights do but perhaps at a higher speed.

As I said before, it happened because I hit something which caused the front tyre to rapidly lose air (I'll look at the damage more carefully when I'm a bit more flexible, but it wasn't the massive gash in the sidewall I expected).  I've not had a shimmy on the Baron at any speed so far.  It's a racing bike and low speed stability isn't its forte (understatement), but the handling at speed is much better than my other bikes[1].

On the other hand, the SMGT (sans luggage) has a pronounced shimmy when the handlebars are unloaded at about 10mph.  That doesn't happen in normal riding, as you need one hand on the bars to maintain control, so the weight of your forearm acts as damper.


[1] The SMGT is built for predictable handling under heavy loads and while the wide tyres and suspension mean you can descend like a brick, it doesn't like going round corners.  Uprights at any real speed are terrifying, as the braking is crap and I feel like I'm going to land on my face.  The less said about tricycles the better.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Samuel D on 13 May, 2017, 12:07:49 am
I see. The mark on the road weaved, though. I suppose that could have happened for a number of reasons.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 May, 2017, 12:16:58 am
I see. The mark on the road weaved, though. I suppose that could have happened for a number of reasons.

Ah!

(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/gore/2017_05_11_18_06_30.sized.jpg)

Because by that point the bike was sliding on its side - rear wheel first - with me clinging on trying to keep as little skin in contact with the ground as possible and hoping to surf it out of the path of the oncoming car.  I'm not sure if the mark is composed of tyre, seat (which lost a decent chunk of steel-reinforced rubber edging that I can imagine would leave a tyre-like skidmark), rim or bottlecage.  The whateveritis I hit was on the left edge of the mid-lane rough patch[1] (I'd started moving out a bit to be ready for the gentle left hand bend behind the camera, which often has debris at the side of the road), and I crossed that as I lost control of the steering.  I guess I was roughly in the right hand wheel track when the bike went down, and the slide took me to the wrong side of the road.  It certainly wasn't operating as a bicycle when it crossed the centre line.


[1] This is less-worn surface dressing, rather than loose gravel.  I wouldn't be doing 40mph near it if it was!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: guidon on 13 May, 2017, 08:34:05 pm
Gws! an excellent point made with the comparison of an upwrong - had an off at similar speeds resulting in smashed collarbone (again) and fractured shoulder blade... yes, have been thinking darkside since...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 13 May, 2017, 09:20:08 pm
Ouch, Ouch, Ouch.

GWS Kim.

My first off from a 'bent was on my introductory day at DTEK, on a Bachetta Corsa.  Diesel or slippery white line, slid along on my shoulder, hip, ankle and helmet.  Road wore through two pairs of socks over my ankle bone, through to the bone.  Nice scar now, hip and shoulder bruises were spectacular for a while.  Surprisingly my merino top came out of it unscathed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 May, 2017, 09:39:21 pm
In various less dramatic recumbent offs I've done hip, ankle, several minor counts of elbow and the legendary shark bite on the shin.  None were as painfully inconvenient as baboon arse.  I read an entire book this morning (for large values of morning) to delay getting out of bed.

But beyond that and the arm, there's a spectacular lack of other injuries.  In the last 24 hours I've developed some minor stiffness in my right hip and lower leg.  There's a tiny, painless unexplained bruise on my right foot that could be unrelated.  And that's it.  My hands are fine, and I don't even have my gloves to thank for it.  (I've previously observed that my instinct in falling from a 'bent is to pull my hands in to protect my fingers, rather than stick them out to break my fall, which is also good news for wrists and collarbones.)

Counting myself extremely lucky...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 13 May, 2017, 09:41:55 pm
I have a tendency, probably from earlier rugby days to tuck the shoulder under.  Tends to move the impact rearwards and away from collarbone so far, also tucks fingers in I guess
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cycleman on 13 May, 2017, 11:06:41 pm
i am wishing you a speedy recovery kim , gws
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Joe.B on 14 May, 2017, 07:50:13 pm
Yips, that sounds nasty, glad you're mostly OK Kim.

The crazy thing  is that I've just had a very much similar event on the second to last day of a west coast and islands tour.  I was on the bent too, for me it was a large pot hole hit at 33mph while riding from Kilchoan to Corran. Luckily I only suffered a rapid deflation of the front, had I had the same sort of instantaneous deflation as you experienced I suspect we'd have been compering injuries and bent bents.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 May, 2017, 08:03:21 pm
Yeah.  If it had taken another 5 seconds I'd likely have scrubbed most of the speed off and come to a graceless but Mostly Harmless stop.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 15 May, 2017, 11:04:17 am
How are the injuries today?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 15 May, 2017, 11:21:07 am
And which recumbent was it? Baron or SM?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 May, 2017, 12:11:54 pm
You can retire from being a professional computer guy but no-one will let you retire from being a free consultant. :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 16 May, 2017, 12:34:51 pm
Because by that point the bike was sliding on its side - rear wheel first - with me clinging on trying to keep as little skin in contact with the ground as possible and hoping to surf it out of the path of the oncoming car. 

Gnarly.

GWS.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 May, 2017, 03:24:35 pm
Injuries are healing nicely, which is to say the itching to pain ratio is steadily increasing.  I've given up on proper dressings for the arse and switched to modified sanitary towels, which are cheaper, bigger and far better equipped to handle the volume of ooze.  The arm is much drier and is quietly[1] getting on with it.

I've ordered an assortment of bits from the Bandits of Bridgewater with which to repair the Baron, to appear when stock permits.

Micropore tape and insurance paperwork.  Living the dream.


[1] Except the other night when barakta rolled onto it in bed.  Apparently she could hear the scream.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 May, 2017, 04:12:16 pm
I didn't know the Sadist Jokers of Somerset had started selling replacement body parts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 16 May, 2017, 09:38:21 pm
It sounds more like you need an Igor/Igorina . . .  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 20 May, 2017, 07:53:05 pm
My arm's in a state where operating a bicycle pump without pain is a possibility.  I can now report that the cause of the offending deflation was a snakebite puncture (so with hindsight, I'm surprised it stayed upright for as long as it did).  There's a corresponding inconsequential looking nick in the tread of the tyre.  In the absence of potholes, and given the rear tyre was unaffected, I conclude that I must have hit a stone.

For reference it was a 28mm Durano freshly pumped to 80PSI.  Much higher and the front end of the bike rattles like a bastard.  Maybe tubeless is the way to go...

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 21 May, 2017, 10:06:19 am
GWS Kim.

In the meantime I've learned that a middle english term for an orchid is bollockwort.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 May, 2017, 07:42:50 pm
My arm's in a state where operating a bicycle pump without pain is a possibility.  I can now report that the cause of the offending deflation was a snakebite puncture (so with hindsight, I'm surprised it stayed upright for as long as it did).  There's a corresponding inconsequential looking nick in the tread of the tyre.  In the absence of potholes, and given the rear tyre was unaffected, I conclude that I must have hit a stone.

While rebuilding the wheel with a new rim, I discovered a corresponding dent, as well as the abrasion damage from sliding along the road:

(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/red_baron/2017_05_21_18_38_00.sized.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 21 May, 2017, 10:00:23 pm
I just googled the current cabinet, and the shadow cabinet, and it struck me how very white they both are. Sigh.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 21 May, 2017, 10:19:09 pm
Blimey Kim.   Just seen this.   What have you been doing?

Heal well.   Did you get piccies of the damage to the fossilsaur?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 May, 2017, 10:23:47 pm
Blimey Kim.   Just seen this.   What have you been doing?

The crucial mistake seems to have been riding my bike down a hill with a few[1] loose stones on it at more than brisk walking speed.

Since then I've mostly been using up micropore tape and feeling sorry for myself.


Quote
Did you get piccies of the damage to the fossilsaur?

Yes, but it's even less exciting that the dented rim.

I've filled in some paperwork, so hopefully Slater & Gordon should be taking care of that...


[1] If there had been swathes of gravel, I'd naturally have taken it a lot more cautiously.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 21 May, 2017, 10:32:38 pm
I just googled the current cabinet, and the shadow cabinet, and it struck me how very white they both are. Sigh.

That's true, but compared to the population of the UK it's not surprising. The population of the UK is ethnically a little over 87% 'White/White British' according to Wikipedia - link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_United_Kingdom), and the shadow cabinet is made up of 25 members, with the cabinet having 2723*. If you assume that cabinets are representative of the ethnicity of the population, that would mean that there should be  just over 3 members of the shadow cabinet, and almost exactly 3 members of the cabinet who are of another ethnicity.

I'm not sure I enjoyed doing this, and I wouldn't recommend grouping politicians by their ethnicity/gender/age etc., but I think the Labour Shadow Cabinet has 3 members who are of another ethnicity looking at photos, whereas the Conservative Government has one member. Interestingly they are all women.

So yes they are predominately white, but compared to the population, the Shadow Cabinet is around about where you would expect it to be, whereas other ethnicities are under-represented by 2 posts (or by 67%) compared to the national population.

*I counted more rows than there were - other stats edited accordingly. :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 21 May, 2017, 10:41:30 pm
Thank you 😊
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 May, 2017, 10:45:15 pm
It's the gender balance that's (completely non) shocking.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 21 May, 2017, 10:47:57 pm
I just googled the current cabinet, and the shadow cabinet, and it struck me how very white they both are. Sigh.

You would be surprised how white large areas of the UK are. I think you get a distorted opinion of the percentage of non white people there are in the UK from the papers and TV. One of the thing that feeds the being overrun by immigration" story that some like to spout. Try an entire secondary school or primary school with 600+ pupils each non of whom are asian or black, that's the reality around here.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 21 May, 2017, 10:48:39 pm
It's the gender balance that's (completely non) shocking.

Absolutely.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 21 May, 2017, 10:54:37 pm
It's the gender balance that's (completely non) shocking.
It's the gender balance that's (completely non) shocking.

M:F ratio is 13:12 in the Shadow Cabinet (and Dave Anderson seems have two posts as shadow Scottish and N.Irish Sec, so it's 12:12)

However in the actual Cabinet it's 15:8 in favour of men!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 May, 2017, 11:18:58 pm
195 women out of 650 MPs, apparently. http://www.ukpolitical.info/female-members-of-parliament.htm I'm not sure how evenly distributed they are around the country; it's 4 out of 4 in Bristol (3 Lab, 1 Con) but I've no idea why it should be a "female MP hotspot" – if there even is any reason beyond coincidence.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 21 May, 2017, 11:38:21 pm
I just googled the current cabinet, and the shadow cabinet, and it struck me how very white they both are. Sigh.
A few weeks back day, a picture popped up on my Linkedin feed, proudly announcing how some construction company or other had won a diversity award. I'm hoping it was a joke, as the people representing such a ground breaking company looked like they were all (a) male, (b) "white european" and (c) middle aged.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 May, 2017, 11:48:42 pm
A few weeks back day, a picture popped up on my Linkedin feed, proudly announcing how some construction company or other had won a diversity award. I'm hoping it was a joke, as the people representing such a ground breaking company looked like they were all (a) male, (b) "white european" and (c) middle aged.

They'd probably managed to recruit a couple of gayers.  Corporates like gayers; they don't cost anything or require alteration to working practices (beyond perhaps a clampdown on homophobic bullying).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 May, 2017, 07:50:17 am
It's the gender balance that's (completely non) shocking.

Hasn't M. Macron taken a (maple) leaf out of The Boy Trudeau's book in this regard?

Interviewer:Why are half your cabinet women?
J Trudeau:Because it's 2015.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 24 May, 2017, 02:34:20 pm
I'm no fan of Nicola Sturgeon's politics but I did appreciate her quote: "When I announced the balanced cabinet, people asked me if the women were all there on merit. No one asked me if the men were there on merit..."

My IT company employer recently created a "Gender Network". One of my colleagues was having the usual rant about are we going to have a men's network too. I did point out to him that the person to whom he was grumbling was the only woman in a fairly large office...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 25 May, 2017, 08:13:54 pm
That there is a product called Airwick Vipoo.  That one sprays into the bowl before sitting to trap offensive odours. Really.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 25 May, 2017, 10:18:17 pm
Bit late to the party there, Raffers.

There's a whole thread about it . . .  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 May, 2017, 12:00:57 pm
Measure twice, cut once. Yet again.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 26 May, 2017, 03:10:38 pm
That there is a product called Airwick Vipoo.  That one sprays into the bowl before sitting to trap offensive odours. Really.
There's at least one other such product, Poo-pourri. Both have been referred to on this forum. The advertisements for both are quite good.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 26 May, 2017, 06:58:24 pm
I've just learned there is a type of fastening called a sex bolt. I am amused.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 27 May, 2017, 12:35:40 pm
I've just learned there is a type of fastening called a sex bolt. I am amused.

Inna Tom Jones (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3_KP6yUWEw) stylee, I hope.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 May, 2017, 10:14:38 pm
 :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pickled Onion on 06 June, 2017, 12:30:07 pm
Severe Haircut Lady in Cory Doctorow's Little Brother is based on Theresa May.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 06 June, 2017, 01:20:34 pm
Severe Haircut Lady in Cory Doctorow's Little Brother is based on Theresa May.
Five minutes before you posted I decided that I need to re-read this.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 June, 2017, 10:09:34 am
Torx screws are great.  I picked up a box of 4 x 40s a while back, thinking they were the usual cross-heads, and had a wee swear when I got them home & discovered my mistake.  However, a set of bits I'd bought 20 years ago because it included sockets also had a few Torx bits in it as well, and one of them fitted.

I've just finished a small stand for some new machines where I used about 50 of them.  Every single one went in without a hitch - none of the jump'n'judder you get when a cross-head bit rides out of the screw-head towards the end of the drive.  By way of contrast, I had to use cross-heads to fasten a sheet of ply down, and out of a dozen screws only 4 or 5 didn't judder.

Going to change all my stock now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 25 June, 2017, 09:49:29 pm
I've just learned there is a type of fastening called a sex bolt. I am amused.
Well, there is a Jesus bolt*, and I suppose everything has an opposite.

*the main fastening bolt on a helicopter rotor, also applied to any bolt that Must Not Fail, such as the cable pinch bolt on your front brake
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 26 June, 2017, 02:01:51 pm
I've just learned there is a type of fastening called a sex bolt. I am amused.
Well, there is a Jesus bolt*, and I suppose everything has an opposite.

*the main fastening bolt on a helicopter rotor, also applied to any bolt that Must Not Fail, such as the cable pinch bolt on your front brake

'Tis a 'Jesus NUT' on a heliocopeter. So says the wisdome of Robert Mason, pilot and Chickenhawk author.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 26 June, 2017, 03:18:49 pm
That peanut butter can remove chewing gum from shoes. Allegedly. https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/f09ajj00yx
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 26 June, 2017, 03:30:42 pm
I've just learned there is a type of fastening called a sex bolt. I am amused.
Well, there is a Jesus bolt*, and I suppose everything has an opposite.

*the main fastening bolt on a helicopter rotor, also applied to any bolt that Must Not Fail, such as the cable pinch bolt on your front brake

'Tis a 'Jesus NUT' on a heliocopeter. So says the wisdome of Robert Mason, pilot and Chickenhawk author.
Jesus nut, indeed.
My Auzzie cycling buddy has referred to the missing Jesus (barrel) nut on the Easton EC70 seat post on the CF bike I built for her.
Jesus nut because it costs £26.74 to get a replacement bag of bits from the distributors. Comprised of 2 bolts, 2 washers and 2 barrel nuts.
Markup. Or what?
I can pick up a replacement seat post for less than twice that price from SJS.
Instinct tells me these ought to be quoted on the London Diamond Exchange......
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 26 June, 2017, 11:00:52 pm
That after 16 months of not doing it, I rather miss my old commute.

This, from another thread has made me all nostalgic.
I'm with fboab; Tour de Yorkshire.  My office-mates (all locals unlike me) were thoroughly amused by "coat d' garrowby 'ill" and the like.

I reckon the rule for that sort of thing is that it should only be allowed when done ironically.  So Col de Priory Road for the annoying (but ultimately unspectacular) climb on Basil's commute[1] is fine, but referring to a proper BRITISH hill as such when included as part of a serious road race just makes you sound like a prat.


[1] Not to be confused with Basil's Commute, which is the technical term for the little geese-infested cut-through at the end of Raddlebarn Farm Drive that saves tens of metres on the ride between Bournville and a certain pub.

Think I might go and visit #1 son and do it again.
Oh hang on, I'd have to do it at the correct time of day.  And I used to get up at WHAT TIME?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 27 June, 2017, 07:50:26 pm
That peanut butter can remove chewing gum from shoes. Allegedly. https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/f09ajj00yx
Supposed to be recommended for bubblegum and hair, too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 01 July, 2017, 09:10:48 pm
Cycling 200km in a single day will not kill me utterly to DETH.

Also, even with today's COR and shared use paths factored in, I think I'm still a bit too slow for Audax (not that I have any rides planned for this year).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 July, 2017, 03:13:00 pm
The smell of linseed oil is bloody disgusting.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 July, 2017, 04:27:30 pm
That much-derided Strawbs spin-off The Monks were Big In Canada.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 03 July, 2017, 04:43:40 pm
The smell of linseed oil is bloody disgusting.

You mean it doesn't remind you of long shadows on county (cricket) grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers?

No pleasing some folk :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 July, 2017, 05:25:11 pm
Perhaps T42 doesn't want dog lovers filling his pool?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 04 July, 2017, 12:43:55 pm
That JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) is a thing and that the Shimano adjuster screws are that thing, not Phillips. Who knew? (yeah, OK Brucey)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 July, 2017, 03:56:50 pm
Perhaps T42 doesn't want dog lovers filling his pool?

Our dogs loved it too much and were always coming indoors covered in mud, so we filled it ourselves.

Meanwhile, I learnt today that Pablo Casals played for Queen Victoria.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 17 July, 2017, 08:05:41 pm
And today I learned that replacing a  Shimano 5800 gear cable is easier^3 once you have done it once.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nikki on 31 July, 2017, 01:50:19 pm
That energy gels are a workable way of preventing total collapse if you've got losing-3kg-in-4-hours levels of D&V.

Have just broken out the sample pack of sports drink powder to start working on the electrolyte levels...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 31 July, 2017, 01:53:35 pm
Ugh, you too?

I'm pretty much over it now, thankfully, apart from the cumulative effects of even more sleep deprivation.  Rated about a 0.3 of a Long Itch Lurgy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 July, 2017, 01:58:01 pm
What have you two been up to? Some camping-acquired infection or is this just the result of too much Birmingham? GWS.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 31 July, 2017, 02:00:27 pm
In the absence of any better ideas, my working hypothesis was that it was down to my awesome cookery skillz, but I can't really claim not to have been in Birmingham too long...

I've not been near nikki since the middle of last week, which suggests we've acquired it independently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nikki on 31 July, 2017, 02:10:40 pm
I blame either camping, a motorway service station on the M5 or the Winterstoke Road Sainsbury's.

At least I've got an excuse for not cleaning the tent just yet...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 July, 2017, 02:16:32 pm
I think I'd blame Kim's kooking, even without eating it!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 August, 2017, 04:35:45 pm
Leo Fender wasn't a guitarist.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 03 August, 2017, 09:29:10 pm
25 years too late, how to set up low-profile cantilever brakes.

Pads pushed inward on their studs, as far as possible while still allowing the eye bolt to get a good grip.  Ensure they're hitting the rim squarely (overtighten the main cable, hold the pads against the rim while securing them, then slacken off for clearance).

Straddle cable half an inch off the tyre.

Perfect braking.  Stops on a sixpence yet still feels firm.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 03 August, 2017, 10:31:02 pm
Why you shouldn't buy cheap imitation Makita Li+ battery packs[1].
(With a supplemental lesson on the foibles[2] of the official ones.  PSA: If you haven't used yours recently, go and charge them!)


[1] The combination of a complete lack of cell balancing, combined with a tap off the first cell to power the battery electronics means they're doomed by design, no matter how good the cells themselves might be.
[2] Short version: They also power the electronics from the first cell.  Which can drain it flat if left unused for too long.
 When you then attempt to charge, it refuses.  If it fails to charge charge three times in a row the electronics deliberately brick themselves[3] via a fusible link.  Bastards.
[3] So if your Makita battery pack fails to charge, don't try again:  Get someone with electronics-fu to take it apart and persuade the first cell back to life first.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 06 August, 2017, 01:38:14 pm
See div of the week thread. Prickly pears are appropriately named
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 06 August, 2017, 04:40:15 pm
That the old 52-42 Sakae SA crankset I had in the loft is actually a 110mm BCD, not a 130mm as I'd assumed. I'd have prefered to discover that before I bought a shiny new crankset though ::-)

They're actually pretty shiny and might suit the mid-80s Raleigh. Decisions, decisions.

(http://velobase.com/CompImages/Crankset/025D39DB-8BF5-4F45-BE28-CAD09487751C.jpeg)
(mine are a little more knocked about than those)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 06 August, 2017, 10:01:30 pm
25 years too late, how to set up low-profile cantilever brakes.

Pads pushed inward on their studs, as far as possible while still allowing the eye bolt to get a good grip.  Ensure they're hitting the rim squarely (overtighten the main cable, hold the pads against the rim while securing them, then slacken off for clearance).

Straddle cable half an inch off the tyre.

Perfect braking.  Stops on a sixpence yet still feels firm.

Roger, how do you adjust for wear if you've got the pads as far in as is secure?  Have you got in line or other adjusters?  Otherwise, I would have thought it would be a bit of a fag to mess with cables.

Peter
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 07 August, 2017, 02:20:50 pm
Miguel Cervantes died on the same day as William Shakespeare
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 August, 2017, 04:08:50 pm
Not to leave my Moto G3 phone with "double karate chop turns on torch" enabled when it's riding in my HB bag. Phone alarmingly hot and battery down to 40% on arrival.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 16 August, 2017, 10:49:26 am
Dia-Compe 188 brake levers, the go-to choice for time triallists and fixie fashionistas with bullhorn bars, are actually designed for flat bars on Chinese utility bicycles.  For some reason that market prefers them to clamp-on levers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 16 August, 2017, 12:44:17 pm
My sister is a witch has perfect pitch.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wascally Weasel on 16 August, 2017, 03:12:29 pm
My sister is a witch has perfect pitch.

Does she weigh as much as a duck?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 August, 2017, 10:01:21 am
In the event of nuclear war, do not use hair conditioner.

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/one-worst-things-nuclear-war-breaks-out/

Moot in my case.  You can't condition what ain't there.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 August, 2017, 04:11:24 pm
That bicycle polo was an Olympic sport at London in 1908. http://www.citymetric.com/horizons/both-clever-and-fast-montreal-just-hosted-25th-annual-cycle-messenger-world-championships
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 18 August, 2017, 04:19:16 pm
The first American woman (Margaret Ives Abbott) to win an Olympic 'gold'* didn't know she's won on account that she thought she was playing a round of golf and not entering the Olympics. Her mother came seventh. They were both dead by the time someone figured it out.

*the 1900 Olympics didn't give out medals, so she got a far more useful porcelain bowl. Olympic medals don't even contain chocolate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 19 August, 2017, 06:55:36 pm
The Reims Gospel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reims_Gospel) is written in Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 August, 2017, 03:52:25 am
The Reims Gospel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reims_Gospel) is written in Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets.

iRTA "Cyrillic and Glaswegian" :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 20 August, 2017, 07:19:05 pm
"Oi, Rasputin!"

"See you, Jimmy..."

No, mine's on the back of the door.....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 20 August, 2017, 07:37:27 pm
That the very last bikes made by Raleigh in the UK were randomly specified but quite well made.

I have here a Made in England BSA Westcoast for SO to commute on.  Fairly light ladies' steel frame with a rear mech hanger.  Very good blue flam paint.  Cartridge bearing headset - but it's threaded - yet a steel cup and cone BB!  Reasonable Joytech one-piece hubs and alloy rims.  Good cable cutting to length (although, like all ladies' frames, there is a U-shaped piece for the rear brake which I know is going to fill with water and freeze in winter).  Decent SKS mudguards.  Alloy seatpost but satin chrome steel bars.  The fork steerer and the inside of the head tube and seat tube have been painted white, possibly to prevent corrosion, but there was no grease on the quill or the seatpost - luckily this has been kept dry and nothing was seized.

As a utility bike it's quite satisfactory, and better than most of the crap I've seen with a heron badge on it over the years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Chris S on 21 August, 2017, 08:36:30 pm
This weekend, I have learned the term "Limp Mode"1, where it pertains to motorised vehicles.

Driving a (laden) van from the Western Isles of Scotland to Yorkshire, in Limp Mode, is this: Fucking Stressful. Pulling away at a busy M9 roundabout? Don't count on ANY help from the engine: 0-40 in 30 seconds, tops.

I've previously never noticed any of the hills on the A1 between Edinburgh and Darlington, but today - I noticed every single one.

I'm frazzled.

------------------
1The engine management computer decides something is Wrong with the engine, and in attempt to protect the engine from damage, turns said engine into a 1950 Ford Popular.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 21 August, 2017, 09:40:04 pm
VW Group cars are all in limp-home mode before their PDI at the dealer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 21 August, 2017, 09:44:28 pm
VW Group cars are all in limp-home mode before their PDI at the dealer.
I suspect that is called transport mode.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 06 September, 2017, 05:11:08 pm
Wearing Polaroid sunglasses means that your camera viewing screen turns black if oriented one way. 

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 September, 2017, 08:13:38 pm
Wearing Polaroid sunglasses means that your camera viewing screen turns black if oriented one way.

In my day we learned this by playing with calculators.  (Hacking them open and flipping the polariser so the display was white-on-black was the height of cool in my second year year 8 maths class.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 06 September, 2017, 09:25:49 pm
You can still buy new Panaracer Smoke and Dart amberwall tyres.  No 1.9" Smoke Lite, though, which was noticeably better for not spinning out on muddy climbs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 07 September, 2017, 05:17:38 am
Wearing Polaroid sunglasses means that your camera viewing screen turns black if oriented one way.

In my day we learned this by playing with calculators.  (Hacking them open and flipping the polariser so the display was white-on-black was the height of cool in my second year year 8 maths class.)

We tried that but all the beads went everywhere.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 September, 2017, 05:59:46 am
That fretful porpentines do not always curl up into spiky balls when threatened by predators.  Sometimes they climb trees.

Neither strategy appears to work when the "predator" is a Chevy Silverado :'(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 07 September, 2017, 09:00:48 am
Kinnell! I didn't know that a Chevy Silverado can climb a tree...?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 September, 2017, 03:46:33 pm
In Montana, the small white roadside crosses almost outnumber the actual trees.  I think crystal meth may be involved.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 09 September, 2017, 09:15:51 pm
I was born at typical.vision.mats (or it could have been instance.mild.ditching or etching.poodle.lasted depending which bedroom I was born in)

https://what3words.com/about/ (https://what3words.com/about/)

Quote
what3words provides a precise and incredibly simple way to talk about location. We have divided the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and assigned each one a unique 3 word address.

 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 11 September, 2017, 08:31:20 pm
I was born at typical.vision.mats (or it could have been instance.mild.ditching or etching.poodle.lasted depending which bedroom I was born in)

https://what3words.com/about/ (https://what3words.com/about/)

Quote
what3words provides a precise and incredibly simple way to talk about location. We have divided the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and assigned each one a unique 3 word address.
Presumably there's some sort of filter to prevent someone getting donkey.felch.cloaca?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 September, 2017, 08:33:37 pm
Presumably there's some sort of filter to prevent someone getting donkey.felch.cloaca?

Or at least make sure it goes to someone who really deserves it...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 11 September, 2017, 08:46:21 pm
I was born at typical.vision.mats (or it could have been instance.mild.ditching or etching.poodle.lasted depending which bedroom I was born in)

https://what3words.com/about/ (https://what3words.com/about/)

Quote
what3words provides a precise and incredibly simple way to talk about location. We have divided the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and assigned each one a unique 3 word address.
Presumably there's some sort of filter to prevent someone getting donkey.felch.cloaca?

F*ck!
You know where I live.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 11 September, 2017, 09:04:09 pm
I think there is a limited set of fairly straightforward words.  Searching for those three returned

donkey.fleshed.clock near Sint-Pieters-Voeren, Belgium, donkey.flesh.cloaks near Maribondo, Alagoas, Brazil, and donkey.fetch.cloaks near Chegdomub, Khabarovski Krai, Russia.

donkey.fetch.coats is in Queensland, monkey.fetch.coats near Wilmslow and donkey.fetch.coast near Havana, Florida.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 11 September, 2017, 10:21:37 pm
Overture.pines.season for the living room
Alarm.roughest.camped for my office at home
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 11 September, 2017, 10:27:45 pm
Appears to be 2-D, so doesn't work well for blocks of flats  :-\
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 September, 2017, 01:04:45 pm
empire.chap.enlisted => my office
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 12 September, 2017, 03:40:19 pm
I am sat at marked.splash.intervals, but if our vendor hadn't screwed us about I'd be at decompose.united.policy right now.  I was thinking that might be a way to tell delivery drivers where we will be, in a village that just has a house name and the village name by way of an address.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 September, 2017, 12:19:12 pm
That yesterday was the 334th anniversary of the Battle of Vienna.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 13 September, 2017, 06:22:49 pm
Presumably there's some sort of filter to prevent someone getting donkey.felch.cloaca?

Or at least make sure it goes to someone who really deserves it...
Richard Littlejohn or Piers Morgan CBE?*  Choices, choices.

*colossal bellend
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 15 September, 2017, 10:08:43 am
The British army has 501 horses and 334 tanks.

OK a horse is a lot cheaper than a tank and looks slightly better in publicity type parades but you wonder what type of conflict they are being equipped to fight in.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 September, 2017, 10:16:59 am
A horse probably has a shorter military career, though, so 501 horses don't last as long as 334 tanks. OTOH I wouldn't be terribly surprised to learn a good proportion of the tanks are out of use due to missing parts or something.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ScumOfTheRoad on 15 September, 2017, 10:22:40 am
Pete, I believe the British Army has more generals than tanks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 15 September, 2017, 10:25:53 am
I'd expect a substantial proportion of the horses to be for ceremonial duties, mainly in London.

We don't (yet) use tanks for ceremonies.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 September, 2017, 10:32:01 am
Not military parades, no.
(http://archive.cliftonhotwells.org.uk/images/parking_tank4.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 15 September, 2017, 10:33:52 am
Where's Valiant?  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 15 September, 2017, 11:51:26 am
one of the companies I used to work for did stuff for the military around outsourced maintenance for green painted vehicles.  Apparently the mean time between breakdowns of tanks is around 200 miles
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 September, 2017, 12:15:45 pm
So that's about 10 maintenance stops from Stalingrad to Berlin. Amazing they did it in two years, really.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 15 September, 2017, 01:30:35 pm
I think the old T34 was a bit more agricultural, apparently far more robust than the highly sophisticated, but prone to breaking down German offerings
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 September, 2017, 07:00:54 pm
That the hole in my shoe from the crash I had in May lines up perfectly with the Red Baron's front mech cage.  That explains the small bruise, missing chunk of shoe and how the mech was a write-off without any damage to the big chainring.  It further suggests that my right knee was flexed at point of impact, explaining how the rest of that leg was uninjured.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 16 September, 2017, 09:56:59 pm
How to quantize spacetime. It involves half-integer spin. Obviously, chorused the cats, because cats get quantum mechanics. It's easy for them. Just that no one usually asks them. They'd happily unify quantum mechanics and classical relativity for a couple of tins of tuna.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 18 September, 2017, 09:41:28 pm
That there is an electric bike "manufacturer" in Whitstable (well SwaleCliffe or even - whisper it - very nearly Herne Bay).  Passed their place picking up the cranky old grid from the menders this morning.

https://www.kudoscycles.com
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 20 September, 2017, 04:57:41 pm
Old, work-hardened Marathon Plus tyres can be an absolute bastard to remove. Involving many of teh BRITONS' BAD SWEARSTM

Leaving me with a terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side.

Who knew . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Chris S on 20 September, 2017, 05:02:41 pm
IME, considerable beerific libation is required before attempting to unite/separate M+ with/from rims.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 20 September, 2017, 05:04:08 pm
Sadly, being shitfaced in front of the customers doesn't appear to be a good business model...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 20 September, 2017, 11:17:15 pm
That both Claude Shannon and Ludwig von Boltzman have their famous equations inscribed on their graves

$H = - \sigma p_i \log p_i$

and

S = k log W

ETA:
Oh, there are a lot more.
Schwinger (alpha/2pi)
Schroedinger,
Max Born
Paul Dirac
von Lindenman
Otto Hahn
von Thunen
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 21 September, 2017, 01:28:40 pm
Can we be sure Schroedinger is in there, though?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 21 September, 2017, 10:40:56 pm
Heisenberg might be there. Again I'm not sure.
Schroedingers cat is there, but whether it is alive or dead we don't know.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 21 September, 2017, 10:54:59 pm
Heisenberg might be there. Again I'm not sure.
Schroedingers cat is there, but whether it is alive or dead we don't know.

<drifting off topic>

My Dad was 90 back in August and we had a big party at which I made a speech. I almost managed to shoe horn the Heisenberg speeding joke into it.

Carry on, as you were.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 26 September, 2017, 12:04:06 am
That "N+1" applies to Ukuleles, as well as bikes 'n trikes 'n stuff.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 26 September, 2017, 07:47:30 am
That "N+1" applies to Ukuleles, as well as bikes 'n trikes 'n stuff.

When it comes to books, I believe it is obligatory.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 September, 2017, 11:47:59 am
Not for the ones borrowed from the library, though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 September, 2017, 01:41:17 pm
That duck roasted two or three days after the eat-by date is much better than duck roasted a week before it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 26 September, 2017, 01:49:40 pm
That duck roasted two or three days after the eat-by date is much better than duck roasted a week before it.

Ah, the Stilton principle...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5pfkcUz_D4
https://youtu.be/M5pfkcUz_D4
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 September, 2017, 02:14:44 pm
Delightful accent, too.

If ever the shops get honest about eat-by dates we'll all die of food poisoning.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 September, 2017, 04:17:48 pm
There are twice as many legal pot shops in the Denver Metropolitan Area than there are branches of Starmucks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 September, 2017, 04:56:52 pm
What I have also learnt today: my hands are no longer steady enough to apply silicone mastic round the bottom of a shower without making a pig's arse of it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rr on 26 September, 2017, 05:23:43 pm
How to drive a tower crane.

Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 27 September, 2017, 09:53:54 am
There are twice as many legal pot shops in the Denver Metropolitan Area than there are branches of Starmucks.

And I bet the pot shops serve better coffee.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 27 September, 2017, 11:02:25 am
There are twice as many legal pot shops in the Denver Metropolitan Area than there are branches of Starmucks.

And I bet the pot shops serve better coffee.

From experience, I can say that is probably true. My favourite piece of shop positioning has to be the Voodoo Donuts shop 2 doors down from a pot shop! We partook of the former, but not the latter.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 27 September, 2017, 01:39:29 pm
I think the old T34 was a bit more agricultural, apparently far more robust than the highly sophisticated, but prone to breaking down German offerings
I'm not sure about that. It may have been no more reliable (well, except for Tigers), but easier to fix with a sledgehammer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 27 September, 2017, 02:52:42 pm
The Panthers were mechanical nightmares as well (at least the early models); more importantly Soviet armour was designed to work in sub-zero temperatures, so would actually start in the morning.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 September, 2017, 03:19:10 pm
From what I remember of a visit to the Imperial War Museum, the T34 was advanced for its time, including being one of the first tanks with a diesel engine. But Soviet stuff generally was designed to be reliable and easy to fix in the field, rather than accurate/fast/etc, so it would be unsurprising if the Red Army just banged them with a hammer every morning and kept going.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 27 September, 2017, 06:13:43 pm
I've now leaned how to mig weld lap and t joints. Bit of TIG next week  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 28 September, 2017, 05:12:35 pm
From what I remember of a visit to the Imperial War Museum, the T34 was advanced for its time, including being one of the first tanks with a diesel engine. But Soviet stuff generally was designed to be reliable and easy to fix in the field, rather than accurate/fast/etc, so it would be unsurprising if the Red Army just banged them with a hammer every morning and kept going.

IIRC diesel fuel was/is prone to jellifying when hugely cold.   We had lorries stuck on the mainland in winter cos they said the fuel had frozen.  Not so much of a problem in the warmer UK.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2017, 08:46:36 pm
I've learnt a non-cycling thing from Cycle magazine. Wilko Johnson is a character occasionally mentioned here, usually I think by ESL. I'd kind of assumed he was some semi-legendary figure of British time trialling, but I learn he was a guitarist with Ian Dury & the Blockheads and later a band called Dr Feelgood. Maybe I'll investigate Dr Feelgood on youtube and find out about them too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2017, 08:54:03 pm
I have now learned that Dr Feelgood should probably be listened to in the pub and only in the pub.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 02 October, 2017, 09:13:53 pm
I've learnt a non-cycling thing from Cycle magazine. Wilko Johnson is a character occasionally mentioned here, usually I think by ESL. I'd kind of assumed he was some semi-legendary figure of British time trialling, but I learn he was a guitarist with Ian Dury & the Blockheads and later a band called Dr Feelgood. Maybe I'll investigate Dr Feelgood on youtube and find out about them too.

I've got a album of his with Roger Daltrey. A comeback after major illness
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 October, 2017, 10:32:05 pm
I've learnt a non-cycling thing from Cycle magazine. Wilko Johnson is a character occasionally mentioned here, usually I think by ESL. I'd kind of assumed he was some semi-legendary figure of British time trialling, but I learn he was a guitarist with Ian Dury & the Blockheads and later a band called Dr Feelgood. Maybe I'll investigate Dr Feelgood on youtube and find out about them too.

Up to a point, Lord Copper.  Wilko was in Dr Feelgood before becoming a Blockhead.

I've got a album of his with Roger Daltrey. A comeback after major illness

Got that one too.  Whatever Wilko's merits as a guitarist, Mr Daltrey is a rather better singer ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2017, 10:55:04 pm
So he went on to better things? Even without taking up time trialling. Cycle magazine:
Quote
Ian Dury was Essex but not Canvey. One of the ex-Blockheads, however, defined 'the Canvey sound'. Wilko Johnson was the driving guitar force behind '70s band Dr Feelgood.
"Ex-Blockhead" implied to me ex at the point he took up driving Feelgood. But, yeah, sources and all that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 03 October, 2017, 07:40:09 pm
"Deore" as in "Deore XT" is a loan word from English into Japanese and is simply "deer".  The original mechs had an antler logo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 October, 2017, 08:04:55 am
It WAS my bloody socks! :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 04 October, 2017, 08:45:23 am
cats get quantum mechanics. It's easy for them. Just that no one usually asks them.

Quantum scientists are usually too busy putting cats in boxes to ask their opinion on anything.


I have now learned that Dr Feelgood should probably be listened to in the pub and only in the pub.

They are the archetypal pub rock band, this is true. Britain's answer to Creedence Clearwater Revival. You should watch Oil City Confidential.

Anyway, changing the subject...

What I have learned today is that Denis Norden is still alive. I was sure he died years ago. He's 95, you know.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 October, 2017, 08:50:54 am
What I learned yesterday was that birch trees are not hermaphrodite but monoecious. They have male and female flowers on one tree, hermaphrodite in tree terms means male and female parts in the same flower.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 04 October, 2017, 08:59:15 am
What I have learned today is that Denis Norden is still alive. I was sure he died years ago. He's 95, you know.
Quite a few 'surprisingly alive' people on the Deathlist (https://deathlist.net/).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 04 October, 2017, 10:36:40 am
What I have learned today is that Denis Norden is still alive. I was sure he died years ago. He's 95, you know.
Quite a few 'surprisingly alive' people on the Deathlist (https://deathlist.net/).

Wow, you are right. Can I vote for Billy Graham and Robert Mugabe? (and I did like Phil the Greek's job description)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 04 October, 2017, 10:39:43 am
Fats Domino is the one who stands out on that list for me. Also that he is younger than Honor Blackman.  :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 04 October, 2017, 08:36:46 pm
Ian Brady ~ All round Mr. Nice guy <SNORFLE>  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 05 October, 2017, 08:23:05 am
There are some good ones:
Clive Dunn ~ Deathlist favourite
Ronald Reagan ~ (former) Idiot
Barbara Cartland ~ Literary Genius
Mary Whitehouse ~ Whinger
Boris Yeltsin ~ Tsar
Michael Foot ~ Tramp
Yassir Arafat ~ Terrorist
Ronnie Biggs ~ Ambassador
Margaret Thatcher ~ Milk Snatcher
Denis Healey ~ Eyebrowed Politician
&c
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 05 October, 2017, 08:37:40 am
What I learned yesterday was that birch trees are not hermaphrodite but monoecious. They have male and female flowers on one tree, hermaphrodite in tree terms means male and female parts in the same flower.
I think maize ("corn"* to leftpondians) is similar.

*whereas "corn" is a flexible word in British English used to describe any cereal crop, usually wheat.  A cornfield is generally full of wheat or barley, and cornflowers grow in wheatfields.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 October, 2017, 08:46:09 am
I think cornflowers are similar to poppies in the places they like to grow, ie recently disturbed land.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 05 October, 2017, 10:30:57 am
What I have learned today:
"corn" is a flexible word in British English used to describe any cereal crop, usually wheat. A cornfield is generally full of wheat or barley, and cornflowers grow in wheatfields.

Maybe it's the pernicious US influence, or my lack of a rural upbringing, but I tend to think of 'corn' as meaning maize rather than barley or wheat.

(wheat fields were not part of the landscape where I grew up in East Kent, so I wouldn't have seen cornflowers very often - it was all hops, orchards or brassicas round my way; these days it's all oilseed rape or new housing estates)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 06 October, 2017, 10:23:04 am
I think cornflowers are similar to poppies in the places they like to grow, ie recently disturbed land.
But dont mix up cornflower, cornflour, corn starch or cornmeal.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 October, 2017, 10:52:49 am
Cornmeal: food you eat when you get the munchies after 'korn'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 October, 2017, 11:46:04 am
That Lene Lovich did a cover of "I Think We're Alone Now" in 1978.  With "Lucky Number" as the B-side.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 06 October, 2017, 12:18:15 pm
There is a plant called mind your own business.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 06 October, 2017, 12:42:00 pm
What I have learned today:
"corn" is a flexible word in British English used to describe any cereal crop, usually wheat. A cornfield is generally full of wheat or barley, and cornflowers grow in wheatfields.

Maybe it's the pernicious US influence, or my lack of a rural upbringing, but I tend to think of 'corn' as meaning maize rather than barley or wheat.

(wheat fields were not part of the landscape where I grew up in East Kent, so I wouldn't have seen cornflowers very often - it was all hops, orchards or brassicas round my way; these days it's all oilseed rape or new housing estates)

maize seems to be called something different everywhere, ugali in Kenya, Polenta in Italy.

I thought hops were making something of a comeback with the craft beer revolution
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 06 October, 2017, 12:54:54 pm
I thought hops were making something of a comeback with the craft beer revolution

Good old East Kent Goldings are not fashionable enough though - these days it's all high-alpha New World varieties like Citra, Amarillo, Chinook, Mosaic, Nelson Sauvin... basically anything that imparts a flavour of citrus or passion fruit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 06 October, 2017, 01:01:25 pm
perhaps.  I though Golding and Bramling Cross were still pretty good backbone hops

My dad's family is from East London and used to go down to Kent during the hop picking season, there's a photo of him in front of one of the chalets sat on his nan's knee.  It used to be treated as a family holiday apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 06 October, 2017, 01:04:29 pm
Despite wandering around the Kent countryside a lot, it still seems to be rare to encounter a hop field. I thought I was doing my bit for the hop farmers. Too much stinky oilseed rape, for sure. Noticing a lot more actual maize corn these days – presumably for animal feed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 06 October, 2017, 01:13:36 pm
Personally, I still rate Goldings and Fuggles very highly but that's probably because I'm a Kentish Man (as opposed to a Man of Kent).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 06 October, 2017, 01:26:55 pm
Lots of hops around here. No idea what variety. They all go into the insatiable gut of Mr. Kronenbourg, who went into the insatiable gut of Scottish & Newcastle a while back.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 06 October, 2017, 01:35:25 pm
Do the New World hops varieties grow well in the UK? I vaguely recall having read something a while back about new hybrid varieties being developed here.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 06 October, 2017, 01:35:25 pm
Personally, I still rate Goldings and Fuggles very highly but that's probably because I'm a Kentish Man (as opposed to a Man of Kent).

In my experience men of Kent strip off their tops and flop out their guts the moment the sun comes out and the temperature rises to above ten degrees. Five minutes later they're sunburned cherry red.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 October, 2017, 01:43:46 pm
WD40 degreaser appears to attack hospital-variety rubber gloves. We had a box of 100 bought for the nurses who looked after the Inlaw Paw, and I'm using them up in the workshop. After using a cloth soaked in it I could pull the fingertips off.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 October, 2017, 01:45:34 pm
WD40 degreaser appears to attack hospital-variety rubber gloves. We had a box of 100 bought for the nurses who looked after the Inlaw Paw, and I'm using them up in the Workshop. After using a cloth soaked in it I could pull the fingertips off.

This is why you should never use oil-based lubes with condoms.  I thought everyone knew that?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 08 October, 2017, 03:56:01 pm
hexane does much the same, I have some photos from an audit of a guy doing a lab test with fingerless gloves.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 08 October, 2017, 08:51:03 pm
Hospital gloves are probably nitrile rater than latex, aren't they? Though the nitrile gloves I've got tend to go at the  fingertips when doing bike maintenance - I always assumed it was just mechanical wear.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 October, 2017, 11:59:39 am
WD40 degreaser appears to attack hospital-variety rubber gloves. We had a box of 100 bought for the nurses who looked after the Inlaw Paw, and I'm using them up in the Workshop. After using a cloth soaked in it I could pull the fingertips off.

This is why you should never use oil-based lubes with condoms.  I thought everyone knew that?

There's a long list of glove types depending on use. Condom selection is less exhaustive.

Nitrile is fairly resistant to organics and is the go-to glove material owing to latex sensitivities and the fact that latex isn't very resistant to most of the things you'd like gloves to be resistant to. Condoms are mostly polyurethane, as are cheap non-lab grade gloves, and not very chemical resistant, but then again there aren't many sexual uses for hexane.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 10 October, 2017, 02:28:02 pm
That The Adventure Syndicate (http://theadventuresyndicate.com/) exists, I found out by reading http://theadventuresyndicate.com/blog/2017/8/7/adventures-in-kind-lee-craigie-on-the-tour-divide pointed to by a road.cc article and was hooked
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 October, 2017, 03:41:25 pm
In similar vein, that some people whose age suggests their parents might have been around for the real thing are now wearing mohican brightly coloured punk hairstyles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 October, 2017, 08:37:01 am
I think cornflowers are similar to poppies in the places they like to grow, ie recently disturbed land.
But dont mix up cornflower, cornflour, corn starch or cornmeal.
And don't mix any of them up with quorn.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 11 October, 2017, 01:54:49 pm
That The Adventure Syndicate (http://theadventuresyndicate.com/) exists, I found out by reading http://theadventuresyndicate.com/blog/2017/8/7/adventures-in-kind-lee-craigie-on-the-tour-divide pointed to by a road.cc article and was hooked

Lee Craigie was a guest here (https://www.cyclinguk.org/join-us-annual-get-together-big-bike-celebration) on Saturday, and awesome she is too.

That Emily Chappell is another one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 12 October, 2017, 09:29:34 am
Indeed, we happened upon Emilio and Lee Craigie talking at the Cycle Show in Birmingham.  Very inspiring (and I'm not even a gurrrl!) :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 October, 2017, 03:54:54 pm
That the short burst of ukelele heard after Vivian Stanshall announces "Over there, Eric Clapton, ukelele" on the Bonzo's "The Intro And The Outro" was played by... Eric Clapton.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 17 October, 2017, 04:37:07 pm
I never knew that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 October, 2017, 10:41:04 am
Hemlock is a member of the carrot family.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 20 October, 2017, 11:07:28 am
It's occasionally called 'poison parsley.'

(shares its family with with celery, parsley, angelica, coriander, fennel, anise, etc.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 20 October, 2017, 11:26:59 am
Personally, I still rate Goldings and Fuggles very highly but that's probably because I'm a Kentish Man (as opposed to a Man of Kent).
If you wuz brung up in East Kent then surely you be a Man of Kent (like me). Anyway, Goldings and Fuggle rool ok.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 20 October, 2017, 03:55:26 pm
Personally, I still rate Goldings and Fuggles very highly but that's probably because I'm a Kentish Man (as opposed to a Man of Kent).
If you wuz brung up in East Kent then surely you be a Man of Kent (like me). Anyway, Goldings and Fuggle rool ok.
And I'm a woman of Kent. I think. East of the Medway isn't it? (I go by the Pub in Canterbury, which may not be correct).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 20 October, 2017, 04:35:23 pm
East of the Medway isn't it?
Yup.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 20 October, 2017, 10:36:33 pm
I still have plenty of family down there. My nan and grandad lived in all hallows on sea for a while, on the isle of grain. I can still remember visiting and walking down the old railway line.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 24 October, 2017, 04:59:47 pm
Someone at work has the rather wonderful name of 'Tiffany Fang'

I wonder if she knows Ian's librarian.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 24 October, 2017, 05:35:47 pm
That's positively awesome, I'd kill for a name like that.

I'll ask Jess if she knows her, though strictly speaking she's not a traditional vampire, and she's the only undead librarian that I know. There are live librarians though not nearly as much fun.

Mind you, there used to a BJ Queen aboard one of the overseas motherships. Called herself BJ too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 26 October, 2017, 07:53:11 pm
Laptops do not like lemsip

It wasn't mine, luckily
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 26 October, 2017, 08:07:14 pm
That's positively awesome, I'd kill for a name like that.

I'll ask Jess if she knows her, though strictly speaking she's not a traditional vampire, and she's the only undead librarian that I know. There are live librarians though not nearly as much fun.

Mind you, there used to a BJ Queen aboard one of the overseas motherships. Called herself BJ too.

There was a Randy Bumgardener at Mrs P's work.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 26 October, 2017, 08:20:23 pm
I used to work with Randy Bunner, now retired.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 26 October, 2017, 08:27:09 pm
Many people tried to persuade BJ to revert to Billie-Jean and failed. She was one of the very churchy Americans and I expect she'd think a blowjob was something you had done at the hairdressers.

Well that was until one my German colleagues who, upon first introduction, uttered the magic phrase 'BJ? Like oral sex?' The diplomatic corps is over there.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 26 October, 2017, 09:19:50 pm
I didn't actually know her, but I was aware of an Emma Dale where I used to work attend in Brum.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 26 October, 2017, 09:54:42 pm
That's positively awesome, I'd kill for a name like that.

I'll ask Jess if she knows her, though strictly speaking she's not a traditional vampire, and she's the only undead librarian that I know. There are live librarians though not nearly as much fun.

Mind you, there used to a BJ Queen aboard one of the overseas motherships. Called herself BJ too.

There was a Randy Bumgardener at Mrs P's work.

And a MA Glasscock. Who we used to call Ma Glasscock. (As in, I've broken ma glass cock!)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 26 October, 2017, 10:26:08 pm
That's positively awesome, I'd kill for a name like that.

I'll ask Jess if she knows her, though strictly speaking she's not a traditional vampire, and she's the only undead librarian that I know. There are live librarians though not nearly as much fun.

Mind you, there used to a BJ Queen aboard one of the overseas motherships. Called herself BJ too.

There was a Randy Bumgardener at Mrs P's work.

And a MA Glasscock. Who we used to call Ma Glasscock. (As in, I've broken ma glass cock!)

Lab humour ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 26 October, 2017, 10:29:50 pm
 :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Deano on 26 October, 2017, 10:49:11 pm
I used to work with Genna Taylor.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 26 October, 2017, 11:25:01 pm
I used to work with Genna Taylor.
we have a Jenny Taylor in HR at work
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 27 October, 2017, 01:01:50 pm
If you wuz brung up in East Kent then surely you be a Man of Kent (like me).

Born in West Kent, moved East when I was 13. Although I was born only just west of the Medway (about half a mile), so very much a borderline case.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 27 October, 2017, 01:05:14 pm
Apparently, "Thought Leader" is a genuine job title, not just a product of ian's fervid (or is that fetid?) imagination.

I got a notification today from Gorkana of a vacancy in a thought leadership role. Tempted to apply too, though I suspect my hair isn't tidy enough.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 27 October, 2017, 01:09:36 pm
And I'm a woman of Kent.

Maid of Kent
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 27 October, 2017, 01:24:51 pm
:-[

IT's not that bad, engineering humour is much worse.

e.g. Boring - See Civil Engineers  (Yellow Pages entry)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 October, 2017, 11:14:22 am
That Instagram can identify people by the cake they eat. Or something. (Or rather, that Instagrammers can and do attach nametags to cake and other stuff.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 30 October, 2017, 01:23:08 pm
And I'm a woman of Kent.

Maid of Kent

Not recently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 October, 2017, 03:20:13 pm
Maid of Ale?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 30 October, 2017, 04:09:39 pm
Titus Groan.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 30 October, 2017, 06:35:37 pm
Titus Groan.

Isn't that the noise an overstressed Brompton makes?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 30 October, 2017, 07:00:33 pm
Oi you, behave!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 30 October, 2017, 07:51:21 pm
Using a steam mop to defrost the freezer isn't any better than my usual method.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 30 October, 2017, 09:08:55 pm
I've only ever defrosted one freezer and that involved a hammer. And then a replacement freezer.

Frost-free, it's like a special kind of magic hated by polar bears.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 30 October, 2017, 09:10:58 pm
Using a steam mop to defrost the freezer isn't any better than my usual method.

Bowl of hot water in the bottom, wait 5 minutes, works remarkably well.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 30 October, 2017, 09:17:09 pm
Fan heater at close range.  With something to stand it on so it doesn't drown.  And an RCD, because I'm all about the health & safety.

By the time the room's up to the mid-20s, the ice is pretty much gone, and you can move in and clean up with a mop.


Or you can stab it to death and get a new freezer.  But that's why *I'm * in charge of defrosting the freezer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 30 October, 2017, 09:36:28 pm
I find myself irresistibly drawn to removing 'frost' accumulation about once a week.   It's such a cathartic job and keeping on top of it makes life easier methinks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 30 October, 2017, 10:00:16 pm
As long as the room temperature is above about 10 °C, lots of room temperature air is just as effective or better than a little bit of hot air, so an ordinary fan works very well, with Kim's suggestion of something to stand it on and an RCD.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 30 October, 2017, 10:06:15 pm
Seriously, are you lot living in a steampunk dark age of fuming grey kitchen goods? I didn't think 'frost-free' was an option these days. I've not had to defrost a freezer since that student incident with the hammer. The only ice that comes out of mine is square and goes into G&Ts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 30 October, 2017, 10:09:24 pm
Our freezer dates from when we were PSOs, and barakta murdered the last one.  At the time frost-free was new and expensive.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 30 October, 2017, 10:25:43 pm
Seriously, are you lot living in a steampunk dark age of fuming grey kitchen goods? I didn't think 'frost-free' was an option these days. I've not had to defrost a freezer since that student incident with the hammer. The only ice that comes out of mine is square and goes into G&Ts.
My wife managed to buy a new non-frost free one recently due to not reading the small print. I don't think it'll last as we will get fed up with it and get a frost-free one instead, making the current one less of a bargain than it first appeared.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Zipperhead on 30 October, 2017, 10:33:50 pm
I find myself irresistibly drawn to removing 'frost' accumulation about once a week.   It's such a cathartic job and keeping on top of it makes life easier methinks.

I'm wondering how my computer illiterate father has managed to take control of your account PB. He insists on cleaning (using a squeegee to remove any water and then a soft cloth to polish) their shower after every use.

I know that he's been retired for many years and therefore has fuck all to do, but there are limits.

Tell him to get his own computer but not to call me for support.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 30 October, 2017, 11:29:40 pm
Using a steam mop to defrost the freezer isn't any better than my usual method.

Bowl of hot water in the bottom, wait 5 minutes, works remarkably well.
Yes, that's what I usually do, but I thought I'd give the steam mop a try. But, this is the magic bit - once you have removed all the old ice (and washed and dried the freezer if you are that way inclined) rub a thick layer of glycerine over all the surfaces on which ice accumulates. Next time you defrost, the ice will all just drop off in big sheets/chunks and you won't need to hack away with a bread knife.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jaded on 31 October, 2017, 12:02:19 am
Using a steam mop to defrost the freezer isn't any better than my usual method.

Bowl of hot water in the bottom, wait 5 minutes, works remarkably well.

Quite possibly, but this micro-thread is about defrosting freezers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 31 October, 2017, 08:46:29 am
That the intermittent droning sound that has had me listening closely to my Windows box and keeping an eye on CoreTemp is actually a bloke up the road drilling holes in a wall.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 31 October, 2017, 09:52:34 am
Bowl of hot water in the bottom

Princess Diana used to swear by it, I understand.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 31 October, 2017, 09:56:06 am
I think I'd probably swear, too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 31 October, 2017, 02:02:50 pm
On Saturday I learnt that eBikes do actually have on/off switches for the lights. Some of them, anyway, but like BMW indicators they're rare in this neck of the woods.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 31 October, 2017, 02:33:33 pm
On Saturday I learnt that eBikes do actually have on/off switches for the lights. Some of them, anyway, but like BMW indicators they're rare in this neck of the woods.

Lots of ways that can work, depending on the system and lights involved, but why did you think they didn't?

Of course, with an ebike, the penalty for having your lights on is practically non-existent.  It's a vanishingly small amount of energy compared to the total capacity of the battery (which like any motor vehicle user, you'll have planned your journey around not running flat).  You're already going to recharge the battery, and it doesn't even create extra drag like a dynamo hub.  So if you're inclined towards thinking that daylight running lights are a good idea, there's no reason not to.


Data point: With Shimano STEPS (which is a newish high-end system, and relatively rare to spot in the wild, but it's one I happen to have read the manual for properly) the lights are controlled by a prominent button on the console, and optionally tied to the display backlight state.  This seems typical of well-integrated off the shelf ebikes.  A minor niggle is that they default to off (rather than the option of 'previous state') on boot-up.

Data point: On barakta's trike, which is a retrofitted kit, I've provided power for the existing dynamo lights (which have a sensor mode and switch on the front light in the usual manner) whenever the battery system is switched on.  Normally we leave them in sensor mode.  Potential gotcha is leaving the battery switched on when parking the bike (eg. at a pub), and the lights coming on at dusk.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 31 October, 2017, 09:11:23 pm
Using a steam mop to defrost the freezer isn't any better than my usual method.
A couple of plant sprays set to "jet" rather than "spray" full of hot water work well and as any fule kno you can pretend to zapping Treens with yore atomick death ray which makes the chore meer childs pla .  Grate fun.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 31 October, 2017, 09:51:51 pm
When we had the Liebherr freezer engineer round (our freezer was broke cos it was all frozen up, prolly cos the door had been left open) he was most explicit that it should be defrosted by leaving it open at room temp for 24 hours.
This was in a frost free freezer but he said it was because it would be all frozen up in the polystyrene insulation inside the back and would take that long for all that to thaw out properly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 31 October, 2017, 10:42:38 pm
When we had the Liebherr freezer engineer round (our freezer was broke cos it was all frozen up, prolly cos the door had been left open) he was most explicit that it should be defrosted by leaving it open at room temp for 24 hours.
This was in a frost free freezer but he said it was because it would be all frozen up in the polystyrene insulation inside the back and would take that long for all that to thaw out properly.
That sounds right. When frost-free freezers do fill with ice, due to malfunction or misuse, the ice forms in hard-to-reach places, so they are worse to defrost than normal freezers. However, defrosting should be extremely rare.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 November, 2017, 09:10:33 am
On Saturday I learnt that eBikes do actually have on/off switches for the lights. Some of them, anyway, but like BMW indicators they're rare in this neck of the woods.

Lots of ways that can work, depending on the system and lights involved, but why did you think they didn't?


Because almost every eBike I have seen on the road has had the lights on, even at midday in high summer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 01 November, 2017, 03:24:26 pm
That Bashar al-Assad's favourite band is the Electric Light Orchestra.  Yes, I've been watching HyperNormalisation!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 05 November, 2017, 08:05:16 pm
That Jonty Rhode is actually John Torode.  ???

I had never seen his name written before.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 06 November, 2017, 10:23:49 am
That giant walking machines are a thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2V8GFqk_Y (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2V8GFqk_Y)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 06 November, 2017, 10:59:01 am
I find myself irresistibly drawn to removing 'frost' accumulation about once a week.   It's such a cathartic job and keeping on top of it makes life easier methinks.

I'm wondering how my computer illiterate father has managed to take control of your account PB. He insists on cleaning (using a squeegee to remove any water and then a soft cloth to polish) their shower after every use.

I know that he's been retired for many years and therefore has fuck all to do, but there are limits.

Tell him to get his own computer but not to call me for support.
is he German?

Cleaning showers after every use is a German thing.

When I moved into this holiday apartment (now my long-term flat) there was a sign on the shower door saying please clean after every use. There is a rubber wiper blade thing you use to push the water down into the tray (like a window cleaner has). Of course, if the shower doors weren’t curved that would be a bit easier.

Anyway, I am so used to doing this now that it is almost impossible not to, even if I know my GerMan is showering straight afterwards.

When my GerMan moved in he said ‘we need shower cleaner spray’.  Fair enough, I thought, as after 3 years’ use there is a bit of limescale here and there. We bought some spray cleaner and it did a fab job, everything clean and sparkly.

Two weeks later, when discussing the shopping list, my GerMan said ‘we need more shower cleanner’. I asked how this is possible so soon - he explained that he uses it every day like a good German. I pointed out that this is adding chemicals to the water supply etc, and perhaps just once a week would be OK. He has agreed to this. This is most impressive for a German as they are so interested in cleaning and hygiene.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 06 November, 2017, 11:27:23 am
My wife is keen on cleaning the shower after every use but she's not German. I do use the window cleaner tool when I remember but that's not very often. We have extremely hard water round here so it does make a difference.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 November, 2017, 12:42:03 pm
I thought cleaning the shower after every use was a hard water thing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 November, 2017, 01:01:11 pm
My (German) former in-laws are the same as wot AH describes, including the rubber wiper gadget.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 06 November, 2017, 04:10:21 pm
I always make a point of showering first in the morning.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 06 November, 2017, 04:16:31 pm
That the castillian spanish verb coger - to take, grab - has a very different meaning in South American spanish, viz, in Shirley Valentine-ese, making fuck.

Who lives, may learn.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 06 November, 2017, 04:46:35 pm
I spray the inside of the cubical with 'daily shower spray' when I'm done. I'm a satisfied customer, there's no limescale or mildew as a result (other than some mank in the seal at the bottom of the door which needs replacing when I get around to ordering). I hate clungy showers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 07 November, 2017, 11:39:36 am
There is rather a good video on the tube regarding removing mould growth on sealant by the application of bleach whilst using rolled up loo paper to maintain the contact. You need to be persistent/patient but it works a treat and is very easy to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXDFPkMKef0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXDFPkMKef0)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 November, 2017, 12:12:08 pm
That Mounts Kosciuszko and Townsend in New South Wales had their names swapped in 1892. Kosciuszko was supposed to be the highest peak in Australia but more accurate measurements showed its neighbour was slightly higher, so they swapped the names to keep Kosciuszko the highest! And that the reason it's named after an 18th century Polish general (who also fought in the French and American revolutions) is not due to some lofty aspirations to liberation or that it was named by a homesick Polish explorer, it was simply reckoned to look similar to the "Kopciuszko Mound" in Krakow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 08 November, 2017, 10:29:50 am
That Google maps streetview lets you walk all about the inside of the British museum, it even has a lift between floors. Awesome (https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5198165,-0.128413,2a,75y,7.55h,85.44t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfe7CGu9_U76p2sSRUW2qyg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656), and perfect backdrop to boring conference calls
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 08 November, 2017, 11:06:20 am
Cat snot is almost impossible to remove from a laptop screen. Don't ask...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 09 November, 2017, 08:18:36 pm
Stringfellows the Board Game.

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/414ygkUeKGL._SX355_.jpg)

 :sick:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 10 November, 2017, 09:59:20 am
As an antidote: http://www.iellogames.com/Biblios.html.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 12 November, 2017, 08:02:15 pm
That some toucans have black and white beaks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 12 November, 2017, 08:28:02 pm
puffin's multicoloured beaks drop off after the mating season apparently.  Pretty drab otherwise
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 12 November, 2017, 10:17:12 pm
The meaning of the word metanoia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 12 November, 2017, 10:32:36 pm
I was wondering whether it was related to paranoia, and whether there is a definition for orthonoia. This shows a background in organic chemistry.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: noisycrank on 12 November, 2017, 10:33:17 pm
There are probably descendants of Strelka the space dog somewhere in the US
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171027-the-stray-dogs-that-paved-the-way-to-the-stars (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171027-the-stray-dogs-that-paved-the-way-to-the-stars)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 November, 2017, 10:58:44 pm
I was wondering whether it was related to paranoia, and whether there is a definition for orthonoia. This shows a background in organic chemistry.

  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 13 November, 2017, 08:06:16 am
That if I continue with this morning's plan and catch the early morning bus to Lampeter, I will be exactly 7 days early for my dental appointment.  Phew.  I had wondered why they hadn't sent the usual reminder SMS.
Oh well, the dog got a nice early walk.

This, I only discovered a few minutes ago.  Any later and this post would have had have gone into the 'fecking div' thread.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 13 November, 2017, 08:29:05 am
I was wondering whether it was related to paranoia, and whether there is a definition for orthonoia. This shows a background in organic chemistry.

Googling suggests you're not the first to get to this... :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 13 November, 2017, 11:23:55 am
Yesterday I learned the true meaning of insult added to injury. Getting a flat tyre. On the b*stard turbo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 November, 2017, 11:29:28 am
There are probably descendants of Strelka the space dog somewhere in the US
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171027-the-stray-dogs-that-paved-the-way-to-the-stars (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171027-the-stray-dogs-that-paved-the-way-to-the-stars)
I'd not heard of Strelka but oddly I do recognize the graffiti.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/%D0%91%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%A1%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BA%D0%B0_VizuIMG_3703.JPG/800px-%D0%91%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%A1%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BA%D0%B0_VizuIMG_3703.JPG)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 November, 2017, 02:46:44 pm
There is a village in the Lozère called St.-Pierre-des-Tripiers - St. Peter of the Tripe-Makers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2017, 04:03:42 pm
That Alaska and Louisiana are the only US states not divided into counties.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 November, 2017, 04:24:43 pm
Is Alaska parishes too, or something else?  Wapentakes would be amusing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 17 November, 2017, 04:30:55 pm
Mr Wikipedia says 'boroughs' (but they don't cover all of the state).
My thing I have learned today is that of all the communities in Alaska, only Anchorage is bigger than Yeovil!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2017, 05:00:56 pm
Unless you count in bears!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 17 November, 2017, 05:50:38 pm
Joey Essex, amiable thicko, was genuinely born with that nane.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 November, 2017, 07:56:32 pm
Mr Wikipedia says 'boroughs' (but they don't cover all of the state).
My thing I have learned today is that of all the communities in Alaska, only Anchorage is bigger than Yeovil!

Ely is bigger in population than the whole of the Shetlands
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 17 November, 2017, 08:03:38 pm
Yebbut Ely is only one family, really  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 November, 2017, 11:38:30 pm
Yebbut Ely is only one family, really  ;)

Two, I'm an incomer  :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 18 November, 2017, 12:39:12 am
That e raised to the power of i x pi +1 = 0.

How cool is that ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 November, 2017, 09:10:26 am
eee to the eye pie = -1 is the way we were taught it.  Like two pie over omega = cuppa tea.

Meanwhile, I have learnt that the tune used for reveille in the Highland Regiments is "Hey Johnnie Cope", he being the English commander who fled the Battle of Prestonpans and legged it to Berwick.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 19 November, 2017, 07:13:02 pm
That my mother's mother's mother's mother's father died as the result of an RTA (in 1838)(https://i.imgur.com/WaHJmrO.jpg)

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 November, 2017, 09:55:19 am
That's quite a trot - about 25 miles? - for an open carriage late at night.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 20 November, 2017, 10:05:43 am
'The gig came into contact with the wall of a house'
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 November, 2017, 10:34:48 am
Depending on relative social status, that might have read either "crashed into" or "was attacked by".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 20 November, 2017, 11:07:29 am
Yesterday I learned that the version of "I dreamed a dream" from Les Miserables that Mr Fimm plays off Spotify now and then is not from the Original Cast Recording or somesuch as I had assumed, but is, in fact, Susan Boyle.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 20 November, 2017, 01:04:28 pm
Couldn't you tell by the complete disregard for the time signature that it wasn't by a competent singer? (Says he who sings a bit like Jeremy Hardy, but at least I'm in time.)

This (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdPL9bXKOjE) gets on my nerves more than anything in the known universe.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 20 November, 2017, 01:20:54 pm
Actually, I'm a complete cynic when comes to "pop" (in the broadest possible sense of the word) singers, being a listener to classical music myself (though not much opera, I admit) and quite frankly from the small amount of listening I've done Susan Boyle is a competent singer of what she sings and knows what she's doing with her voice.
Which is not what I expected.
As I said, I thought the track was from the original cast recording or similar.

In terms of being in time, I guess one person's "appropriate and sensitive rubato" is another's "complete disregard for the time signature"...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 20 November, 2017, 02:56:41 pm
That's quite a trot - about 25 miles? - for an open carriage late at night.

That's what I thought. The coach service he operated between Glasgow and Edinburgh was advertised as taking 4½ hours each way.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 20 November, 2017, 06:04:03 pm
Yesterday I learned that the version of "I dreamed a dream" from Les Miserables that Mr Fimm plays off Spotify now and then is not from the Original Cast Recording or somesuch as I had assumed, but is, in fact, Susan Boyle.
As if the divorce courts aren't busy enough around Christmas.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 November, 2017, 07:02:36 pm
That the Mark IV tank came in male and female versions.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 20 November, 2017, 07:53:28 pm
That the Workmate was designed by the same person who designed the Lotus Elan, Ron Hickman (http://madeupinbritain.uk/Workmate)

I have just replaced the feet on mine. Why mention that? Well, it is an original workmate in perfect condition, scored off Freecycle from someone about 20 doors down my own road! Apparently it was "dad's" (he's in his 60s) and had been sitting open, unused for loadsayears. Some penetrating oil then light oil on the hinges and it's as good as new, now the perished feet have been replaced.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 20 November, 2017, 08:02:39 pm
My Workmate was somewhat ruined when my former f-i-l managed to saw partway through it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 20 November, 2017, 08:35:47 pm
I have a cheap Wilko clone which is made of cheese, and subsequently a) wonky  b) slightly broken.  It survived about 1.5 major woodworking projects.

I expect today's proper ones are made of a better grade of cheese.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 20 November, 2017, 09:49:03 pm
That the Workmate was designed by the same person who designed the Lotus Elan, Ron Hickman (http://madeupinbritain.uk/Workmate)

I have just replaced the feet on mine. Why mention that? Well, it is an original workmate in perfect condition, scored off Freecycle from someone about 20 doors down my own road! Apparently it was "dad's" (he's in his 60s) and had been sitting open, unused for loadsayears. Some penetrating oil then light oil on the hinges and it's as good as new, now the perished feet have been replaced.
I read that and wondered why your Lotus Elan had feet in the first place, never mind why you replaced them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 20 November, 2017, 10:15:39 pm
Sapient plywood
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 November, 2017, 08:51:16 am
That the Workmate was designed by the same person who designed the Lotus Elan, Ron Hickman (http://madeupinbritain.uk/Workmate)

I have just replaced the feet on mine. Why mention that? Well, it is an original workmate in perfect condition, scored off Freecycle from someone about 20 doors down my own road! Apparently it was "dad's" (he's in his 60s) and had been sitting open, unused for loadsayears. Some penetrating oil then light oil on the hinges and it's as good as new, now the perished feet have been replaced.

I have one and still use it.  Apart from some minor damage to the solid beech bars it's in good condition.  Hickman is pictured with the version B&D produced when they took over the Workmate company, rather than the real original model.

Funny... these days it's a lot heavier than it used to be. :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 November, 2017, 08:58:41 am
That the temperature today is about 137 degrees. On the Delisle scale.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 22 November, 2017, 01:33:55 am
Pah! In Kelvin it's nearly 290o . . .

 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 22 November, 2017, 08:56:46 am
513 Rankine outside today.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 November, 2017, 12:07:17 pm
What's that in Gas Marks?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 22 November, 2017, 12:11:18 pm
That the Workmate was designed by the same person who designed the Lotus Elan, Ron Hickman (http://madeupinbritain.uk/Workmate)

I have just replaced the feet on mine. Why mention that? Well, it is an original workmate in perfect condition, scored off Freecycle from someone about 20 doors down my own road! Apparently it was "dad's" (he's in his 60s) and had been sitting open, unused for loadsayears. Some penetrating oil then light oil on the hinges and it's as good as new, now the perished feet have been replaced.

I have one and still use it.  Apart from some minor damage to the solid beech bars it's in good condition.  Hickman is pictured with the version B&D produced when they took over the Workmate company, rather than the real original model.

Funny... these days it's a lot heavier than it used to be. :(

Have you seen the prices as they are now collectable!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 22 November, 2017, 12:11:59 pm
What's that in Gas Marks?

Areas the size of Wales?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 November, 2017, 01:02:14 pm
That the Workmate was designed by the same person who designed the Lotus Elan, Ron Hickman (http://madeupinbritain.uk/Workmate)

I have just replaced the feet on mine. Why mention that? Well, it is an original workmate in perfect condition, scored off Freecycle from someone about 20 doors down my own road! Apparently it was "dad's" (he's in his 60s) and had been sitting open, unused for loadsayears. Some penetrating oil then light oil on the hinges and it's as good as new, now the perished feet have been replaced.

I have one and still use it.  Apart from some minor damage to the solid beech bars it's in good condition.  Hickman is pictured with the version B&D produced when they took over the Workmate company, rather than the real original model.

Funny... these days it's a lot heavier than it used to be. :(

Have you seen the prices as they are now collectable!

£180 on eBay.  I'd rather keep it.  I have three normal-height benches in the workshop, but sometimes I need something lower.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 22 November, 2017, 01:11:16 pm
FTR, mine's a B&D (that with the cast ally frame) not an original original.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nikki on 01 December, 2017, 07:46:29 pm
The council's SPD Review is not as relevant to my interests as I had hoped.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 December, 2017, 01:00:56 pm
Mazda perfume is a thing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 December, 2017, 01:26:32 pm
^^^ The word already existed before the car company usurped it:

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

Why not indeed? There's a Christ carwash not far from here.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 December, 2017, 03:12:01 pm
I'm afraid this actually is perfume produced by the car company, inspired by its Kodo design language*.  Only in Japan.

*basically means everything has to look a bit like a crouching panther.  Really.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 December, 2017, 08:24:31 am
Whatever the market will bear.  The Japanese also marketed the Toyota MR2 in France, where MR2 is pronounced shitty.

NEway, me own serendipitous discovery of the day - based on the solid electronic premise that if the plugs fit, bang on regardless -  is that a set of Logitech computer speakers hooked up to the amp/phones output socket of a G1Xon pedal replaces a practice amp very nicely. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 04 December, 2017, 08:47:39 am
Whatever the market will bear.  The Japanese also marketed the Toyota MR2 in France, where MR2 is pronounced shitty.


....but then Audi have long marketed a premium sportscar in the UK that advertises the owner as a titty.

(Although to be fair the French primarily in the shape of Citroen have previous with phonetic alphabetisation (?) of car names - ID, DS etc. For the benefit of non-francophones, "ID" is spoken as the word for "Idea" and "DS" as "Goddess" - there are more)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 December, 2017, 09:32:39 am
Whatever the market will bear. 
Bear perfume? Now that might be a more... select market.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 December, 2017, 09:32:54 am
Whatever the market will bear.  The Japanese also marketed the Toyota MR2 in France, where MR2 is pronounced shitty.


....but then Audi have long marketed a premium sportscar in the UK that advertises the owner as a titty.

(Although to be fair the French primarily in the shape of Citroen have previous with phonetic alphabetisation (?) of car names - ID, DS etc. For the benefit of non-francophones, "ID" is spoken as the word for "Idea" and "DS" as "Goddess" - there are more)
Renault Clio?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 04 December, 2017, 09:46:05 am
Whatever the market will bear.  The Japanese also marketed the Toyota MR2 in France, where MR2 is pronounced shitty.


....but then Audi have long marketed a premium sportscar in the UK that advertises the owner as a titty.

(Although to be fair the French primarily in the shape of Citroen have previous with phonetic alphabetisation (?) of car names - ID, DS etc. For the benefit of non-francophones, "ID" is spoken as the word for "Idea" and "DS" as "Goddess" - there are more)
Renault Clio?

You're just musing now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 December, 2017, 10:45:54 am
Whatever the market will bear.  The Japanese also marketed the Toyota MR2 in France, where MR2 is pronounced shitty.


....but then Audi have long marketed a premium sportscar in the UK that advertises the owner as a titty.

Like the Isle of Man Titty?

Quote
(Although to be fair the French primarily in the shape of Citroen have previous with phonetic alphabetisation (?) of car names - ID, DS etc. For the benefit of non-francophones, "ID" is spoken as the word for "Idea" and "DS" as "Goddess" - there are more)

Aye, but that was deliberate.  But I don't know what idiot christened a Citroën(?) van "Jumpy".  In French, though, a car which is "nerveux" is one that accelerates and handles well, so I can imagine some marketing twat who speaks good the English turning that into Jumpy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 December, 2017, 05:40:26 pm
Nothing, not even the Mitsubishi Pajero1, tops the Mazda Bongo Friendee in the Daft Car Names stakes.

1: "wanker" in Spaignish
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 08 December, 2017, 08:39:58 pm
Today I learned of The Ray Cat Solution (http://www.theraycatsolution.com/).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 December, 2017, 01:30:05 pm
D'Artagnan really existed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Batz_de_Castelmore_d'Artagnan
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 09 December, 2017, 11:51:08 pm
Mazda perfume is a thing.

There's a perfume for men called Creed, and it costs £625.00 a bottle.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 10 December, 2017, 12:49:59 am
Mazda perfume is a thing.

There's a perfume for men called Creed, and it costs £625.00 a bottle.
Is that the same stuff they sell for lubricating Rohloffs?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 10 December, 2017, 11:13:28 am
Mazda perfume is a thing.

There's a perfume for men called Creed, and it costs £625.00 a bottle.

Should be called Scrood  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 10 December, 2017, 11:27:30 am
Some cyclists are still game despite several inches of snow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 December, 2017, 02:01:01 pm
Kid from next door has been defying the fracture clinic since lunchtime.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 14 December, 2017, 01:41:03 pm
Audrey Hepburn was Belgian.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 14 December, 2017, 08:34:48 pm
At the wife's request, found out how to take out an Aussie SIM card from her new smartphone (she bought an unlocked smartphone when over in Oz recently) and put in her UK one, without the proper tool (thanks Google). On her expressing incredulity that I'd been able to do it, and then asking how I did it, I explained that there was a special tool for it but she hadn't got one, but I'd found a workaround.  "Oh, that's what that little screwdriver thing is that fell out of my bag.  I did wonder......"

(Goes up in wife's estimation...)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 14 December, 2017, 10:24:11 pm
Today I learned that I met someone who had met Hitler, Mussolini and Kim Philby, amongst others.  :o

I also learned that she died, in her 90s, last year. Amazing woman.

Rozanne Colchester (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rozanne_Colchester)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 December, 2017, 09:33:07 am
The Crow Road was bombed in 1940.

I'm trying to find out why I can't find any trace of my mum in Scottish records. She was born in Partick in 1907, and her birth certificate bears the name of the Registrar for that district as given in the 1907 Post Office Directory. Glasgow got a pasting during WW2, and I reckon the Partick Records Office was probably destroyed.  During one raid bombs fell in Partick on Peel Rd., Hayburn Rd. and Crow Rd.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 22 December, 2017, 07:42:32 am
That song about being afraid to catch fish? It isn't https://www.buzzfeed.com/christianzamora/dont-be-afraid-to-catch-fish

I had wondered. Every day's a school day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 December, 2017, 09:04:32 am
^^^Nice bit in The Tin Drum about catching eels, though.

---o0o---

Meanwhile, I have learnt that plastic guitar picks make quite interesting tiddlywinks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 December, 2017, 09:14:38 am
^^^Nice bit in The Tin Drum about catching eels, though.

---o0o---

Meanwhile, I have learnt that plastic guitar picks make quite interesting tiddlywinks.

And vice versa?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 23 December, 2017, 02:23:35 pm
That the Scots mile is different to the Statute mile. I wonder if the relevant motoring legislation specifies statue miles?
Statute mile = 1760 yds, Scots mile = 1984 yds, so when chaps int he highlands say 'it's just a mile down the road# and it appears abotu 10% further..
Don't get caught out in Austria though, the Austrian mile is 8296 yds, the longest in Europe. The Spanish mile is 5028 yds, and the roman mile 5000 feet.
The Irish mile is 2240 yds, almost a third of a statute mile longer than a statute mile.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 December, 2017, 03:52:25 pm
On a similar theme, I learned from my sister's sat nav (I think it was actually on her phone) that Usanian directions use miles and feet. "In one thousand feet, turn left." Though they use yards in sport.

I'm also wondering if, given the miles are different, Scottish feet and yards are the same as Statute?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 December, 2017, 05:14:21 pm
On a similar theme, I learned from my sister's sat nav (I think it was actually on her phone) that Usanian directions use miles and feet. "In one thousand feet, turn left."

Fucksake, if they can do that then there's even less excuse for not having a "miles and metres" mode for Brits under the age of about 40.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 23 December, 2017, 06:10:24 pm
I learned that nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
Was acting as family chauffeur to take various members to the pantomime at the Alambrha in Bradford and used the occasion to wander around places of my fomative yoofhood when I was an apprentice in the city in 1978. I’ve not been back since 1990 and after today, I won’t be back for another 27 years. It’s quite sad really.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 23 December, 2017, 06:15:39 pm
Quote from: Kim

Fucksake, if they can do that then there's even less excuse for not having a "miles and metres" mode for Brits under the age of about 40.
There’s some off us over 40 (by quite a bit in my case) who think in miles and meters. I suspect that there’s actually quite a lot of us. I started my school career in feet and inches but meters were well established by the time I finished. Strangely I was thinking about this today.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 December, 2017, 06:57:49 pm
Surely for purposes like driving, metres and yards are interchangeable. I'd expect other direction systems do give miles and yards, it's just my sister for some reason has one that is Usanian (at least she said it was, the voice sounded British to me).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 23 December, 2017, 07:49:32 pm
Surely feet are easy, just yards X three?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 27 December, 2017, 01:56:47 pm
We use Mrs Google for navigation.

Butterfly uses imperial; I use metric.

Same for bike ride logging, now I think about it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 December, 2017, 06:26:59 pm
Surely feet are easy, just yards X three?
That's an extra layer of brain work. Not everyone's brain likes to do mental arithmetic, distinguish left from right and relate spoken instructions to the layout they see (or don't yet see but will in a thousand feet), all while watching the traffic etc.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 07 January, 2018, 08:08:09 am
I knew that modern petrol cars had gone away from having a single coil and distributor, to having individual coils.

What I learned today was that Model T Fords had individual coils.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 08 January, 2018, 09:17:46 am
New words this week:

Outtoeing
Seminavalised
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 January, 2018, 10:53:32 am
Wondered how the seminal might end up in a valise until Google enlightened me.  Good argument for -ize, that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 08 January, 2018, 02:41:42 pm
Both took me a while to get a handle on.

The other word I've just remembered, which I learned yesterday (perversely enough while looking up Rowan Atkinson - probably Wikipedia, and a quote from Alan Clark) was:

Chetif

There is an acute accent over the e, but I can't remember how to do that on a PC.  Perhaps I should have posted this from my phone... :/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 January, 2018, 06:58:41 pm
Alt-0233.  It's the only one I can remember ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 January, 2018, 07:03:59 pm
Someone must have written a wossname to give Windows users a compose key by now?  That's the great thing about Windows - someone somewhere has usually written a utility that can bodge around any particular shortcoming...


<compose><'><e> is dead easy to remember.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 09 January, 2018, 11:51:39 am
Found out just now that I am either isolated or hated in this open plan office (I think the former btw). I've just had a nosebleed which incapacitated me for 20 minutes or so and no one noticed!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 January, 2018, 12:33:09 pm
Someone must have written a wossname to give Windows users a compose key by now?  That's the great thing about Windows - someone somewhere has usually written a utility that can bodge around any particular shortcoming...


<compose><'><e> is dead easy to remember.

In Mac-land you just hold the e key and et voilà I'm typing en Français dans le café. Of course that makes typing eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee more difficult.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 January, 2018, 01:39:05 pm
Someone must have written a wossname to give Windows users a compose key by now?  That's the great thing about Windows - someone somewhere has usually written a utility that can bodge around any particular shortcoming...


<compose><'><e> is dead easy to remember.

If they did it'd probably involve using a key wot, in my case, you have not got :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 09 January, 2018, 01:44:44 pm
They call it springing the ease
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 09 January, 2018, 01:51:21 pm

If they did it'd probably involve using a key wot, in my case, you have not got :demon:
I had fun with one of those 'your computer has got a virus' calls. I followed his instructions (at least I told him I did) until he told me to hit any key and I proudly proclaimed not to have an any key. I kept this up for 5 minutes or more asking him where it was on the keyboard as I couldn't find it. He got most abusive until he eventually gave up and cut the call  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 January, 2018, 02:38:44 pm
Someone must have written a wossname to give Windows users a compose key by now?  That's the great thing about Windows - someone somewhere has usually written a utility that can bodge around any particular shortcoming...


<compose><'><e> is dead easy to remember.

If they did it'd probably involve using a key wot, in my case, you have not got :demon:

Yeah, but there's going to be a utility to bodge around that, too.

Meanwhile, in *nix-land, I have re-mapped my capslock key to compose (with capslock activated by pressing both shift keys simultaneously).  This not only makes it reasonably straightforward to type en Français dans le café, but as an added bonus means that you're unlikely to CCIDENTALLY END UP TYPING LIKE YOU COULD MURDER A CURRY.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 09 January, 2018, 06:48:01 pm
They call it springing the ease

Tee, and what is more, hee.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 09 January, 2018, 06:55:32 pm

Quote
They call it springing the ease

TYPING LIKE YOU COULD MURDER A CURRY.

When you know you're among friends.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 January, 2018, 06:57:21 pm
Someone must have written a wossname to give Windows users a compose key by now?  That's the great thing about Windows - someone somewhere has usually written a utility that can bodge around any particular shortcoming...


<compose><'><e> is dead easy to remember.

Wikinaccurate claims there are a Several of such utilities.  I feel some experimentation coming on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 10 January, 2018, 01:09:04 am
That the Big S's 'directional' chains (Ultegra level and above) really do only work properly in the correct orientation.

A customer brought a carbon Felt in today for a service and mentioned that it was slipping in high pressure situations, hard acceleration, climbing etc.

I checked the gearchange on the stand and the chain sounded (and felt) horrible. With the exception of a carbon FSA chainset the bike is 7900 DuraAce throughout. Checked for bent/missing teeth, checked the chainwear - expecting to have to give him the bad news - but the chain wear guage barely fitted. Something didn't look quite right and I looked at the other side of the chain. It was fitted inside out. Flipped it the right way round and suddenly the gears worked correctly. Who knew?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 11 January, 2018, 07:25:24 pm
That my great-great grandfather's sister's brother-in-law spent 3 years in the army, partly in India, but was discharged due to "severe chronic dysentry" and "deficiency of intellect" and spent much of the next 4 years in hospital.  He was twice charged with stealing horses from his father, (one day imprisonment the first time, father didn't press charges the second time), but for stealing 16 fowls he was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment, which was served at Dartmoor Prison. Soon after his release he died in the workhouse.

It sounds grim but at least unlike the rest of his family he got to get out of Norfolk. Twice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuaran on 11 January, 2018, 08:29:50 pm
There is an acute accent over the e, but I can't remember how to do that on a PC.  Perhaps I should have posted this from my phone... :/
AltGr + E gives you é (e with acute).

` + E gives you è (e with grave), if you are using the "United Kingdom Extended" keyboard layout.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 12 January, 2018, 11:57:56 am
American light switches go the opposite way to ours. WTF?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 January, 2018, 12:11:12 pm
Not all of ours go the same way either.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 12 January, 2018, 12:27:25 pm
American light switches go the opposite way to ours. WTF?

You mean that they have been fitting them upside down all these years?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 January, 2018, 03:18:54 pm
American light switches go the opposite way to ours. WTF?

Fairly sure it's our light switches that go the wrong way.  In as much as there's a global convention, it seems to be up for on (down for on seems to be mostly a Commonwealth thing).  That's also how circuit breakers[1] and things do it.  Always assumed this was a throwback to the days of knife switches, where the down position for 'off' is fail-safe.

I hear that some countries like to mount switches sideways.  Japan maybe?


The vertical arrangement of leftpondian mains sockets is properly perverse.  What makes that seem like a good idea?


[1] Which leftpondians like to mount sideways, presumably to make the layout of their centre-tapped-single-phase fuseboxes more sensible.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 January, 2018, 03:27:12 pm
Not all of ours go the same way either.

Only when there are multiple switches on a circuit.  I've never met a simple UK light switch that was permanently down for off.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 12 January, 2018, 03:54:39 pm
Producing a set of PowerPoint slides for a BIG cheese is stressful. Is it all true? I've I explained enough? Is there too much info? Will it prompt awkward questions? etc.

Never mind, the weekend is nearly here
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 January, 2018, 04:07:32 pm
Not all of ours go the same way either.

Only when there are multiple switches on a circuit.  I've never met a simple UK light switch that was permanently down for off.
You weren't alive in the 1970s.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 January, 2018, 04:12:11 pm
Not all of ours go the same way either.

Only when there are multiple switches on a circuit.  I've never met a simple UK light switch that was permanently down for off.
You weren't alive in the 1970s.

I was, but I was too small to reach the light switch.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 12 January, 2018, 07:00:41 pm
Capt. Robert F Scott took a volume of Gullivers travels to the Antarctic on his ill-fated expedition. That volume had been gifted to him by Capt Markham who had taken it to the Arctic on a previous expedition. It was probably the most travelled satirical work for 100 years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nikki on 12 January, 2018, 08:12:52 pm
Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea:
https://qz.com/1176962/map-how-the-word-tea-spread-over-land-and-sea-to-conquer-the-world/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 12 January, 2018, 10:46:01 pm
Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea:
https://qz.com/1176962/map-how-the-word-tea-spread-over-land-and-sea-to-conquer-the-world/

That is really interesting, thank you!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 January, 2018, 08:49:49 am
You can power a GIXon pedal from the USB port of a computer but it still drains the batteries. :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 13 January, 2018, 09:01:58 am
South Americans drink 'mate' an infusion made from leaves of 'yerba', a member of the holly family.  It provides caffeine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 January, 2018, 10:00:02 am
'Yerba' just means 'herb' - San Francisco's original name was Yerba Buena, meaning 'good grass'. Kinda prophetic, that.

Never tried yerba mate. Must give it a go.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 13 January, 2018, 10:25:18 am
<Round The Horne>

KW: I'm 'ere! Be'ind this clump of yerba...

KH: SMITH!

DS: It means graarsss!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2018, 06:48:22 pm
And Polish for tea is herbata, which is just herba ta, the herb tea, using Latin for herb cos originally it was sold in pharmacies. Or apothecaries even.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2018, 07:27:39 pm
Today I learned that Post Office uniform includes Royal Mail branded shoes. Pretty comfortable, apparently; at least for the postie I know.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Aunt Maud on 13 January, 2018, 08:27:09 pm
My mums' postie said he gets paid by the minute.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 January, 2018, 09:04:35 am
That there are almost twice as many public libraries in relation to population in the Czech Republic as in France and Germany has barely a tenth as many (592, 250 and 62 per million respectively) but that 28% of Czechs "have never read a book" compared to 27% in France and 21% in Germany (and only 9% in Sweden), according to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 15 January, 2018, 09:31:58 am
28% of Czechs "have never read a book" compared to 27% in France and 21% in Germany (and only 9% in Sweden),
Never read a book? How does that work then. I'm having serious problems with this statement. Really.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 January, 2018, 10:26:27 am
Yeah, that's why I put it in quotes. I guess it probably means have never borrowed a book from a public library.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 15 January, 2018, 01:05:03 pm
Simon in Claire in the Community is played by Andrew Wincott, a close friend of who also plays Adam Macy in The Archers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nutbeem on 15 January, 2018, 11:16:14 pm
28% of Czechs "have never read a book" compared to 27% in France and 21% in Germany (and only 9% in Sweden),
Never read a book? How does that work then. I'm having serious problems with this statement. Really.

I could easily belive those figures and suspect the UK would be similar. The average reading age in the UK is 9 years old and 10% of the adult population have a reading age below 10 years old.

As most people will have done some sort of book reading in the school years I think the more accurate definition would be that these 21-28% of people have never voluntarily picked up a book (fiction or non-fiction) and read it from cover to cover for the sake reading.

The growth of Television and the internet will probably only serve to increase this figure.

As an aside often when someone mentions a film they have watched I will ask if they've read the book and the answer is invariably no. I find this really sad as the book will nearly always take the story to a whole new level that film can never achieve.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 January, 2018, 12:34:24 am
As an aside often when someone mentions a film they have watched I will ask if they've read the book and the answer is invariably no.

For most people watching a film is an order of magnitude less of a time commitment than reading a book.  It's much easier to see a lot more of them.  And some films are actually good (and many of them aren't based on books).

Plus watching films is often a social activity, while reading books usually isn't.  This tends to lead to different priorities.


Quote
I find this really sad as the book will nearly always take the story to a whole new level that film can never achieve.

That's why seeing the film first is the good way round.  Less disappointing that way.

It's also, for some people, a gateway to reading.  If you enjoy a film that was based on a book, chances are high that you'll get even more out of the original novel, or that you'll enjoy other works by the same author.  That can be important if you find reading difficult (or just plain slow).  My brother was a very reluctant reader (I suspect he's mildly dyslexic), until after watching The Eagle Has Landed (he was a WW2 buff at a formative age) my mum pointed out that there were a several of Jack Higgins books on one of the shelves upstairs.  I'm sure Harry Potter has done similar for the current generation of reluctant readers.


I think we're still some way away from the Internet having a negative effect on literacy (indeed, I can think of a couple of adults I know for whom it's had an extremely positive effect).  While video proliferates, it's still fundamentally a text-based medium.  I'll also suggest that there's a lot more to reading than novels.  For a long time I didn't have the attention span for reading fiction, but I would spend many hours a day reading everything from realtime chat, through random bollocks on newsgroups, intelligent blog posts about all manner of subjects, textbooks, technical references, scientific papers and random wiksand.  It's all good.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 16 January, 2018, 08:51:15 am
I have to say that that one of my proudest parental achievements is my children's love of books and theatre.

They've always had free access to books and weekly trips to the library. A trip into town nearly always included a visit to a book shop and it is an impossibility for me to enter a bookshop and not make a purchase. With three children and the a wife in tow that always meant 4 or 5 books.

Indeed on a recent trip to Stratford upon Avon to buy my eldest a wedding dress (££££) we still found time to pop into a book shop and I ended up buying both the girls a copy of Dust (the new Philip Pulman) and their 23 and 29! The boy wasn't there but didn't miss though as less recent trip into THAT LONDON to meet him and is partner resulted in a bookshop visit and the purchase of books for both of them. They both have firsts in English Literature so are officially well read and STILL love reading.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 January, 2018, 09:09:54 am
I very rarely buy new books. That's what libraries and charity bookshops are for. But there are some stories which are so bound up with an iconic film it's hard to imagine reading the book. For instance, the Wizard of Oz.

Anyway, here's a new Thing I Have Learned: that the opium poppy is a vegetable. Its leaves were eaten as a salad and its oil highly valued for cooking in 19th century China (and presumably elsewhere and maybe still). Also that 19th c. Chinese used "horse racer" as a term of abuse to Westerners, which puts jibes about eating dogs into context.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: numbnuts on 16 January, 2018, 09:57:11 am
No matter how many times you help a person, one upset they will stab you in the back.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 16 January, 2018, 10:35:15 am
No matter how many times you help a person, one upset they will stab you in the back.

Trust me, it's even worse with unicorns.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 January, 2018, 02:28:59 pm
Back to the books and literacy for a second, Bloom & Curll (http://forbookssake.net/2010/08/20/battle-of-the-bookshops-bloom-curll-in-bristol/) is a s/h bookshop in Bristol which I happened to walk past today on my way back from somewhere less interesting. Outside the window they had a tray of books not good enough to sell, not bad enough to pulp; free, please take. And one caught my eye. I'll quote the back cover:
Quote
What is literacy? And why do we value it? Until two centuries ago, to be literate meant being rich enough to have leisure to learn to read and to acquire books. This traditional view of literacy has been changed not only by universal and compulsory school attendance – where reading and writing are still regarded as vital skills – but by the developments in micro technology which meant that children today are more familiar with the workings of the computer than the construction of the sentence.
So perhaps that's something I could learn today if I could be bothered to read the book!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: arabella on 16 January, 2018, 03:00:50 pm
Indeed.  And before printing most people rarely saw a book (I assume church bibles might have been the exception).
Reading used to be an intellectual activity rather than a pass-time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 January, 2018, 03:03:49 pm
I assume that was either written in the 80s, or the author is a pillock.  Possibly both.

Kids today are up to their necks in grammar, and - with the usual exceptions - are about as familiar with the workings of the microcomputer as our generation was with the workings of the television.  Indeed, I'd suggest a fairly high level of literacy (as well as some knowledge of mathematics) is a prerequisite for understanding either.

The point about literacy being an indicator of privilege is still bang on, of course.  Technological progress means that significant wealth is no longer required to access books, and people have more leisure time, but reading to your children remains a middle class value.

Perhaps the internet will develop in such a way that more people are able to access knowledge without requiring high levels of literacy.  On balance, I think that's a good thing.  Maybe the revolution of online video for sign language users is a model of things to come.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 January, 2018, 03:10:38 pm
I assume that was either written in the 80s, or the author is a pillock.  Possibly both.
Copyright date is 1991. I've only read the back cover so can't comment... But I expect "the workings of the computer" is as likely to mean how to use one as how one works.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tod28 on 16 January, 2018, 07:57:09 pm
The average reading age in the UK is 9 years old and 10% of the adult population have a reading age below 10 years old.

Whilst the thread is currently debating literacy levels, this is not numerate!

Either statement could well be true but not both at the same time!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 16 January, 2018, 08:09:18 pm
The average reading age in the UK is 9 years old and 10% of the adult population have a reading age below 10 years old.

Whilst the thread is currently debating literacy levels, this is not numerate!

Either statement could well be true but not both at the same time!

What percentage of the UK population is aged 0 - 9?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 16 January, 2018, 08:21:30 pm
I think you need to factor in the skew towards the lower end caused by UKIP voters.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 January, 2018, 09:54:02 pm
Whenever I am let off the leash on a family trip to Cambridge, or have some spare left over cash in foreign, I tend to head for a bookshop, either second hand or new. As a consequence I have a bookshelf full of stuff that is interesting but I'm yet to read.  Ray Mears is currently exercising my second hand searches having watched him on TV for years.

As for film adaptations of books, only two good ones spring to mind, Day of the Jackal, and The Hunt For Red October
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 18 January, 2018, 07:34:49 pm
That dorky game recycling retailer CEX is pronounced 'sex".  Ironic, since none of its customers will know much about that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 January, 2018, 07:41:55 pm
I've always pronounced it "computer exchange".  Been a while since I was a PSO scrounging for second-hand SIMMs, though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 18 January, 2018, 07:48:43 pm
As for film adaptations of books, only two good ones spring to mind, Day of the Jackal, and The Hunt For Red October

Perhaps worthy of a thread of its own... 

I’d suggest Catch 22 and The taking of Pelham 123. And maybe From here to Eternity.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pickled Onion on 18 January, 2018, 08:53:06 pm
Back on the book thing, apparently 20% of people cannot name a single author. It sounds like a made-up statistic, but it was covered on More Or Less last week and the survey was sound.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 January, 2018, 08:56:16 pm
Back on the book thing, apparently 20% of people cannot name a single author. It sounds like a made-up statistic, but it was covered on More Or Less last week and the survey was sound.

I bet the number who can't name a TV/film director is higher.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 18 January, 2018, 09:59:15 pm
About this Japanese safety technique: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 19 January, 2018, 01:09:28 pm
As for film adaptations of books, only two good ones spring to mind, Day of the Jackal, and The Hunt For Red October

Perhaps worthy of a thread of its own... 

I’d suggest Catch 22 and The taking of Pelham 123. And maybe From here to Eternity.

The Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, and A Time To Kill are all worthy adaptations.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 19 January, 2018, 01:34:44 pm
Dune is NOT a worthy adaptation, nor for that matter is the Hobbit trilogy of films
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 19 January, 2018, 02:53:03 pm
Dune at least has its place alongside Labyrinth in the collection of silly films featuring 80s pop stars.

Hobbits are terrible, whatever the medium.

I'd like to nominate The Andromeda Strain as an excellent film adaptation.  The source material naturally lends itself to 1970s pacing and cinematography (for which I have something of a soft spot).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 19 January, 2018, 02:56:01 pm
Back on the book thing, apparently 20% of people cannot name a single author. It sounds like a made-up statistic, but it was covered on More Or Less last week and the survey was sound.

I bet the number who can't name a TV/film director is higher.

This is all good and shows a sense of what is important!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 19 January, 2018, 03:26:05 pm
Get Shorty is one where the film is at least as good as the book, which is good in its own right.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 19 January, 2018, 03:55:51 pm
As for film adaptations of books, only two good ones spring to mind, Day of the Jackal, and The Hunt For Red October

Perhaps worthy of a thread of its own... 

I’d suggest Catch 22 and The taking of Pelham 123. And maybe From here to Eternity.

The Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, and A Time To Kill are all worthy adaptations.

My Side of the Mountain is good.

Guns from Navarone messed with the story but got the tone right. So did Where Eagles Dare

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 January, 2018, 04:17:33 pm
Dune at least has its place alongside Labyrinth in the collection of silly films featuring 80s pop stars.

Hobbits are terrible, whatever the medium.

I'd like to nominate The Andromeda Strain as an excellent film adaptation.  The source material naturally lends itself to 1970s pacing and cinematography (for which I have something of a soft spot).

I enjoyed the book too, but Michael Crichton did violence to biology when he had every single bacterium of a species mutate at once*. He was never one to let science stand in the way of a cop-out, though, which suited him admirably for becoming Science Advisor to Dubya.

The Admirable Crichton, OTOH, was rather good.

* several other authors used the same wrinkle, one of them being Kit Pedler, who certainly knew better, with his Mutant 59: the Plastic Eater.  Wonderful bloke, foreseeing dodgy ATMs like that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 19 January, 2018, 04:50:06 pm
Dune at least has its place alongside Labyrinth in the collection of silly films featuring 80s pop stars.

Hobbits are terrible, whatever the medium.

I'd like to nominate The Andromeda Strain as an excellent film adaptation.  The source material naturally lends itself to 1970s pacing and cinematography (for which I have something of a soft spot).

I enjoyed the book too, but Michael Crichton did violence to biology when he had every single bacterium of a species mutate at once*.

Andromeda isn't a bacterium though.  That's made abundantly clear.  It's a mysterious crystalline organism that feeds on electromagnetic energy, and lacks the structures of terrestrial organisms.  Once you've suspended that much disbelief, the idea that colonies of Andromeda can somehow communicate at a distance to share effective mutation strategies isn't really a problem, and it's plausible that the rubber-eating mutation was arrived at independently in more than one place.

In the film version, at least[1], it's not clear whether previous strains are still present after a mutation (the rubber-eating version breached the seal in the lab, but possibly in a way that didn't interfere with the seal containing the previous, deadly, version).  Handwaving the dodgy bits while otherwise sticking faithfully to the novel makes for a good adaptation in my book.

None of this is sufficiently problematic to ruin the story IMHO.

(I have more problems with the idea that someone whose entire job is to sit and wait for teleprinter messages would ignore one arriving simply because a bell didn't go ping.)


[1] I read the book many years ago, but consider it unremarkable.  It's the aesthetic of the 1971 film that I really like.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 19 January, 2018, 07:53:25 pm
Apparently there's an Andromeda Strain mini-series (2008) – that passed me by. I remember the movie. Climbing ladders is a lot harder when there are laser beams. Ask any window cleaner.

Googling also tells me there's a new series of the X-Files. No one tells me anything.

Further Googling also tells me that apparently that missile false alarm really put a damper on the masturbatory habits of my Hawaiians (leastways, using PornHub traffic as a proxy). You'll be pleased to know that things literally perked up immediately thereafter with a surge of, well, you know. Aloha, boys, aloha.

How I got from the Andromeda Strain to the masturbatory habits of terrified Hawaiians via the X-Files I leave as an exercise for the reader.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 19 January, 2018, 08:25:56 pm
Apparently there's an Andromeda Strain mini-series (2008) – that passed me by.

File under "best not bother".

Overall story is the same, but they meddled with the plot to modernise it.  And not in a good way.  There may have been a competent actor in there somewhere, I can't really remember.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 January, 2018, 07:04:10 am
Further Googling also tells me that apparently that missile false alarm really put a damper on the masturbatory habits of my Hawaiians (leastways, using PornHub traffic as a proxy). You'll be pleased to know that things literally perked up immediately thereafter with a surge of, well, you know. Aloha, boys, aloha.

Blue Hawaii?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 January, 2018, 08:54:03 am
Dune at least has its place alongside Labyrinth in the collection of silly films featuring 80s pop stars.

Hobbits are terrible, whatever the medium.

I'd like to nominate The Andromeda Strain as an excellent film adaptation.  The source material naturally lends itself to 1970s pacing and cinematography (for which I have something of a soft spot).

I enjoyed the book too, but Michael Crichton did violence to biology when he had every single bacterium of a species mutate at once*.

Andromeda isn't a bacterium though.  That's made abundantly clear.  It's a mysterious crystalline organism that feeds on electromagnetic energy, and lacks the structures of terrestrial organisms.  Once you've suspended that much disbelief, the idea that colonies of Andromeda can somehow communicate at a distance to share effective mutation strategies isn't really a problem, and it's plausible that the rubber-eating mutation was arrived at independently in more than one place.

In the film version, at least[1], it's not clear whether previous strains are still present after a mutation (the rubber-eating version breached the seal in the lab, but possibly in a way that didn't interfere with the seal containing the previous, deadly, version).  Handwaving the dodgy bits while otherwise sticking faithfully to the novel makes for a good adaptation in my book.

None of this is sufficiently problematic to ruin the story IMHO.

(I have more problems with the idea that someone whose entire job is to sit and wait for teleprinter messages would ignore one arriving simply because a bell didn't go ping.)


[1] I read the book many years ago, but consider it unremarkable.  It's the aesthetic of the 1971 film that I really like.

I read it when it came out in paperback. I still jibbed at everything mutating at once.  I remember getting interested enough in the dynamics of wind-borne infections to start writing a game based on it, but the available computer - a Philips Electrologica P353 that used mag. stripe cards for storage, had to be programmed in machine code on punched cards and whose only means of output was a 22 char/sec typewriter-basket printer  - wasn't the best instrument, so I ground to a halt.

Shortly before I left Philips (and the P350 series failed miserably) they brought out a "line printer", consisting of two typewriter baskets on the same carriage, yielding a stunning 44 char/sec.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 20 January, 2018, 11:05:32 am
Further Googling also tells me that apparently that missile false alarm really put a damper on the masturbatory habits of my Hawaiians (leastways, using PornHub traffic as a proxy). You'll be pleased to know that things literally perked up immediately thereafter with a surge of, well, you know. Aloha, boys, aloha.

Blue Hawaii?

It certainly is (nothing to do with my wife, she came back from Honolulu weeks ago). But I found my perfect Tidy Haired™ Thought Leadership position, one I fear went unmentioned during my school careers day, but one I can't help but feel I'd be particularly suited to. PornHub Insights (https://www.pornhub.com/insights/) (it is, surprisingly, SFW). I kid you not, someone does exactly what I do, but instead of something boring about publishing, they get to mine porn site traffic. I hesitate to say visualize. I also have a feeling that in their world 'open access' means something entirely different to mine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 January, 2018, 12:30:52 pm
What about books from films? Star Wars comes to mind (never read it but remember my geeky cousin reading it v soon after the film, I only recall the spellings "Artoo Detoo" and "See Threepiyo").
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 20 January, 2018, 02:11:26 pm
What about books from films? Star Wars comes to mind (never read it but remember my geeky cousin reading it v soon after the film, I only recall the spellings "Artoo Detoo" and "See Threepiyo").

In my (admittedly limited) experience, novelisations are very hard to do well.  A film isn't long enough to make a good book without serious changes, and in more recent years, marketing deadlines mean that they tend to be rushed and/or based on an early version of the film that doesn't necessarily hold with the final product.

My brother had some of the TNG-era Star Trek ones, which I ended up reading on holiday at one point.  They were dire.
 See also: The Jurassic Park sequels.  But the films were rubbish too, so low expectations.  I suppose it's the nature of films that get novelised tending to be popular blockbusters, where good stories are optional, and authors are chosen according to their ability to work to deadlines.

Never cared enough about Star Wars to read them, but my understanding is that they primarily function as a stepping stone to the Expanded Universe.  I believe there's something similar going on with Doctor Who.  No doubt there are some cracking stories in among those universes of fanwank.

2001: A Space Odyssey is good, in as much that it expands on the film in a constructive and compelling way.  It's not really a novelisation, though, as AIUI it was written as a sort of first draft of the screenplay.

One that I stumbled upon by accident was Orson Scott Card's novelisation of The Abyss.  I grew up on James Cameron action movies, and I've always had a soft spot for that one as a triumph of the fuckit-let's-just-build-a-real-one school of special effects.  It's faithful to the (extended cut) screenplay, with a few extra chapters added on at the start to provide back-story to the main characters, a decent epilogue, and some explanation to make the technology portrayed in the film make sense.  It's surprisingly good.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 20 January, 2018, 02:19:41 pm
Further Googling also tells me that apparently that missile false alarm really put a damper on the masturbatory habits of my Hawaiians (leastways, using PornHub traffic as a proxy). You'll be pleased to know that things literally perked up immediately thereafter with a surge of, well, you know. Aloha, boys, aloha.

Blue Hawaii?

It certainly is (nothing to do with my wife, she came back from Honolulu weeks ago). But I found my perfect Tidy Haired™ Thought Leadership position, one I fear went unmentioned during my school careers day, but one I can't help but feel I'd be particularly suited to. PornHub Insights (https://www.pornhub.com/insights/) (it is, surprisingly, SFW). I kid you not, someone does exactly what I do, but instead of something boring about publishing, they get to mine porn site traffic. I hesitate to say visualize. I also have a feeling that in their world 'open access' means something entirely different to mine.

Ian, what can I say? Thank you for that, I was particularly amused by https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2017-state-of-the-union

and a splorful moment with:

Quote
Mississippi, however, took their time in 2017 and spent 11 minutes and 33 seconds each time they visited the site. This must have rubbed off on their neighbors

Which has a feel of the other entendre not being intentional
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 20 January, 2018, 02:52:38 pm
It's all very wry and entendre replete and in many places very, very funny. My favourite is the analysis of porn search typos, not for the typos themselves, but for the fact that people on a site called PornHub (and it doesn't exactly hide its content under a plain cover) type the word 'porn' in the search box (or in this case 'porm'). That's like going to the library, walking by all the full bookshelves, to ask the librarian where the books are.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 21 January, 2018, 09:00:33 am
That the French invented the Clacks during the French Revolution http://ethw.org/w/images/1/17/Dilhac.pdf
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 January, 2018, 09:17:26 am
^^^Dumas had the Count of Monte Cristo interfering with the telegraph so as to bankrupt Villefort.

I was surprised to learn of the existence of a hydraulic telegraph, cribbed by 19th century Brits from the ancient Greeks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_telegraph
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 21 January, 2018, 11:41:19 am
In my (admittedly limited) experience, novelisations are very hard to do well.  A film isn't long enough to make a good book without serious changes, and in more recent years, marketing deadlines mean that they tend to be rushed and/or based on an early version of the film that doesn't necessarily hold with the final product.

My brother had some of the TNG-era Star Trek ones, which I ended up reading on holiday at one point.  They were dire.
 See also: The Jurassic Park sequels.  But the films were rubbish too, so low expectations.  I suppose it's the nature of films that get novelised tending to be popular blockbusters, where good stories are optional, and authors are chosen according to their ability to work to deadlines.

Never cared enough about Star Wars to read them, but my understanding is that they primarily function as a stepping stone to the Expanded Universe.  I believe there's something similar going on with Doctor Who.  No doubt there are some cracking stories in among those universes of fanwank.

I read a lot of the Target novelisations of Doctor Who when I was a kid. I think they benefited from being mostly written by Terrance Dicks, who was script editor of the TV series (although Google tells me that the one I recall as my favourite, Full Circle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Circle_(Doctor_Who)), was written by Andrew Smith, who according to wiki was just 17 when he wrote it).

I don't remember them well enough to be able to comment on their literary merits, but I used to churn through them, usually finishing them in a single sitting. And several of them I read many times over - of course, that was before the days of digital TV when you didn't have whole channels devoted to showing repeats, so the books were the only way to relive your favourite episodes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 21 January, 2018, 12:02:54 pm
And, thinking about it, short stories often turn into good films - Brokeback Mountain is a good example
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nutbeem on 21 January, 2018, 10:31:03 pm
The Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, and A Time To Kill are all worthy adaptations.
[/quote]

I'd agree with Shawshank Redemption & Stand by Me being good adaptations. But the Stories; Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, and The Body, are, in my opinion, even better.

In the same book, Different Seasons, there is also another excellent story, Apt Pupil. As is common with Stephen King there is a character link with Shawshank.

Don't bother with the film adaptation of Apt Pupil. That was 90 minutes of my life I'll never see again & should have been a straight to landfill DVD
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 January, 2018, 08:13:58 am
The Proxxon router base is more robust than the Dremel equivalent, costs much the same and fits the Dremel too.

Having just acquired the Dremel base, maybe I should CC this to the "fecking div" thread.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 23 January, 2018, 08:55:17 am
That the French tax garden sheds.....
http://www.20minutes.fr/societe/2206687-20180122-impots-taxe-cabanons-jardin-devrait-augmenter-2018

Sorry, link is in French - basically it's been around since 2012, just going up 3% and nobody likes it. Apparently it is a one off development tax working out at the payment end after some fiendish incredibly French calculations to be €70-€80 per M2
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 January, 2018, 10:22:24 am
About Bir Tawil, an area of the Nubian desert that both Egypt and Sudan claim belongs to the other country, due to an oddity of colonial border-drawing. The double border is quite obvious on maps but I'd always assumed that both areas of land were claimed by both countries.
Link with Guardian politics (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/03/welcome-to-the-land-that-no-country-wants-bir-tawil)
Sample nutter who claims it as his own kingdom[/ur] (http://kingdomofbirtawil.blogspot.co.uk)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 24 January, 2018, 11:32:56 am
That the French tax garden sheds.....
http://www.20minutes.fr/societe/2206687-20180122-impots-taxe-cabanons-jardin-devrait-augmenter-2018 (http://www.20minutes.fr/societe/2206687-20180122-impots-taxe-cabanons-jardin-devrait-augmenter-2018)

Sorry, link is in French - basically it's been around since 2012, just going up 3% and nobody likes it. Apparently it is a one off development tax working out at the payment end after some fiendish incredibly French calculations to be €70-€80 per M2

Sounds eerily like window tax to me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 January, 2018, 11:59:25 am
Good thing we've only got a 230 m² barn.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 January, 2018, 10:32:24 am
That in late 19th C China, "horse racer" was used as an insult for Westerners, on a par with the rather more obvious "foreign devil" and "child eater".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 26 January, 2018, 12:24:37 pm
That Stephen Fry was an extra in the film "Chariots of Fire" (as a Cambridge undergraduate, which is what he was IRL at the time).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 27 January, 2018, 08:40:31 pm
About Bir Tawil, an area of the Nubian desert that both Egypt and Sudan claim belongs to the other country, due to an oddity of colonial border-drawing. The double border is quite obvious on maps but I'd always assumed that both areas of land were claimed by both countries.
Link with Guardian politics (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/03/welcome-to-the-land-that-no-country-wants-bir-tawil)
Sample nutter who claims it as his own kingdom[/ur]
 (http://kingdomofbirtawil.blogspot.co.uk)
Ah, but you see, you either claim the 1899 border or the 1902 border. There's no legal basis that anyone can think of to claim a hybrid. Sudan claims the 1902 border, & Egypt claims the 1899 border. This means that both claim the 20,000 km2 around Hala'ib, complete with Red Sea coastline, several thousand people, & possibly oil, & neither claims the uninhabited & apparently worthless 200 km2 of Bir Tawil.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 30 January, 2018, 06:44:01 pm
That if you want a Cuba Tourist Visa direct from the consulate in London, you have to pay £39 each and pay by
(click to show/hide)

Alternatively, third party service agents will supply for £24.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 30 January, 2018, 07:02:16 pm
I remember when the US Embassy would only accept a bankers draft drawn on a particular branch of Barclays in Hannover Square (I sort of hope I'm making this up, but I suspect not). You did your interview, went to get the 'money' and came back to queue to hand it in with your passport. And about two weeks later you got the visa. Or, in my case, they lost it and claimed they hadn't (the clue was that they eventually found it, which they wouldn't have been able to do had they not lost it in the first place).

I hate getting visas, it's all cryptic instructions and processes, generally written in a language that superficially looks English. We do have a visa service for work but generally it's easier to do it myself as I'm in London (unless it's China or Russia, ain't worth the headaches). Reminds me, I have to figure out how to get into Ethiopia. And possibly out again. I once had to bribe my way out of Kazakhstan by paying for an 'exit visa' which seemed to be the man at the airport pocketing the cash in exchange for returning my passport. Mind you, much the same thing happened in Vancouver. They had some stupid airport improvement tax (a whopping CAN$10) payable on departure. I asked what happened if I declined to pay it. We don't let you leave said the smiley Canada.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 30 January, 2018, 07:39:26 pm
I stood in a queue in the Grosvenor Square building for my first  US visa in 1976 two places behind  Jack Charlton.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 January, 2018, 07:43:46 pm
I remember when the US Embassy would only accept a bankers draft drawn from a particular branch of Barclays in Hannover Square (I sort of hope I'm making this up, but I suspect not). You did your interview, went to get the 'money' and came back to queue to hand it in with your passport. And about two weeks later you got the visa. Or, in my case, they lost it and claimed they hadn't (the clue was that they eventually found it, which they wouldn't have been able to do had they not lost it in the first place).
It sounds remarkably similar to paying in a Soviet department store. Except that in GUM you could buy pretty posters of Uncle Vlad (the one with a beard, not the barechested judo star). Because free enterprise, for sure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 30 January, 2018, 08:35:34 pm
That if you want a Cuba Tourist Visa direct from the consulate in London, you have to pay £39 each and pay by
(click to show/hide)

Alternatively, third party service agents will supply for £24.

If its any consolation, Sierra Leone visas are £170 a go, and they won't do long term ones if you visit regularly.  Just as well that when I go, its at the request of a Sierra Leone Government department, so I get it free!  I think they do accept payment by cheque, but as I don't pay, I can't be sure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 30 January, 2018, 10:12:19 pm
I wonder if the EU will issue an EU wide visa, or if they’ll make a special case for us and insist on a different one for each country.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 30 January, 2018, 11:29:56 pm
Back on the books from films/ films from books line of thinking, what about books that SHOULD be made into films?

I have suggested before that Rendevous with Rama would make a chuffing ace film (providing the dorectoid had a suitably huge budget).

I nominate James Cameron in his "Fuck it, lets build a real one" SFX mode as per Kim's The Abyss.

In other news- today I learned to tape drop handlebars. It's witchcraft I tell you!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 30 January, 2018, 11:44:24 pm
Back on the books from films/ films from books line of thinking, what about books that SHOULD be made into films?

I have suggested before that Rendevous with Rama would make a chuffing ace film (providing the dorectoid had a suitably huge budget).

I nominate James Cameron in his "Fuck it, lets build a real one" SFX mode as per Kim's The Abyss.

Morgan Freeman was working on one at one point (he always wanted to play Commander Norton apparently), but I think it turned out to be vapourwear.

I'd watch it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 31 January, 2018, 12:03:55 am
I can visualise Jimmy Pak flying his skybike towards the needles at the south pole- iMaxtastic!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 31 January, 2018, 12:09:49 am
The Ridley Scott treatment could work, if he promises not to butcher the story too badly.

Cameron could do the genre-shifting sequel (story butchering positively encouraged).  That usually works.  Would need a good Nicole des Jardins.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 31 January, 2018, 07:47:43 am
I learnt that a visit to A&E in Eire costs 100€.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 31 January, 2018, 08:09:14 am
books to Films

Any of the Culture stories, but I suspect that any film would just end up being a huge disappointment.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 31 January, 2018, 08:11:55 am
Logan Paul is more popular than Zoella.

Or was it the other way round? Never heard of either of them. I assume they must be popular beat combos
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 January, 2018, 09:09:08 am
Similarly, "Culture stories" makes me think "Club" (or petri dish but that's not very PBC). Hmm, how about "Books (and films) which should be bands"? Or vice versa.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 31 January, 2018, 09:43:46 am
Similarly, "Culture stories" makes me think "Club" (or petri dish but that's not very PBC). Hmm, how about "Books (and films) which should be bands"? Or vice versa.
Foundation and Empire
Do andriods dream of electric sheep
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 31 January, 2018, 11:15:41 pm
I remember when the US Embassy would only accept a bankers draft drawn on a particular branch of Barclays in Hannover Square (I sort of hope I'm making this up, but I suspect not). You did your interview, went to get the 'money' and came back to queue to hand it in with your passport. And about two weeks later you got the visa. Or, in my case, they lost it and claimed they hadn't (the clue was that they eventually found it, which they wouldn't have been able to do had they not lost it in the first place).

I hate getting visas, it's all cryptic instructions and processes, generally written in a language that superficially looks English. We do have a visa service for work but generally it's easier to do it myself as I'm in London (unless it's China or Russia, ain't worth the headaches). Reminds me, I have to figure out how to get into Ethiopia. And possibly out again. I once had to bribe my way out of Kazakhstan by paying for an 'exit visa' which seemed to be the man at the airport pocketing the cash in exchange for returning my passport. Mind you, much the same thing happened in Vancouver. They had some stupid airport improvement tax (a whopping CAN$10) payable on departure. I asked what happened if I declined to pay it. We don't let you leave said the smiley Canada.

Possibly the easiest being Azerbaijan, online form, small fee by credit card, press submit, about two days later email visa appears, print it out and take it with you.

Except my colleague who got confused between our working dates and entry dates. He was held at the airport until midnight. I, meanwhile was sleeping at the hotel.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 February, 2018, 09:51:41 am
The Duke of Edinburgh put a dent in the first successful hovercraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovercraft#SR.N1
Title: Russells Teapot
Post by: Beardy on 08 February, 2018, 10:15:41 am
Russell's Teapot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot)

Now I'm an agnostic tending towards atheist, but I acknowledge people's right to believe what they will and think they should be allowed that freedom without the fundamentalists like Darkins haranguing them. Russell' teapot seems a reasonable approach, and in philosophical debate I'd have to agree. But I have oft thought that if you are going to be an arse about it, as Darkins so often is, then it's up to you to disprove it.
Title: Re: Russells Teapot
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 08 February, 2018, 11:29:17 am
Russell's Teapot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot)

Now I'm an agnostic tending towards atheist, but I acknowledge people's right to believe what they will and think they should be allowed that freedom without the fundamentalists like Darkins haranguing them. Russell' teapot seems a reasonable approach, and in philosophical debate I'd have to agree. But I have oft thought that if you are going to be an arse about it, as Darkins so often is, then it's up to you to disprove it.

They should have put a teapot in that there Tesla
Title: Re: Russells Teapot
Post by: jsabine on 08 February, 2018, 02:37:26 pm
Russell's Teapot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot)

Now I'm an agnostic tending towards atheist, but I acknowledge people's right to believe what they will and think they should be allowed that freedom without the fundamentalists like Darkins haranguing them. Russell' teapot seems a reasonable approach, and in philosophical debate I'd have to agree. But I have oft thought that if you are going to be an arse about it, as Darkins so often is, then it's up to you to disprove it.

They should have put a teapot in that there Tesla

They did. It's in the boottrunk.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 February, 2018, 04:28:04 pm
Along with the towel.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 08 February, 2018, 04:57:12 pm
Along with the towel.
I thought the towel was in the Glove Compartment Box
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 February, 2018, 05:05:32 pm
Along with the towel.
I thought the towel was in the Glove Compartment Box

So did I.  It appears that T42 is failing at being a hoopy frood.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 08 February, 2018, 05:21:23 pm
Along with the towel.
I thought the towel was in the Glove Compartment Box

So did I.  It appears that T42 is failing at being a hoopy frood.

Although, to be fair, the qualification for being a hoopy frood is knowing where your own towel is, not that belonging to Tony Stark someone else.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 February, 2018, 05:25:11 pm
Also, it was the centre core that ran out of TEA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triethylaluminium) during its recovery flight.  Having a pot in the back of the Tesla wouldn't have helped.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Aunt Maud on 08 February, 2018, 06:34:34 pm
They don't really do tea in Americania, caawfee's a lot more popular
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 February, 2018, 07:44:46 pm
One of the qualifications for frooddom is knowing that "hoopy" is a noun >:(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 February, 2018, 08:28:02 pm
One of the qualifications for frooddom is knowing that "hoopy" is a noun >:(

I'll get my towel  :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 February, 2018, 09:26:18 am
It's in the boot compartment box.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 09 February, 2018, 10:52:20 am
It's in the boot compartment box.
No no no. Its in a box which is in a compartment of a trunk which is in the boot.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 February, 2018, 01:51:45 pm
Twoflower will not be pleased.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 09 February, 2018, 02:27:20 pm
It would take a braver man than me to attempt to shut the luggage in a boot!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 09 February, 2018, 02:51:06 pm
Two things:
Scott Joplin wrote a *Fig* Leaf Rag.
Mr. Joplin's musical direction on all his "Rags" was, "Play slowly".

Courtesy of Petroc Trelawney & R3 this morning.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 February, 2018, 08:07:12 am
Two things:
Scott Joplin wrote a *Fig* Leaf Rag.
Mr. Joplin's musical direction on all his "Rags" was, "Play slowly".

Courtesy of Petroc Trelawney & R3 this morning.

Yes. I heard some twunt attacking the Maple Leaf Rag the other day as if he had a train to catch. OTOH Joplin's own recording (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMAtL7n_-rc) - admittedly on Pianola roll - wasn't exactly slow, but Pianola tempo is hardly definitive.

ETA: the sheet music says "march time". That ^^^ is more like "scamper".

---o0o---

My lesson for the day is that 10 mm > 3/8", as in you can't tighten a Dremel collet with a metric spanner*, the imperialistic ejections of diseased transditch whores overweening bounders having the temerity to flog their crap in Europe without including the appropriate article.  Admittedly I had already suspected as much, but it's a confounded nuisance all the same.

* in fact you can, but before you get it tight enough to hold a bit reliably the spanner slips, burrs the collet and then jams in place, requiring moderate violence to dislodge. Bloody Yanks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 February, 2018, 01:02:00 pm
Ahem.  I have since discovered a tiny stamped-out effort resembling a spanner hidden under a drift of abrasive sleeves in the wee blue box of bits that came with the bloody thing. Miserable effort it is, but it's there all the same. Crap.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 11 February, 2018, 09:58:50 pm
That the Tele 746 is older than I though, which when I consider the design, actually does make sense.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 February, 2018, 10:38:35 am
Crikey. Our first was a 332, all chunky with a cloth-covered lead.  Apparently the 700 series was introduced in response to public demand, fuelled by American TV series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPO_telephones
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 12 February, 2018, 11:27:02 am
Crikey. Our first was a 332, all chunky with a cloth-covered lead.  Apparently the 700 series was introduced in response to public demand, fuelled by American TV series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPO_telephones
Knowing the ways of PO telephones, I suspect that public demand had little to do with the change, though it might have influenced the eventual design. When I joined, it was still PO telephones and known as 'the department' by a lot of the older boys. We had subscribers back then customers. However, you could as for a phone to be fitted and you would be charged the same installation fee regardless of whether installation required a single span of wire from and existing pole or 15 spans each requiring a new pole at each end. Yes, it could take a while for you to get a phone, but had we been left to our own devices you WOULD already have a fibre into your home and be connected to the fastest and most shiniest network in the world. Maggie decided that completion was more important though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 12 February, 2018, 06:05:49 pm
Crikey. Our first was a 332, all chunky with a cloth-covered lead.  Apparently the 700 series was introduced in response to public demand, fuelled by American TV series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPO_telephones
That the Tele 746 is older than I though, which when I consider the design, actually does make sense.
I'm gathering that this isn't a Fender product?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 12 February, 2018, 06:23:25 pm
It is reasonably easy to get to work by bus.  First time I've tried in 23 years of living in Swindon.  Day rider tickets and tweaked routes have helped, and I live reasonably near a stop these days.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 12 February, 2018, 10:05:10 pm
Steps one to 3 from the end of the PDI process for an ICE trike. The final 3 steps are fitting accesories specific to the customer needs. This particular trike is a Shimano Steps/ Alfine beast with one handed controls. I are an happy bunny :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 February, 2018, 01:02:23 pm
William Goldman claimed, in "Marathon Man", that the phrase or saying "Halt the ringing cry of progress!" comes from one of Tennyson's "Locksley Hall" peoms.  Today I learned that it does not.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 14 February, 2018, 09:57:35 pm
How ice spikes (https://youtu.be/5RLQ9WMP2Es) form.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 15 February, 2018, 06:37:58 am
Walt Disney isn't a frozen head.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 15 February, 2018, 01:29:13 pm
Walt Disney isn't a frozen head.
???
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 15 February, 2018, 02:18:28 pm
Walt Disney isn't a frozen head.
???

https://www.snopes.com/disney/waltdisn/frozen.asp
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 February, 2018, 01:17:39 pm
Yesterday I learnt that it is possible but not easy to remove knee-warmers worn inside bib tights.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 17 February, 2018, 05:20:17 pm
Yesterday I learnt that it is possible but not easy to remove knee-warmers worn inside bib tights.

Why bothe4 removing them - for a bet?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 18 February, 2018, 12:30:44 am
So my nephew was born on Thursday night, so we thought he'd be a chicken (Chinese zodiac), as he was born before Chinese new year. However it turns out that the Chinese zodiac is solar not lunar, and the start date for the zodiac year is always the spring vernal equinox, which is 4th Feb every year. So my nephew's a dog. My wife and brother have been having a massive argument about this, and having done the reading, I'm not looking forward to telling my wife that she's wrong when she wakes up tomorrow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 18 February, 2018, 04:05:46 am
So don't.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Moleman76 on 18 February, 2018, 06:39:51 am
that "Imbolc" is the name for the "cross-quarter day" which is halfway between the winter solstice and the vernal (spring) equinox.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 February, 2018, 08:46:36 am
Yesterday I learnt that it is possible but not easy to remove knee-warmers worn inside bib tights.

Why bothe4 removing them - for a bet?

Should have added "without removing the tights".

Pulling on the tights rolled them up into tourniquets. CBA removing all my top layers so winkled them out via the distal ends, damn near broke a finger.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 18 February, 2018, 08:48:19 am
that "Imbolc" is the name for the "cross-quarter day" which is halfway between the winter solstice and the vernal (spring) equinox.
Is that still an excuse to jump naked over a bonfire, though?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 February, 2018, 11:49:08 am
Hence the oft-corrupted phrase "Imbolc naked"?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 18 February, 2018, 03:56:35 pm
 ;D  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mattc on 18 February, 2018, 06:35:17 pm
It is reasonably easy to get to work by bus.  First time I've tried in 23 years of living in Swindon.  Day rider tickets and tweaked routes have helped, and I live reasonably near a stop these days.

I think this is a first for the internet.

Posts saying pretty much the opposite are 2-a-penny, but the above makes rather a nice change  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 19 February, 2018, 02:30:03 pm
That people still complain when they hear an accidental swear on the TV. The fucks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 19 February, 2018, 09:50:53 pm
That 80% of the world's garlic is produced in China.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 19 February, 2018, 10:06:45 pm
That 80% of the world's garlic is produced in China.
I wonder if you were just listening to the same Radio Four programme as I was a few minutes ago? :-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 19 February, 2018, 11:03:27 pm
That 80% of the world's garlic is produced in China.
I wonder if you were just listening to the same Radio Four programme as I was a few minutes ago? :-)

Yes I was.   :thumbsup:.  But I thought I'd check what Wikipedia had to say before I posted.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 20 February, 2018, 12:04:50 am
The grip on my tyres isn't as good as I thought it should be and then was better than I was expecting. (lowsiding, catch it and highside)
Sharp hairpin turn here, downhill and I should have known better than to trust the tyres.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NutKk-nzfH8

Fortunately nothing serious - not a mark on the jacket but a small bruise on the upper arm/elbow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 20 February, 2018, 12:17:45 am
That I have GOT to live for another 7 years.

If I don't No.2 Son will get hit by the tax man for inheritance tax relating to money I gave him towards whatever he wants to do with it (mainly a deposit for a home).

Pass the beer :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 20 February, 2018, 01:20:28 am
The grip on my tyres isn't as good as I thought it should be and then was better than I was expecting. (lowsiding, catch it and highside)

Fortunately nothing serious - not a mark on the jacket but a small bruise on the upper arm/elbow.

You should know better than to engage the Infinite Improbability Drive without warning.

Another bowl of petunias ruined . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 20 February, 2018, 12:45:19 pm
Each testicle of a Right Whale can weigh up to 525kg
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 February, 2018, 01:06:38 pm
Monorchid Right Whales can only swim in circles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 21 February, 2018, 03:25:08 pm
Park Tool has a bike workstand with an electric lift mechanism!! - clamp the frame with the bike on the floor, press the button and hey presto the clamp lifts the bike up to the desired working height, and lowers it again.. 

Cool (and about £1,500) - really designed for electric bikes which are obviously quite heavy with the battery etc.

[I've been to Madison's trade show today ... lots of other stuff to drool over too]

Rob
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 21 February, 2018, 06:19:22 pm
Each testicle of a Right Whale can weigh up to 525kg
I'd hate to see a money shot in whale pr0n.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 21 February, 2018, 06:34:07 pm
I googled so you don't have to. Two gallons of seminal fluid. I'm not sure who got the enviable job of measuring that. I'd have guessed and gone for cocktails, who's going to check.

They also have four metre long penises (available in a variety of colours, apparently). Something I, alas, now can't unsee.

Whale porn (https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/reproduction/right-whale-sex-involves-one-tonne-testicles-and-a-4-metre-penis-nsfw/). It's what the internet was made for.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 21 February, 2018, 06:49:53 pm
I googled so you don't have to. Two gallons of seminal fluid. I'm not sure who got the enviable job of measuring that. I'd have guessed and gone for cocktails
A piña colada wouldn't seem all that appetising.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 22 February, 2018, 09:54:17 am
That there is something in the Tropicana juice cartons that doesn't like being microwaved  :o

Best guess, a foil laminate. Anyway the flames looked pretty impressive!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Redlight on 22 February, 2018, 12:00:24 pm
Fruit juice in a microwave?  ??? ???

Defrosting?  :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 22 February, 2018, 12:10:10 pm
Yes, defrosting. But on full power. Interesting change in tone from the device was what alerted me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 22 February, 2018, 12:49:02 pm
Yesterday I learned a new word: froward (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/froward).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 22 February, 2018, 01:55:19 pm
I googled so you don't have to. Two gallons of seminal fluid. I'm not sure who got the enviable job of measuring that. I'd have guessed and gone for cocktails
A piña colada wouldn't seem all that appetising.

Well, I'd leave the whale be and go direct to the bar. I mean, how? Seriously, that's rhetorical, I don't want to know.

I'm now vaguely amused that somewhere, a Google server, will know I typed 'right whale semen volume' into a search field. I'm not sure how that will affect my profile.

I will say, on the subject of piña colada, don't don't don't google 'fear factor donkey juice.' I 'thank' my good friend Rude Alison for sending me that in her periodical smut bulletin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 22 February, 2018, 04:28:46 pm
Pyeongchang 2018, Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 will be the first time three consecutive Olympiads have been held on the same continent since Oslo/Helsinki/Cortina in '52/'56 (which of course was the end of a long run of European Gameses, punctuated by a bit of a scuffle).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 22 February, 2018, 05:14:33 pm
Why there are so many recipes that call for grilled or toasted sourdough. Because if it’s more than 4 hours old it’s inedible in any other way. But keeps for a full week, and does make the best toast.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 22 February, 2018, 08:23:56 pm
Try the southern italian bread made from durum wheat. Allegedly lasts for up to 15 days and also makes marvellous toast.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 23 February, 2018, 02:04:41 am
I learned today the my employer is going to be a Brompton dealer, of which I don't think there are many in the US. Not a bicycle that I really need at the moment, but it will be interesting to see how this experiment works out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 26 February, 2018, 11:00:33 am
That "Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch!" only ran for one series before being cancelled. Must have been repeated quite a lot when I was a kid then. Altogether now:

In the Wonderland Zoo, we're the certain bears who,
stay at home every night, never quarrel or fight,
AW, WE DON'T EVEN BITE!!!

SO DON'T YELL HELP! HELP!
Here come the bears,

HELP! HELP! here come the bears,
HELP! HELP! here come the bears,

LET'S SPLIT!!! HELP!
IT'S THE HAIR BEAR BUNCH!!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 26 February, 2018, 12:17:31 pm
Another of those programs where the opening titles were the only bit worth watching  Thanks for the lyrics, though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 27 February, 2018, 12:35:01 pm
A Google search for "Liam Fox porn" returns no results.  There is a God.

(Rule 35 states that this won't last long, so enjoy the last few days of civilisation while you can)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 February, 2018, 12:59:27 pm
Allasame, 3-course dinner vs packet of crisps wasn't bad. (I did have to Google who he was, though.)

Hum. Horses' d'oovers, main course, cheese, dessert: he's left one out.  Not a real Tory, then.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 27 February, 2018, 01:18:59 pm
The word "yesteryear" was coined by Rosetti when he translated "Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?" into English: "Where are the snows of yesteryear?"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 27 February, 2018, 01:27:50 pm
A Google search for "Liam Fox porn" returns no results.  There is a God.

(Rule 35 states that this won't last long, so enjoy the last few days of civilisation while you can)
I can't believe you took the risk!!! :o 

I hope you were wearing appropriate PPE.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 27 February, 2018, 02:41:46 pm
A Google search for "Liam Fox porn" returns no results.  There is a God.

(Rule 35 states that this won't last long, so enjoy the last few days of civilisation while you can)

I'm not at all sure how google works, but does the fact that you've typed those words together here mean that there would now be at least 1 result?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 27 February, 2018, 05:55:44 pm
Why there are so many recipes that call for grilled or toasted sourdough. Because if it’s more than 4 hours old it’s inedible in any other way. But keeps for a full week, and does make the best toast.

Doesn't that depend on what sort of flour it's made from?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 27 February, 2018, 05:56:57 pm
A Google search for "Liam Fox porn" returns no results.  There is a God.

(Rule 35 states that this won't last long, so enjoy the last few days of civilisation while you can)

What about Liam +"fox porn" ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 28 February, 2018, 10:51:20 am
A Google search for "Liam Fox porn" returns no results.  There is a God.

(Rule 35 states that this won't last long, so enjoy the last few days of civilisation while you can)

I'd ask why on earth you googled that but I'm not sure I'd want to hear the answer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 February, 2018, 10:56:48 am
A Google search for "Liam Fox porn" returns no results.  There is a God.

(Rule 35 states that this won't last long, so enjoy the last few days of civilisation while you can)

I'm not at all sure how google works, but does the fact that you've typed those words together here mean that there would now be at least 1 result?

Only after they've done their next crawl, assuming they still work that way.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 28 February, 2018, 09:19:52 pm
A Google search for "Liam Fox porn" returns no results.  There is a God.

(Rule 35 states that this won't last long, so enjoy the last few days of civilisation while you can)

I'd ask why on earth you googled that but I'm not sure I'd want to hear the answer.
It came from a comment that a lady friend of a friend, one Ms Fox, was "more Liam than Megan".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 28 February, 2018, 10:23:10 pm
We've been doing SCIENCE, and have discovered that the standby mode on barakta's hearing aids drops the average current consumption from 1.33mA to 1.24mA.  This is why the official switching-off procedure is to leave the battery compartment hanging open for ease of pingfuckiting and eventual ingestion of the cell by small children and other animals.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 28 February, 2018, 10:30:41 pm
That one can buy 'craft knives' and scalpels on eBay
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 March, 2018, 09:10:38 am
Should that be surprising?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 01 March, 2018, 09:50:57 am
Yes, since I thought they had a knife ban.  I may be wrong.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 March, 2018, 10:02:14 am
I did not know that.  I think you're right, though: I just looked for "carbon steel kitchen knife" and drew a blank. Plenty of ceramic ones, which are presumably no good in a fight. And plenty on ebay France and Amazon UK.

Well, well.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 01 March, 2018, 10:07:51 am
Yeah.  I recognise, of course, that a Swann Morton No.10A is never going to be the most effective in a shanking, but the traditional choice of bovver boys was always a Stanley...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 01 March, 2018, 10:26:53 am
According to the woman on Radio 5 just now, "on days like this [ie snowy ones], your computer screen is red hot". In case you're wondering why this might be, she went on to explain that it's because you're looking at so many different online weather reports, traffic news, flight info etc.

So today I have learned that looking at lots of different websites in a short space of time can cause your monitor to overheat. Well I nevah!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 March, 2018, 10:34:15 am
Yeah.  I recognise, of course, that a Swann Morton No.10A is never going to be the most effective in a shanking, but the traditional choice of bovver boys was always a Stanley...

I wonder if there was a surge in sales of "box cutters" after 9/11.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 01 March, 2018, 10:48:34 am
We've been doing SCIENCE, and have discovered that the standby mode on barakta's hearing aids drops the average current consumption from 1.33mA to 1.24mA.  This is why the official switching-off procedure is to leave the battery compartment hanging open for ease of pingfuckiting and eventual ingestion of the cell by small children and other animals.
Ah, but those little hearing aid batteries use air1 as an electrolyte and have a quite appalling self discharge rate once the holes have been opened by the removal of the sticky label. To a user such as myself who will only put my hearing aids in when I'm interacting with someone2, the fact that the batteries go flat just as quickly while not being used is most irksome3.

1. Well oxygen actually
2. I have my reasons, and they are not all associated with me being a grumpy bugger who'd rather not talk to people.
3. And the Yorkshire in me gets very upset.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 01 March, 2018, 11:53:09 am
]Ah, but those little hearing aid batteries use air1 as an electrolyte and have a quite appalling self discharge rate once the holes have been opened by the removal of the sticky label. To a user such as myself who will only put my hearing aids in when I'm interacting with someone2, the fact that the batteries go flat just as quickly while not being used is most irksome3.
Well, that's what I've learned today.
Yes, it is most irksome.
Ta.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 01 March, 2018, 12:11:08 pm
Can you not use a squirt of inert gas and a sealed box to keep them in? Or is it once triggered, that is it?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 01 March, 2018, 01:14:01 pm
I think once triggered that's it as the reaction starts...

I reckon the self-discharge from opening of CP44 (675) Zinc Air batteries is about 22-23 days
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 March, 2018, 01:24:52 pm
I did not know that.  I think you're right, though: I just looked for "carbon steel kitchen knife" and drew a blank. Plenty of ceramic ones, which are presumably no good in a fight. And plenty on ebay France and Amazon UK.

ISTR hearing that the London Bridge attackers used ceramic knives from a well-known low-cost German horriblemarket for their knifecriming murders.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 01 March, 2018, 01:41:56 pm
Orson Welles' last gig as director was the "Follow The Bear" advert for Hofmeister lager, featuring a blokey bear, George, in a pork-pie hat  ;D

It's also an example of nominative determinism, which makes it even better.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 01 March, 2018, 02:17:44 pm
We've been doing SCIENCE, and have discovered that the standby mode on barakta's hearing aids drops the average current consumption from 1.33mA to 1.24mA.  This is why the official switching-off procedure is to leave the battery compartment hanging open for ease of pingfuckiting and eventual ingestion of the cell by small children and other animals.
Ah, but those little hearing aid batteries use air1 as an electrolyte and have a quite appalling self discharge rate once the holes have been opened by the removal of the sticky label.

Yes.  It's hard to put a figure on it, as it depends somewhat on temperature and humidity (AUIU it's accumulation of water that depletes the electrolyte), but it's something of the order of 0.5mA for these 675 cells.  That's a fair chunk of the current draw of these aids, and not far off the quiescent[1] current of the (analogue) BAHA Classic.


Quote
To a user such as myself who will only put my hearing aids in when I'm interacting with someone

I've got no time for the "you should wear your hearing aids at all times except when you're in the shower" audiology propaganda.  Sure, you've got to put the effort in to get used to hearing with them, and many people don't.  But unless you're trying to drown out tinnitus there's no point in giving yourself fatigue just to hear traffic noise / other people's half phone calls / computer fans / bad acoustics / seagull fights / etc. if you don't need to.  Especially if it involves earmoulds.  There's simply no point in the system where audiologists nag their patients with unrealistic textbook goals and deaf people feel compelled to lie[2] about how much they're using them.   >:(


[1] The two digital models we have to hand draw a flat rate of 1.3mA or so, regardless of what they're doing (apart from the Ponto's afore-mentioned standby mode), but the Classic would pull 0.7mA quiecent, and then up to the same again depending on what it was amplifying.
[2] It seems that some modern digital aids will tell tales to the programming software about how much they've been used.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 March, 2018, 08:27:08 am
The music in Jean de Florette is based on Verdi's La forza del destino, which I have never seen or listened to. But will.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 03 March, 2018, 08:35:46 am
The music in Jean de Florette is based on Verdi's La forza del destino, which I have never seen or listened to. But will.
I thought it was based on a lager advert  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 March, 2018, 08:48:05 am
That would be a UK cultural reference?  ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 March, 2018, 02:38:21 pm
That a grebo is not just a greasy biker who beats up small children, but a West African language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grebo_language
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 03 March, 2018, 06:35:36 pm
I've got no time for the "you should wear your hearing aids at all times except when you're in the shower" audiology propaganda.  Sure, you've got to put the effort in to get used to hearing with them, and many people don't.  But unless you're trying to drown out tinnitus there's no point in giving yourself fatigue just to hear traffic noise / other people's half phone calls / computer fans / bad acoustics / seagull fights / etc. if you don't need to.  Especially if it involves earmoulds.  There's simply no point in the system where audiologists nag their patients with unrealistic textbook goals and deaf people feel compelled to lie[2] about how much they're using them.   >:(
]

Have you ever tried the low-tech alternative (http://www.notechmagazine.com/2017/08/non-electric-hearing-aids-outperform-modern-devices.html#more-3731)?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 03 March, 2018, 06:48:10 pm
Have you ever tried the low-tech alternative (http://www.notechmagazine.com/2017/08/non-electric-hearing-aids-outperform-modern-devices.html#more-3731)?

When I first learned that the gain of a BAHA is measured in square metres (because it's converting pressure to force), it occurred to me that it would represent the area of a functionally equivalent passive 'eardrum'.

Sadly this sort of information's been hard to get hold of since Cochlear took over, but I remember it being significantly bigger than a head...  Wonderful things, transistors.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 03 March, 2018, 07:31:54 pm
That the Clangers are subtitled
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 March, 2018, 09:06:55 am
Kinda like getting an OBE instead of a K?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 04 March, 2018, 02:28:39 pm
That sheep are claustrophobic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 04 March, 2018, 02:36:08 pm
That sheep are claustrophobic.

Not too surprising, seeing what happens to some of them.
https://youtu.be/wA184Vs4Zeg
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 March, 2018, 08:17:34 pm
That one of the brothels on Stokes Croft, a street with a somewhat mixed reputation, has been there since at least 1986.
(https://i2-prod.bristolpost.co.uk/news/history/article1281210.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/BTPICPAST-Feb-20-Stokes-Croft-14-1986-Aug-15.jpg)
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/history/changing-face-stokes-croft-over-1281180
I'd assumed they'd moved in there following the police clearing up street prostitution in the nearby St Paul's. (Should this be in NSFW?!)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mllePB on 04 March, 2018, 09:14:47 pm
That there was a period of just 3 giddy weeks of English history between the last Viking invasion being successfully defeated and the first Norman invasion being successful.

Maybe everyone who did English history already knew this, but I'm just catching up on the Dark ages at the mo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 04 March, 2018, 09:17:45 pm
The Normans were Vikings invading from France, having been there a few generations. Hence Northmen (attacking from the south)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 04 March, 2018, 09:29:21 pm
That there was a period of just 3 giddy weeks of English history between the last Viking invasion being successfully defeated and the first Norman invasion being successful.

Maybe everyone who did English history already knew this, but I'm just catching up on the Dark ages at the mo.

That was my favourite pub quiz moment.
Q.  Where did King Harold do battle against an invading army on <date and month> 1066?
I thought, that's much too easy and obvious.  "Stamford Bridge " call I.   Rest of team were just saying "don't be daft, it's Hastings, everyone knows that.
I didn't know the actual dates of the two battles but I insisted.
We were the only team to get that point.

We still lost.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 04 March, 2018, 09:34:30 pm
That there was a period of just 3 giddy weeks of English history between the last Viking invasion being successfully defeated and the first Norman invasion being successful.

Maybe everyone who did English history already knew this, but I'm just catching up on the Dark ages at the mo.
Harold's opponent at the Battle of Stamford was a remarkable character. Def worth a read of his wiki entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Hardrada).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 05 March, 2018, 06:18:34 am
That would be a UK cultural reference?  ::-)
It was the theme of Stella Artois adverts for most of the 1990s and 2000s.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 05 March, 2018, 10:25:06 am
At Stamford Bridge, the stout yeomen of Yorkshire defeated a strong invader.

Then the softy Southerners let us down... ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 March, 2018, 10:38:48 am
But you Yorkshiremen are meant to be pacifists? As well as stout.  :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 March, 2018, 10:48:33 am
That would be a UK cultural reference?  ::-)
It was the theme of Stella Artois adverts for most of the 1990s and 2000s.

Yup, that sounds like UK culture. ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 March, 2018, 01:43:58 pm
At Stamford Bridge, the stout yeomen of Yorkshire defeated a strong invader.

Then the softy Southerners let us down... ;)

Though Harold's army having to march three hundred miles with a hangover probably didn't help.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 05 March, 2018, 01:51:49 pm
See, there wasn't a standing army, so it was basically only the Court who made the trek.  Troops were raised locally.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 05 March, 2018, 03:19:14 pm
Think it was a mixture of the two. The Kings personal troops fought in both battles, in each case they were reinforced by troops raised and armed locally.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jayjay on 05 March, 2018, 09:26:18 pm
D'Artagnan really existed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Batz_de_Castelmore_d'Artagnan

There's a statue of him in Auch, as well.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 05 March, 2018, 10:00:17 pm
But what about Dogtanian?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 06 March, 2018, 08:24:09 am
I challenge you to listen to the Dogtanian theme (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-xO72s5EBY) again; it's almost beyond the range of adult human hearing.  Just one of those things I didn't realise when I was a littlie.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 06 March, 2018, 10:45:42 am
That highly sophisticated Android app "Sound Spectrum Analyzer"* puts most of it in the 30 Hz-1.8 kHz range with the peak at 236 Hz and an isolated fragment at 14 kHz, but the last is always present so I think it comes from the phone itself.

* great for bitching at noise levels in cafés and brats on mopeds everywhere.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 March, 2018, 12:41:51 pm
That in Sri Lanka it's illegal for women to buy alcohol.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 March, 2018, 01:40:36 pm
But what about Dogtanian?

I learned everything I know about the Catholic church from a combination of Dogtanian and Monty Python.

Through a combination of bad ears and worse televisions, for years I thought the lyrics to the theme tune were "One foot one, just one foot one..."  a clear reference to the title character's height.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 March, 2018, 01:43:20 pm
Clearly qualifying yourself for the You Know You're Middle Aged thread, Kim, heights in feet...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 March, 2018, 02:35:15 pm
Clearly qualifying yourself for the You Know You're Middle Aged thread, Kim, heights in feet...

I'd never measure the height of anything other than an aircraft in feet, but it was standard practice in the days when I watching Dogtanian, and remains inexplicably popular.  Anyway, song lyrics are almost never metric.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 March, 2018, 03:03:54 pm
I got a girl, six foot four,
Sleeps in the kitchen with her feet out the door


I got a girl, one hundred and ninety-three centimetres,
Sleeps in the field with the anteaters


I see what you mean...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 06 March, 2018, 11:45:56 pm
At Stamford Bridge, the stout yeomen of Yorkshire defeated a strong invader.

Then the softy Southerners let us down... ;)
Chelsea v. Sheffield Wednesday? Surely the Yorkshire folk would have been the away team?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 07 March, 2018, 09:20:38 am
Robert Fripp and Toyah Wilcox have been married 25 years.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 07 March, 2018, 11:29:54 am
Robert Fripp and Toyah Wilcox have been married 25 years.


Wikipedea says 35 years
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 07 March, 2018, 11:45:52 am
Both are correct of course.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 07 March, 2018, 12:24:09 pm
It's not a mystery then.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 March, 2018, 01:16:15 pm
Do I need to find out who they are?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 07 March, 2018, 01:43:19 pm
He King Crimson guitarist; she early-80s squawker and voice of Teletubbies.  You're not missing out on much.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 March, 2018, 02:04:41 pm
I had no idea she was the voice of Teletubbies, but "Decadent Days" is worth remembering, if not for the song itself then for the stomping at the teenage discos.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 07 March, 2018, 03:19:29 pm
I used to 'have a thing' for Toyah back in the day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 March, 2018, 03:23:08 pm
He King Crimson guitarist; she early-80s squawker and voice of Teletubbies.  You're not missing out on much.

Ta. Won't look then.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tod28 on 07 March, 2018, 05:10:48 pm
"Decadent Days" is worth remembering, if not for the song itself then for the stomping at the teenage discos.

Wasn't that Hazel O'Conner?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 07 March, 2018, 05:30:47 pm
"Decadent Days" is worth remembering, if not for the song itself then for the stomping at the teenage discos.

Wasn't that Hazel O'Conner?
She's performing at The Eyes Have It, as part of this year's Duffield Carnival...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 07 March, 2018, 07:49:38 pm
That post war caravan parks resulted from an oversupply of temporary housing destined for European countries.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 07 March, 2018, 08:20:02 pm
That British railway snowploughs - the sort propelled by a pair of diesel locomotives - were built in the 1960s on the chassis of redundant steam locomotive tenders.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 07 March, 2018, 11:42:33 pm
That a nautical mile is 1.15-something miles.

That the circumference of the earth is 24,901 miles around the equator.

360o is 21600 minutes. Which divided into 24,901 gives 1.15-something.

So a minute of latitude is one nautical mile at the equator.

Probably not a revelation to some people.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 March, 2018, 08:22:26 am
The metre is defined in a similar manner, taking the distance from the North Pole to the Equator as baseline.

What I have just found out right now is that NASA released high-resolution SRTM data (https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/) for most of the world in 2014, so that routing programs that used it to inject altitudes into generated GPX files had (or will have) to be updated to take it into account.

Previously, most of the world was mapped in 3" squares, 90 metres on a side, and the altitudes given were the averages over each square. That meant that if your GPX went through a gorge the altitude of the road might flip from being that of the road to being that of the cliff-top and back within a couple of hundred metres. Mapping to 1" should noticeably reduce this effect.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 March, 2018, 08:37:45 am
"Decadent Days" is worth remembering, if not for the song itself then for the stomping at the teenage discos.

Wasn't that Hazel O'Conner?
Of course. My bad. That means I can't actually remember anything Toyah did, but I do remember her name.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 08 March, 2018, 08:39:07 am
The metre is defined in a similar manner, taking the distance from the North Pole to the Equator as baseline.
It's certainly not the current definition, which is the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/~300,000,000 of a second. (A nice, handy yardstick, eh?).

I remember having to remember the SI unit definitions for A-Level Physics - the best, I think, was the amp, which is "that constant current which when maintained in two straight parallel perfect conductors of infinite length, positioned one metre apart in a vacuum, induces a force of 2×10−7 newtons per metre length of each on the other." (for which, also see the definition of 'metre', and of 'kilogram', 'metre' and 'second' to understand the derived unit 'newton'.  It's useful, because everyone has ready access to caesium-133, infinitely long conductors in vacuums, and Parisian kilograms. ::-))
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 08 March, 2018, 08:44:11 am
What kind of bastard creation is that? 'a scale of 3":90m'

It's like Concorde all over again . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 March, 2018, 08:56:48 am
The metre is defined in a similar manner, taking the distance from the North Pole to the Equator as baseline.
It's certainly not the current definition, which is the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/~300,000,000 of a second. (A nice, handy yardstick, eh?).

I remember having to remember the SI unit definitions for A-Level Physics - the best, I think, was the amp, which is "that constant current which when maintained in two straight parallel perfect conductors of infinite length, positioned one metre apart in a vacuum, induces a force of 2×10−7 newtons per metre length of each on the other." (for which, also see the definition of 'metre', and of 'kilogram', 'metre' and 'second' to understand the derived unit 'newton'.  It's useful, because everyone has ready access to caesium-133, infinitely long conductors in vacuums, and Parisian kilograms. ::-))

I think they're still working on the redefining that Parisian kilogram so weights are based on a physical constant rather than lump of steadily eroding metal. They might have sorted it out. I'm trusting you guys to tell me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 08 March, 2018, 09:15:09 am
"Decadent Days" is worth remembering, if not for the song itself then for the stomping at the teenage discos.

Wasn't that Hazel O'Conner?
Of course. My bad. That means I can't actually remember anything Toyah did, but I do remember her name.
It's a Mystery, huh? :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 08 March, 2018, 09:18:10 am
The metre is defined in a similar manner, taking the distance from the North Pole to the Equator as baseline.
It's certainly not the current definition, which is the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/~300,000,000 of a second. (A nice, handy yardstick, eh?).

I remember having to remember the SI unit definitions for A-Level Physics - the best, I think, was the amp, which is "that constant current which when maintained in two straight parallel perfect conductors of infinite length, positioned one metre apart in a vacuum, induces a force of 2×10−7 newtons per metre length of each on the other." (for which, also see the definition of 'metre', and of 'kilogram', 'metre' and 'second' to understand the derived unit 'newton'.  It's useful, because everyone has ready access to caesium-133, infinitely long conductors in vacuums, and Parisian kilograms. ::-))

I think they're still working on the redefining that Parisian kilogram so weights are based on a physical constant rather than lump of steadily eroding metal. They might have sorted it out. I'm trusting you guys to tell me.
They have sorted it out, a kilogram is now defined by electricery. One moment, let me go and find a citation

ETA Planck's constant. https://youtu.be/Oo0jm1PPRuo
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 March, 2018, 09:23:14 am
The metre is defined in a similar manner, taking the distance from the North Pole to the Equator as baseline.
It's certainly not the current definition, which is the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/~300,000,000 of a second. (A nice, handy yardstick, eh?).

Sorry, used wrong tense. That was the original definition. The metre was one ten-millionth of the Pole-Equator distance.

Quote
I remember having to remember the SI unit definitions for A-Level Physics - the best, I think, was the amp, which is "that constant current which when maintained in two straight parallel perfect conductors of infinite length, positioned one metre apart in a vacuum, induces a force of 2×10−7 newtons per metre length of each on the other." (for which, also see the definition of 'metre', and of 'kilogram', 'metre' and 'second' to understand the derived unit 'newton'.  It's useful, because everyone has ready access to caesium-133, infinitely long conductors in vacuums, and Parisian kilograms. ::-))

The cgs/SI switch didn't happen until a few years after I got my degree, fortunately. Switching halfway through would have been hell.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 March, 2018, 09:27:26 am
What kind of bastard creation is that? 'a scale of 3":90m'

It's like Concorde all over again . . .

It's not a scale: 3 seconds of arc is the angle subtended by a distance of 90 metres on the Earth's surface.  NASA originally mapped as much of the world as they could to an accuracy of 1 second, but only released the bits outside the USA as 3-second squares, presumably to confuse the Russians.

Don't tell the Orange Twat or he'll have the lot taken down or scrambled.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 08 March, 2018, 09:33:37 am
What kind of bastard creation is that? 'a scale of 3":90m'

It's like Concorde all over again . . .

It's not a scale: 3 seconds of arc is the angle subtended by a distance of 90 metres on the Earth's surface.  NASA originally mapped as much of the world as they could to an accuracy of 1 second, but only released the bits outside the USA as 3-second squares, presumably to confuse the Russians.

Don't tell the Orange Twat or he'll have the lot taken down or scrambled.
It's probably as well that he's as thick as pig shit. If he knew about how GPS works he'd probably have turned selective availability switched on again!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 08 March, 2018, 10:38:40 am
... That was the original definition. The metre was one ten-millionth of the Pole-Equator distance.


Except, as we all now know, the earth is flat, and the Equator has no relevance! :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 March, 2018, 11:12:21 am
Now there's a thought: a flat world à la Pratchett but peopled by Trumpesque creatures and worked by extreme right-wing religious physics.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 08 March, 2018, 11:12:52 am
... That was the original definition. The metre was one ten-millionth of the Pole-Equator distance.


Except, as we all now know, the earth is flat, and the Equator has no relevance! :o
It's half way between the hub and the rim isn't it?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 08 March, 2018, 12:04:28 pm
What kind of bastard creation is that? 'a scale of 3":90m'

It's like Concorde all over again . . .

It's not a scale: 3 seconds of arc is the angle subtended by a distance of 90 metres on the Earth's surface.  NASA originally mapped as much of the world as they could to an accuracy of 1 second, but only released the bits outside the USA as 3-second squares, presumably to confuse the Russians.

Don't tell the Orange Twat or he'll have the lot taken down or scrambled.

Apologies. I haz a stupid.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 March, 2018, 09:01:52 am
Ancient birds couldn't sit on their eggs without smashing them. (https://www.newscientist.com/article/2163286-ancient-birds-couldnt-sit-on-their-eggs-without-smashing-them/)

Daisy May take note.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 10 March, 2018, 01:38:54 pm
... That was the original definition. The metre was one ten-millionth of the Pole-Equator distance.


Except, as we all now know, the earth is flat, and the Equator has no relevance! :o
It's half way between the hub and the rim isn't it?

Half the radius or the line between a circle and an annulus of equal area?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 10 March, 2018, 03:16:03 pm
That a nautical mile is 1.15-something miles.

That the circumference of the earth is 24,901 miles around the equator.

360o is 21600 minutes. Which divided into 24,901 gives 1.15-something.

So a minute of latitude is one nautical mile at the equator.

Probably not a revelation to some people.

"We're flying west along the Equator at a speed approaching 1000 knots and, as you may have noticed, the Sun is now standing still."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 11 March, 2018, 10:52:47 am
According to Bill Bailey last night Midsomer murders is a top selling TV program in Scandiwegia. So we get the Bridge, The Killing, Beck, Arne Dahl and the rest and they get some twee whodunits set in an English village in return. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 March, 2018, 07:32:31 pm
They probably get Agatha Christie too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 11 March, 2018, 07:58:29 pm
The Plastics in the film Mean Girls (or the book on which it's based) have stunning similarities to The Fashion Club in the mid-90s cartoon Daria:

New popular redhead girl in town joins group (Quinn/Cady)
Very bossy bitchy queen bee (Sandi/Regina)
The incredibly dim one (Tiffany/Karen)
Queen bee gets fat and is temporarily deposed
Queen bee gets seriously injured
Queen bee and redhead clash over boy
Etc.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 11 March, 2018, 08:09:08 pm
Chewing wine gums whilst winching a 'bent up a hill, and blowing hard accordingly, is not a good idea. 

Gravity works well when doing the same on a DF machine, but fails to work properly when couchant on a proper bicycle.

Maybe this should go in the "Fecking Div" thread............

Fortunately I'm here to tell the tale, but for a minute it was going to be a close run thing.  Not doing that again.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 11 March, 2018, 10:06:52 pm
Do you have to have the gravity on all the time . . . ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 13 March, 2018, 09:28:51 am
I used to have telephone engineers phone and used to carry around perched on my shoulder back in the day. It was  formally a tele 280 but was known as a Butt by one and all. It was used to test all manner of telephone related hardware by people all over the telephone network and we couldn't really do the job with out on in those days.

What I've just learnt is that the colloquialism was in fact an Americanism brought over by the chaps who came to install the first telephone exchanges. Butt was short for Buttinski which is obviously a made up word, but was to describe the act of butting into calls in progress which it allowed, but was obviously a practice never undertaken. It's only taken me 39y 7m to find that out!   
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 14 March, 2018, 02:38:43 pm
QILTBAG (or is it QUILTBAG?) is the same as LGBTQetc and might even be an anagram of a longer version of the acronym. I've seen it round here a few times and been confused.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 14 March, 2018, 03:02:58 pm
Yes.  QUILTBAG is a lot easier to say (though it does still sound funny for someone who got into politics as the 'B' was being controversially added to L and G).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 14 March, 2018, 05:56:56 pm
Do you have to have the gravity on all the time . . . ?

Well, I discovered today that even my heavy 20/26 Performer responds well to turning the gravity up to 11, even on M Racers.

Was being caught, slowly, by a roadie on a short sharp uphill, and he almost got me, but the climb is followed by an immediate half mile of 11% downhill. I turned the gravity up and the roadie rapidly disappeared into the murk behind me as I hit 40mph.   Wheeeee! 

I'll confess to a brief consideration of a couple of "what if" scenarios before applying negative gravity via the brakes as I approached a side junction, reasoning that it was early afternoon and chucking out of the local pub grub facility along that lane might result in someone pulling out of that junction, not expecting a red recumbent to be approaching at a much higher velocity than that driver had previously witnessed.  But the roadie never caught me, so maybe he went to the pub instead.

Oddly enough, despite my lack of miles over the past few months, few of the roadies who came past me today did so with a significant speed differential.  I must be getting fitter.  Just wait until the dry roads return and I can get the 700c Highracer out again!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 March, 2018, 06:14:30 pm
Top tip: It's vitally important to make sure the gravity is properly aligned before turning it up to 11 at 40mph.  (DAHIKT)

Oddly enough, despite my lack of miles over the past few months, few of the roadies who came past me today did so with a significant speed differential.  I must be getting fitter.

As someone who was out onna upwrong today, I suggest that there may be an alternative, meteorological, explanation for this effect...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 March, 2018, 07:36:36 pm
But the roadie never caught me, so maybe he went to the pub instead.
Nah, roadies go to cafes. It's only CTC types, tourers and audaxers who go to pubs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 14 March, 2018, 08:41:47 pm
Top tip: It's vitally important to make sure the gravity is properly aligned before turning it up to 11 at 40mph.  (DAHIKT)

Oddly enough, despite my lack of miles over the past few months, few of the roadies who came past me today did so with a significant speed differential.  I must be getting fitter.

As someone who was out onna upwrong today, I suggest that there may be an alternative, meteorological, explanation for this effect...

Similarly, on a nasty little progressive workout I've not done since about August, I beat my personal best into the dust.  Know idea how the weather influenced that  ???
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 March, 2018, 09:04:49 pm
That Hungarian used to have its own alphabet, derived from Turkic and Aramaic script. https://www.omniglot.com/writing/hungarian_runes.htm
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 March, 2018, 08:12:14 am
Emp, nap, tpru, ent and tprus look like entomologist's shorthand.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 15 March, 2018, 08:43:35 am
The "Uni" in Unilever comes from a former Dutch margarine firm, Unie, and wasn't hubristically added by Lever Bros to show that one company made everything, as I'd always assumed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 15 March, 2018, 09:14:30 am
Yu can close a national HQ and move all the functions to your International HQ without affecting any jobs (6000+ in the case of Unilever)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 15 March, 2018, 10:16:28 am
That the world's largest trestle bridge was constructed from wood instead of steel because temperature ranges in the locale would have caused metal fatigue in steel (I guess it might have played merry hell with track alignment as well).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 15 March, 2018, 03:32:35 pm
U Thant was a Burmese diplomat, and the third Sec-gen of the UN, first non-European and longest serving at 10 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_Thant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_Thant)

Found through a typo
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: clarion on 15 March, 2018, 04:13:32 pm
Thant was a great man, and helped to defuse several major international crises at a time of heightened tension.  Following on from Trygve Lie, and Dag Hammarskjold, this was probably the golden era of the UN.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 15 March, 2018, 05:22:50 pm
Several rather niche facts about mechanical and non-contact inspections of microchips and asociated PCB’s. I hope I get the job!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 March, 2018, 10:40:20 am
Break a leg.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 16 March, 2018, 01:47:57 pm
That you can view a transcript of YouTube Craptions or Captions. (On the same row as the thumbs up/down icon is a 3 horizontal dots icon tagged "more actions". Select that and its menu pops up a read transcript button".

You can then turn off the timestamps and pull out the text for easier/quicker editing of Craptions to shove back in and get properly timed!

Winner!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 17 March, 2018, 11:21:16 pm
Quote from: That Wikipedia we have nowadays
Sir William Ramsay KCB, FRS, FRSE, (2 October 1852 – 23 July 1916) was a British chemist who discovered the noble gases and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 18 March, 2018, 11:25:40 pm
that the pter in helicopter is the same derivative as the pter in pterodactyl so should have a silent p. helico-ter is a more faithful pronounciation, but only a few classicists will appreciate it. Lit. spiral wings
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 19 March, 2018, 06:56:48 am
that the pter in helicopter is the same derivative as the pter in pterodactyl so should have a silent p. helico-ter is a more faithful pronounciation, but only a few classicists will appreciate it. Lit. spiral wings

Surely the o ahead of the p changes it from silent to non silent?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 19 March, 2018, 08:03:57 am
that the pter in helicopter is the same derivative as the pter in pterodactyl so should have a silent p. helico-ter is a more faithful pronounciation, but only a few classicists will appreciate it. Lit. spiral wings
Strangely, I was thinking precisely the same thing yesterday morning.  See also: lepidoptera, hymenoptera, coleoptera, diptera...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 March, 2018, 08:14:13 am
What an r.f.d. box is (stands for "rural free distribution") and that people used to smoke nightshade cigarettes as an asthma treatment.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 March, 2018, 08:25:40 am
that the pter in helicopter is the same derivative as the pter in pterodactyl so should have a silent p. helico-ter is a more faithful pronounciation, but only a few classicists will appreciate it. Lit. spiral wings

Isn't the π in πτεροδάκτυλος pronounced as a φ, so that helicofter would be more faithful?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 19 March, 2018, 09:06:10 am
That clowns copyright their unique face design by painting it on an egg, which is stored by the Clown Egg Register in Wookey Hole.

(I think I knew this already but I was reminded of it when it was mentioned in a podcast I was listening to yesterday.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 March, 2018, 09:21:36 am
George Leigh Mallory, who died on Everest, was the elder brother of Trafford Leigh Mallory, who commanded N° 11 Fighter Group during WW2; he of the "Big Wing".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: liam_whippet on 19 March, 2018, 09:30:08 am
that the pter in helicopter is the same derivative as the pter in pterodactyl so should have a silent p. helico-ter is a more faithful pronounciation, but only a few classicists will appreciate it. Lit. spiral wings

The -copt- bit of helicopters is to do with cutting - that's why they're called 'choppers', as any fule kno   :demon:

<classicist>
Is there any recent evidence that the ancient Greeks themselves didn't pronounce an initial pi? Isn't this just an English-speaking affectation??

I recall a theory back in the late 70s that Zeta had been pronounced the other way round - so Zeos had actually been pronounced Sdeos - and also that k, p and t got had been aspirated rather than fricatived into kh, ph and th, to match the always-aspirated rh - so the lamentation we always pronounced 'Few' - 'Pheu' - should more accurately have been pronounced 'Hpe-oo'..

But I don't think think anyone suggested they swallowed their pi's ...
</classicist>

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 March, 2018, 05:08:21 pm
that the pter in helicopter is the same derivative as the pter in pterodactyl so should have a silent p. helico-ter is a more faithful pronounciation, but only a few classicists will appreciate it. Lit. spiral wings

Did a bit of research. The word was coined in France, and the French pronounce the initial P in PT pairs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 March, 2018, 05:52:25 pm
I've learned about the relationship between specific heat capacity and melting snow. I almost certainly learned this when I was the age my son is now, but, well... (My mistake this time was to assume the ground temperature overnight would be subzero.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 19 March, 2018, 07:30:49 pm
and the enthalpy change associated with phase change, solid-liquid in this case.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 20 March, 2018, 12:02:35 am
The old 'when it warms up it cools down' phenomenon.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 20 March, 2018, 12:05:00 am
Next time being shown carpet samples, make sure you take your time to see that it matches the
rest of the house. It can be quite a surprise once it's been laid and the colour/pattern doesn't appear
to be what you were looking at in those small samples. :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 March, 2018, 12:06:32 pm
Learnt a while back but just remembered: that rather spiffy metallic red finish on divers Renaults is fragile, and underneath they're white.  As our neighbour found out to her cost.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 21 March, 2018, 07:25:15 pm
I've finally learned which one is Ant and which one is Dec.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 21 March, 2018, 08:57:07 pm
That even the Welsh speakers in the town pronounce Lloyds Bank in the same way as anglophones.
Good job I'm with Nat West and haven't made a fool of myself.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 March, 2018, 07:51:10 am
I've finally learned which one is Ant and which one is Dec.

Shirley it's RA and Dec.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 22 March, 2018, 10:20:18 am
A gold star to that man! I see what you did there. Timing was impeccable.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 25 March, 2018, 12:19:10 pm
That my DAB bedside radio alarm doesn’t dynamically change to BST. So when I saw it was 08:47 it wasn’t, it was 09:47  ::-). It requires a power cycle to update of course.  :hand:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 26 March, 2018, 12:48:23 pm
I've finally learned which one is Ant and which one is Dec.
When they're presenting on telly, they stand so that for the viewer they're in alphabetical order, left to right.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 26 March, 2018, 01:25:42 pm
A-D used to be the first volume of the London telephone directory.....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 March, 2018, 02:34:21 pm
...which made me wonder how much paper has been saved by the demise of phone books. I tried searching for the answer but the best I found was from the bbc way back in 2011 "The new Yellow Pages - which is a mixture of paper either recycled or sourced from sustainably managed forests - will conserve about 5,000 tonnes of paper a year."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 April, 2018, 11:00:53 am
Don't put on the finger picks before picking up the banjo and putting the strap over your head. That way it doesn't slip out of your fingers and land on your foot.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 April, 2018, 11:21:17 am
...which made me wonder how much paper has been saved by the demise of phone books. I tried searching for the answer but the best I found was from the bbc way back in 2011 "The new Yellow Pages - which is a mixture of paper either recycled or sourced from sustainably managed forests - will conserve about 5,000 tonnes of paper a year."

I'm sure we received a chain-smoking-supermodel-thin phone book a while ago. I'm not sure why, I thought they'd demised upon the internet. Phonebooks, not skinny supermarkets, I'm sure they're alive – if not well – on the internet. Honestly, it would take months to beat a confession out of someone with a phone book that thin. Any thinner and it would have passed for a tissue.

Still, it's the sort of thing my parents would use, they have the internet, but other than my dad's occasional forays in the land of mature ladies in sartorial distress, they mostly seem a bit vague as to the more comprehensive set of use cases. Mind you, my mum doesn't even call me ever because she's scared of the phone bill (this is partly my fault for running up a huge set of bills as a student with an American girlfriend). I've lost track of the number of times I've told them the calls are free. Of course, she may simply not want to talk to me. If you've read this far, I suppose you might agree.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 April, 2018, 11:38:20 am
...which made me wonder how much paper has been saved by the demise of phone books. I tried searching for the answer but the best I found was from the bbc way back in 2011 "The new Yellow Pages - which is a mixture of paper either recycled or sourced from sustainably managed forests - will conserve about 5,000 tonnes of paper a year."

I'm sure we received a chain-smoking-supermodel-thin phone book a while ago. I'm not sure why, I thought they'd demised upon the internet. Phonebooks, not skinny supermarkets, I'm sure they're alive – if not well – on the internet. Honestly, it would take months to beat a confession out of someone with a phone book that thin. Any thinner and it would have passed for a tissue.
Skinny supermarkets catering to Hoxton Hipsters sipping skinny almond lattemochaccinos?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 April, 2018, 11:58:13 am
I confess to being a skinny latte orderer. And I always pronounce latte in a way intended to offended the sort of knobheads who not only insist on pronouncing foreign words in a way they think the locals do, but insist on correcting other people. I think you mean latte. No, I really don't, fuckchucks.

Except in the US of course, where it's a low-fat lattemacchofrappamappagattacino or somesuch. You have no idea how many times I have spell out my name in American coffee shops. I was impressed once to see it rendered Yuan on the side of a cup. I really don't look very Chinese.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 April, 2018, 12:01:45 pm
Yuan McGregor doesn't really look like a Jedi either.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 April, 2018, 04:18:52 pm
That the Republic of Juliana was not founded by a forumite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliana_Republic
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SoreTween on 05 April, 2018, 09:15:29 pm
Except in the US of course, where it's a low-fat lattemacchofrappamappagattacino or somesuch. You have no idea how many times I have spell out my name in American coffee shops. I was impressed once to see it rendered Yuan on the side of a cup. I really don't look very Chinese.
You are Alistair Dabbs and ICMFP
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 14 April, 2018, 09:09:50 pm
The musical form 'Viking Metal' is a thing.

Made LAWNMOWER DETH sound like a Bach chorale.

Er. No thanks . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 April, 2018, 10:48:45 am
The original typescript of Dracula was found in a Pennsylvania barn in the 1980s.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 23 April, 2018, 01:30:22 pm
Neither Norbert nor Trevor is an acceptable name for a royal baby.

It is going to be a long afternoon.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 23 April, 2018, 02:08:02 pm
OhGod royalist colleagues....

I only had one of those, and she wasn't that bad, mostly just liked visiting Buck Palace to gawp occasionally. The rest of us were suitably unkeen on them and one was entertaining when wound up :D...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 April, 2018, 02:56:31 pm
Colleagues is it? I'd assumed this was radio chat!

Though you can see the point with Norbert, as he'd be Prince Nobby. Anyway, what if it's a girl (or has it been born already?)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 23 April, 2018, 03:13:44 pm
What 'SJW' really stands for...
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=SJW

Mmmm, nice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 23 April, 2018, 04:07:30 pm
A little boy, born some hours ago...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 02 May, 2018, 11:52:08 pm
Following up on an enquiry for a customer, SRAM eTap is wireless and needs to be synchronised - components paired - before it will work. The scope for fun in a peloton is greatly reduced.

Bloody spoilsports...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 May, 2018, 08:03:10 am
What 'SJW' really stands for...
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=SJW

Mmmm, nice.

When I see the initials SJ in anything I immediately think "Jesuit". 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 06 May, 2018, 08:21:55 pm
Alan Turing published a paper on chemical reactions (https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/alan-turings-contribution-to-chemistry-used-to-filter-salt-water/).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 May, 2018, 09:45:05 pm
The post office in Hyder, Alaska, is about 50 metres closer to the South Pole than the south side of the Erskine Bridge over the Clyde west of Glasgow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 06 May, 2018, 10:10:48 pm
We are pretty far north, buggered when the Atlantic conveyor gives up
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Phil W on 06 May, 2018, 10:19:55 pm
The post office in Hyder, Alaska, is about 50 metres closer to the South Pole than the south side of the Erskine Bridge over the Clyde west of Glasgow.

I visited Hyder back in 2000. Weird place, a short drive from Canadian side, and pretty much a place that would seem to fit into a wild west type scenario. I have a piccy or two I took, which will be on CD near the PC. Might see if I can locate
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 07 May, 2018, 12:40:30 am
We are pretty far north, buggered when the Atlantic conveyor gives up

I thought that the Argentinians had already dealt with that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 07 May, 2018, 07:09:22 am
We are pretty far north, buggered when the Atlantic conveyor gives up

I thought that the Argentinians had already dealt with that.

I was wondering how long that would take.

The current system, including the gulf stream
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 May, 2018, 10:07:18 am
The post office in Hyder, Alaska, is about 50 metres closer to the South Pole than the south side of the Erskine Bridge over the Clyde west of Glasgow.

I visited Hyder back in 2000. Weird place, a short drive from Canadian side, and pretty much a place that would seem to fit into a wild west type scenario. I have a piccy or two I took, which will be on CD near the PC. Might see if I can locate

I went there in 2015 but trying to find the pictures would be too much hassle until I'm on a Real ComputerTM.  Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.)'s steam-powered laptop does not qualify.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 07 May, 2018, 11:14:46 am
Following up on an enquiry for a customer, SRAM eTap is wireless and needs to be synchronised - components paired - before it will work. The scope for fun in a peloton is greatly reduced.

Bloody spoilsports...

Unless some devious oik develops a little box of tricks that scans around, finds kit on different bikes and does a bit of cross pairing...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 07 May, 2018, 11:36:55 am
We are pretty far north, buggered when the Atlantic conveyor gives up
Its amazing to realise that with the exception of Alaska the whole of USAinia isa fair bit south of the southern most latitiude of the UK.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 07 May, 2018, 07:37:58 pm
That Madagascar produces 75% of the world's Vanilla.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 07 May, 2018, 09:55:10 pm
That the word Kingdom is accepted  as gender neutral.  (YMMV)
Possibly to save having to change the name of an entire country.
We could have been living in the UQ.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 07 May, 2018, 10:01:46 pm
That the word Kingdom is accepted  as gender neutral.  (YMMV)
Possibly to save having to change the name of an entire country.
We could have been living in the UQ.

United Queendom sounds a lot more fabulous.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 08 May, 2018, 08:02:28 am
That the word Kingdom is accepted  as gender neutral.  (YMMV)
Possibly to save having to change the name of an entire country.
We could have been living in the UQ.

United Queendom sounds a lot more fabulous.
You might be seen as a little biased!  :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 08 May, 2018, 08:06:14 am
It May happen with the Mercury rising.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 May, 2018, 08:17:56 am
How many letters?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 20 May, 2018, 09:06:10 pm
That there used to be a golf course in Nant Ffrancon.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 20 May, 2018, 09:49:19 pm
That there is a place in Wales called Nant Ffrancon . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 20 May, 2018, 10:08:05 pm
That Brian Blessed is 81.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6323128/brian-blessed-farmers-c-word-badger-cull/

"who was dressed as a Tudor king"  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 21 May, 2018, 09:06:50 pm
That there used to be a golf course in Nant Ffrancon.

Given that I could not fathom how you'd get a golf course in that valley - mainly since with my geologist's hat on I was thinking about the top end near Ogwen Cottage, I had to look it up.

http://golfsmissinglinks.co.uk/index.php/wales-64/1066-nantffrancon-golf-club-llanberis-gwynedd

So, Efrogwr, you are absolutely right and the next time I'm passing through Bethesda, I'll be looking out for just where it might have been, whilst trying to recall which Bethesda pub it was in around 1973 (when I was an undergrad on field trips to the Snowdonia volcanics) that still gave you your change in £sd instead of that new-fangled decimal stuff.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 21 May, 2018, 11:20:34 pm
That there used to be a golf course in Nant Ffrancon.

Given that I could not fathom how you'd get a golf course in that valley - mainly since with my geologist's hat on I was thinking about the top end near Ogwen Cottage, I had to look it up.

http://golfsmissinglinks.co.uk/index.php/wales-64/1066-nantffrancon-golf-club-llanberis-gwynedd

So, Efrogwr, you are absolutely right and the next time I'm passing through Bethesda, I'll be looking out for just where it might have been, whilst trying to recall which Bethesda pub it was in around 1973 (when I was an undergrad on field trips to the Snowdonia volcanics) that still gave you your change in £sd instead of that new-fangled decimal stuff.
The Douglas Arms.  It was still doing it last time I was there, although I think they've given up now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 22 May, 2018, 07:32:09 am
That there used to be a golf course in Nant Ffrancon.

Given that I could not fathom how you'd get a golf course in that valley - mainly since with my geologist's hat on I was thinking about the top end near Ogwen Cottage, I had to look it up.

http://golfsmissinglinks.co.uk/index.php/wales-64/1066-nantffrancon-golf-club-llanberis-gwynedd

So, Efrogwr, you are absolutely right and the next time I'm passing through Bethesda, I'll be looking out for just where it might have been, whilst trying to recall which Bethesda pub it was in around 1973 (when I was an undergrad on field trips to the Snowdonia volcanics) that still gave you your change in £sd instead of that new-fangled decimal stuff.
The Douglas Arms.  It was still doing it last time I was there, although I think they've given up now.

Ah!  Thank you Tim. I had a minor worry that with the passage of anno domini my memory is not what I thought it was and that I was simply remembering an urban myth - but you've restored my faith in my recollections. Somebody else knows about it! 

I do recall that it was a bit of a shock, buying a pint with new money and getting the change in old.  Dunno how he managed to keep stocks of the old coins though.

I feel a day trip to Snowdonia coming on.......
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 May, 2018, 11:06:54 am
The missus is on a great campaign of book reorganisation, and apart from clouds of dust that sets yrs. trly. sneezing, has just turned up a slim volume that the Inlaw Paw received as a freebie for joining the Folio Soc about 25 years ago.

It's called Novocento, and turns out to be a French translation of the monologue by Alessandro Baricco on which the film The Legend of 1900 was based.

I never knew we had it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 22 May, 2018, 10:05:01 pm
That there used to be a golf course in Nant Ffrancon.

Given that I could not fathom how you'd get a golf course in that valley - mainly since with my geologist's hat on I was thinking about the top end near Ogwen Cottage, I had to look it up.

http://golfsmissinglinks.co.uk/index.php/wales-64/1066-nantffrancon-golf-club-llanberis-gwynedd

So, Efrogwr, you are absolutely right and the next time I'm passing through Bethesda, I'll be looking out for just where it might have been, whilst trying to recall which Bethesda pub it was in around 1973 (when I was an undergrad on field trips to the Snowdonia volcanics) that still gave you your change in £sd instead of that new-fangled decimal stuff.
The Douglas Arms.  It was still doing it last time I was there, although I think they've given up now.

Ah!  Thank you Tim. I had a minor worry that with the passage of anno domini my memory is not what I thought it was and that I was simply remembering an urban myth - but you've restored my faith in my recollections. Somebody else knows about it! 

I do recall that it was a bit of a shock, buying a pint with new money and getting the change in old.  Dunno how he managed to keep stocks of the old coins though.

I feel a day trip to Snowdonia coming on.......


I was at Ogwen Cottage on Sunday; Arwel Johnston ( son of Frank of tea shack fame) thinks that the golf course was near the Bethesda end of the valley. The clubhouse was at Tai Newyddion.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 27 May, 2018, 08:27:30 pm
The blue coloured paint used by Record on their vices and planes is BS381C 110 Roundel Blue the same colour as the outer blue circle on WWII RAF roundels.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 28 May, 2018, 01:55:20 pm
I was at Ogwen Cottage on Sunday; Arwel Johnston ( son of Frank of tea shack fame) thinks that the golf course was near the Bethesda end of the valley. The clubhouse was at Tai Newyddion.


Ah!  The Tea Shop!  Much missed.  I recall, as a young slip of a lad, getting from the top of Tryfan to the Tea Shop in 45 minutes, because it was going to close for the day and my climbing partner and I wanted a tea.  My legs have never recovered.  Indeed, it may be that descent is responsible for the rather chunky thighs I've always had for my rugby front row and rowing careers.  And why I'm slow on a bike...….
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 May, 2018, 03:32:35 pm
Strops don't just work on chisels & so forth, they work on supposedly disposable scalpel blades too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 29 May, 2018, 07:36:13 am
Wilf Lunn is still with us

I remember Vision On from my dim and distant childhood, but had no idea he is only 6 years older than my dad
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 29 May, 2018, 01:57:18 pm
That kaolin poutices now require a prescription.  ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 29 May, 2018, 06:02:49 pm
Thanks to yesterday's 'Shed & Buried' marathon/binge, I discovered that Chater-Lea made motorcycle combinations for the AA. I'm sure the programme stated that Sturmey-Archer made the gearboxes but I'd consumed some 'refreshment' and TBH I'm not certain.

The story went they completed the order and promptly went bust.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 May, 2018, 06:12:54 pm
Sturmey-Archer certainly did make motorcycle gearboxen back in Olden Times.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 03 June, 2018, 09:54:25 am
That kaolin poutices now require a prescription.  ::-)
You need a prescription for 5% sodium chloride eye drops (hypertonic, used for Fuch's dystrophy).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 June, 2018, 09:58:57 am
That kaolin poutices now require a prescription.  ::-)
You need a prescription for 5% sodium chloride eye drops (hypertonic, used for Fuch's dystrophy).
But OTOH, a couple of days ago Mrs Cudzo sent Cudzo Jnr to get her some ibuprofen, she'd bruised a muscle or something. "They won't let me buy that," he says, "you have to be over 18." I had a feeling that might be correct, but also felt that it was no disaster if I had to go out and get it later and it was good to send him out anyway. But they did sell it him, so there aren't age limits on that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 03 June, 2018, 12:52:13 pm
Today has been declared the first annual World Bicycle Day by the United Nations.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 03 June, 2018, 05:05:00 pm
Walgreens just sold me a 1000 ibuprofen tablets. I’m think I’m covered for the next few headaches.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 03 June, 2018, 05:42:14 pm
That kaolin poutices now require a prescription.  ::-)
You need a prescription for 5% sodium chloride eye drops (hypertonic, used for Fuch's dystrophy).

At least that uses purified water (even if it’s unnecessary for eyes). Kaolin is China clay paste AFAIK.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 03 June, 2018, 06:03:01 pm
The blue coloured paint used by Record on their vices and planes is BS381C 110 Roundel Blue the same colour as the outer blue circle on WWII RAF roundels.

Pcolbeck, Thank you! 

I have a nice recent Record vice that I'd like to keep decent, but I've been given an old gigantic one, which I'd like to refurbish and repaint, when I've got my workshop built.  It currently has an insufficiently flat floor (Why does latex self levelling screed "go off" so quickly?), and 3 and a half walls, so we're getting there.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 03 June, 2018, 06:30:37 pm
Kaolin is China clay paste AFAIK.

It is indeed.  Kaolini(ite) is a clay mineral, resulting from the decomposition of the feldspars in the granite intrusions in Cornwall. There are quite a few other clay minerals (e.g. Bentonite, Montmorillonite, Illite, etc....) all with slightly different chemistries and properties.  Think of clays as layer cakes, with two silicate layers separated by some ions bonded to the silicates.  Bentonite is a derivative of volcanic ash and was named after the Fort Benton area of Wyoming and is widely used as a drilling mud in the oil and ground engineering industries.  They all have differing abilities to 'suck' in (adsorb) other ions into the ionic layer, and that's what gives Kaolinite its medical (or pottery) uses.  Useful things, clays.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 03 June, 2018, 06:59:05 pm
bentonite is also used as a fining agent in beer and wine manufacturing
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 June, 2018, 07:04:46 pm
Bentonite is also used in toothpaste, so it's clearly dangerous stuff :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 03 June, 2018, 09:31:07 pm
Kaolin is also used to trigger blood clotting through the 'contact pathway' or 'intrinsic pathway'. The original experiments on this were performed by the anatomist William Hewson in the 1770's where he ran freshly let blood into containers of china, or gutta percha and observed the different coagulation times. It wasn't till the 1880's that they discovered that bloodd clotting is usually triggered by constituents outside the blood (the extrinsic pathway) with the prime activator, tissue factor (as a preparation including lipids called thromboplastin) identified and described by Morawitz in 1905 in a somewhat extensive review (1)

(1) Yes I have seen a copy. It is in german as it was published in Angewandte Chemie. Of particular note are two things. a) all the references are listed at the start. 450 or so of them. and b) a particular figure (diagram) is not included. This is interesting as it is frequently seen in historical reviews attributed to this paper, clearly by folk who have not read it. There was an English translation in 1952 which I have not seen which may have this figure.

OK, I learned this when I wrote my PhD thesis 'My life in the laboratory with a bunch of clots' 24 years ago.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 03 June, 2018, 09:40:46 pm
KCCT -kaolin-cephalin clotting time, innit?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 03 June, 2018, 09:57:20 pm
.

  Useful things, clays.
Less so if your house is built on it  >:(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 03 June, 2018, 10:05:24 pm
.

  Useful things, clays.
Less so if your house is built on it  >:(

Mine has stood up OK.

I presume its bricks are clay too...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 03 June, 2018, 10:45:10 pm
Kaolin is also used to trigger blood clotting through the 'contact pathway' or 'intrinsic pathway'. The original experiments on this were performed by the anatomist William Hewson in the 1770's where he ran freshly let blood into containers of china, or gutta percha and observed the different coagulation times. It wasn't till the 1880's that they discovered that bloodd clotting is usually triggered by constituents outside the blood (the extrinsic pathway) with the prime activator, tissue factor (as a preparation including lipids called thromboplastin) identified and described by Morawitz in 1905 in a somewhat extensive review (1)

(1) Yes I have seen a copy. It is in german as it was published in Angewandte Chemie. Of particular note are two things. a) all the references are listed at the start. 450 or so of them. and b) a particular figure (diagram) is not included. This is interesting as it is frequently seen in historical reviews attributed to this paper, clearly by folk who have not read it. There was an English translation in 1952 which I have not seen which may have this figure.

OK, I learned this when I wrote my PhD thesis 'My life in the laboratory with a bunch of clots' 24 years ago.

I came across it when I had a huge boil on my elbow some, ummm, 50 years ago. A hot poultice of kaolin (a paste in a tin, not sure how it was heated as it was pre microwave) was applied. It burst (the boil) and a fibrous core was extracted from it  :sick:  I still have the dimple in the elbow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 04 June, 2018, 07:10:25 am
.

  Useful things, clays.
Less so if your house is built on it  >:(

Nothing wrong with building on clay.  But try not to pick clays which like to take in a lot of water in that ionic layer, because they also let it out again when something else out-competes them for that water - like trees, and droughts.

London Clay (and some other soft Southern clays - our up north clays don't suffer the same problem, we make 'em grittier up north  O:-)) is particularly prone to this phenomenon, but as long as your foundations are deep enough (below the shrink/swell depth), it's not a problem. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 June, 2018, 07:41:14 am
Kaolin is also used to trigger blood clotting through the 'contact pathway' or 'intrinsic pathway'. The original experiments on this were performed by the anatomist William Hewson in the 1770's where he ran freshly let blood into containers of china, or gutta percha and observed the different coagulation times. It wasn't till the 1880's that they discovered that bloodd clotting is usually triggered by constituents outside the blood (the extrinsic pathway) with the prime activator, tissue factor (as a preparation including lipids called thromboplastin) identified and described by Morawitz in 1905 in a somewhat extensive review (1)

(1) Yes I have seen a copy. It is in german as it was published in Angewandte Chemie. Of particular note are two things. a) all the references are listed at the start. 450 or so of them. and b) a particular figure (diagram) is not included. This is interesting as it is frequently seen in historical reviews attributed to this paper, clearly by folk who have not read it. There was an English translation in 1952 which I have not seen which may have this figure.

OK, I learned this when I wrote my PhD thesis 'My life in the laboratory with a bunch of clots' 24 years ago.

I came across it when I had a huge boil on my elbow some, ummm, 50 years ago. A hot poultice of kaolin (a paste in a tin, not sure how it was heated as it was pre microwave) was applied. It burst (the boil) and a fibrous core was extracted from it  :sick:  I still have the dimple in the elbow.

My mum knew all about putting poultices on but SFA about when to take them off; which meant that when I, aged 8, had a boil on my bum, a scalding bread poultice went on every morning, did its work (presumably), then cooled down and hung cold and damp in my underpants all day. This while spending August in a seaside cottage, in a village whose harbour later figured in GofT, God wot.  No dragons, but that bloody poultice going on felt like one having a go at my arse. Singeing, that is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 June, 2018, 06:50:12 pm
Today I learned that, until today, amateur boxers were not allowed to have beards.  Still aren't at international level.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 04 June, 2018, 07:56:13 pm
Today I learned that, until today, amateur boxers were not allowed to have beards.  Still aren't at international level.
That’s beardist that is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 06 June, 2018, 02:24:58 pm
Richard Attlee, close friend of Kenton Archer off of The Archers, is the grandson of Clement Attlee.

Ob. Cycling: I think it is he who is narrating On Your Bike on Radio 4 Extra.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 06 June, 2018, 02:52:42 pm
Richard Attlee, close friend of Kenton Archer off of The Archers, is the grandson of Clement Attlee.

Ob. Cycling: I think it is he who is narrating On Your Bike on Radio 4 Extra.
That confused I, mixing real people and Archer's characters (who are real really) Having googled Richard Attlee I know understand what you mean by 'close friend'
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Moleman76 on 06 June, 2018, 09:46:57 pm
Three parts:
1) There is a reason why mandolines have a "don't touch blade" notice, and why they come with the holder-thing to keep fingers away from that blade (yesterday's lesson); and
2) "Waterproof" bandages really mean "water that gets in won't get out" and your skin will turn white under them; and
3) Slicing the end of one's thumb negates the benefit of having it opposable, at least until the sensitivity of the cut area drops off.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 07 June, 2018, 12:32:16 am
2) "Waterproof" bandages really mean "water that gets in won't get out" and your skin will turn white under them; and

The other two are fair enough (ouch!), but Shirley this is common knowledge acquired in childhood?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Moleman76 on 08 June, 2018, 06:09:41 am
/quote]
 but Shirley this is common knowledge acquired in childhood?
[/quote]
Except I hardly ever need to use one, and all of the suitably-sized ones from our son's youth (he's 26 now) have been used up, so no cutesey animal print ones at hand, but - aha! - box says waterproof, so won't have to replace when adhesive lets loose after washing my hands ….

I think there is a rule that only the odd sized ones are permitted to be found in times of need
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 12 June, 2018, 01:33:35 pm
The typically dowdy colour in which the Surly LHT is currently offered is really called Lagoon by the factory.  Surly's spliff-smoking* marketroids call it Grandpa's Thermos (wouldn't that be tartan?) and the European distributors call it Sea Green.

Varicose Vein Blue would be my description, but it's better than black.  Black bikes look heavy.

*I have no evidence for this but I believe it to be at least probable
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Chris N on 12 June, 2018, 03:55:10 pm
Surly's bike colour names are great.  Drink more water yellow is a particular favourite of mine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 June, 2018, 05:24:43 pm
To wear safety glasses when putting on a new G-string.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 12 June, 2018, 07:19:18 pm
To wear safety glasses when putting on a new G-string.

 :-X
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: David Martin on 12 June, 2018, 11:36:53 pm
To wear safety glasses when putting on a new G-string.

 :-X
Bum note or bum floss?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 June, 2018, 09:08:18 am
The end flicked out of the winder and pinked me on the bridge of my nose.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 13 June, 2018, 11:09:25 am
Think you might need a size larger . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 June, 2018, 01:40:29 pm
Well, it's safely anchored now, although the nut slot is a little large and it's inclined to buzz when strummed forcefully. Time for a little superglue & baking-powder, then I'll have at it with my dozuki.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 13 June, 2018, 02:54:00 pm
Well, it's safely anchored now, although the nut slot is a little large and it's inclined to buzz when strummed forcefully. Time for a little superglue & baking-powder, then I'll have at it with my dozuki.

Which kind of G-string are we talking about here? :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 June, 2018, 08:12:43 am
The kind that goes twang when you pluck it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 14 June, 2018, 11:12:00 am
Not all Garmin GPS cables are the same.

Wanted to upgrade the maps on my Nuvi car GPS so fished the lead labeled Garmin out of the draw and connected. Computer can see it but the Garmin upgrade installer can't. Unplug and reconnect a few times with no luck. Give up and brew some tea. It then occurs to wonder how many Garmin leads I've got and whether any of the others would work. Sure enough the second lead works, the first lead only seems to work with an edge 700.

Leads now labeled with device name as well as manufacturer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 17 June, 2018, 09:41:56 pm
Robin Williams collected bikes, and had a Ron Cooper track iron.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 17 June, 2018, 10:37:34 pm
What is it, with Garmin and being picky about cables?  My Garmin sourced car nav unit is particularly picky about having the exact Garmin cable, instead of any other of the dozens of decent quality micro USB cables that litter this house.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 17 June, 2018, 10:43:16 pm
What is it, with Garmin and being picky about cables?  My Garmin sourced car nav unit is particularly picky about having the exact Garmin cable, instead of any other of the dozens of decent quality micro USB cables that litter this house.
Yes, we have that issue also.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 June, 2018, 08:54:24 am
That, according to a snippet in Nature, only 5.5% of people say thanks when someone does them a favour. Among one particular people, in S. America I think, nobody said thanks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 18 June, 2018, 09:00:34 am
What is it, with Garmin and being picky about cables?  My Garmin sourced car nav unit is particularly picky about having the exact Garmin cable, instead of any other of the dozens of decent quality micro USB cables that litter this house.
Yes, we have that issue also.
Same for TomTom car twatnavs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 18 June, 2018, 09:03:24 am
That you dont have to buy WD40 in the cans with the straws that always get lost. They sell it in 5 litre containers along with a mister bottle to decant it into. And its cheaper that way !
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ScumOfTheRoad on 18 June, 2018, 09:09:15 am
Pcolbeck.. who uses five litres of WD40? I have several cans bougth over the years, and I am sure they will form part of my legacy.
It is the one thing lurking at the back of shelves in any garage, that and 3 in 1 oil.

ps. Dont get me started on trigger packs, ie those bottles with the spray attachment. I completely agree with using one for WD40.
It is a CRYING SHAME that such finely engineered pieces of equipment, made using the worls oil supply, are used once then binned.
I saw in a supermarked once a concentrated little tube of kitchen cleaning fluid. Drop into a used trigger pack, fill with water, and voila. Such a good idea. But I never saw them much again. That idea both saved plastic and the stupidity of moving water by the lorryload across the country.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 18 June, 2018, 10:40:39 am
It annoys me that eventually you end up with a can 1/4 full of oil and no propellent. 5 litres is about a lifetimes worth for most people I would guess. Not so much if your a garage or a keen armature mechanic.

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61qeG2shjEL._SL1441_.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 18 June, 2018, 10:43:03 am
Ditto for 'Muc-Off' type stuff which I use lots.
I have three 25l drums and buy TFR in a 5l concentrate.
Tip this into one drum and fill with tap water.
Decant this into a second 50/50 and top up both with tap water.

Result is 50l of ready to use cleaning fluid which decants into trigger bottles. I buy another concentrate when the second drum is halfway down.

Costs less than 20 quid to make 50 litres, I'm sure you can do the maths...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 June, 2018, 12:37:01 pm
...Dont get me started on trigger packs, ie those bottles with the spray attachment. I completely agree with using one for WD40.
It is a CRYING SHAME that such finely engineered pieces of equipment, made using the worls oil supply, are used once then binned...

Plant spray.  I keep one full of water & detergent and another of plain water in the workshop.  Also have another of plain water next to the parrot's cage for when he gets stroppy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 18 June, 2018, 04:45:39 pm
I have learnt today that I am old enough to receive a 'Senior Discount' if booking at Center Parcs sur le continent*

Paradoxically my youngest son is still young enough for us to claim a 'Junior Discount' at the same place.

Of the two I think I would much prefer the latter. Do you think they'll let us have both?  ;D


*Dunno if it would apply in the UK. CP absolutely shaft families in the UK at school holiday time compared to European prices. Perhaps they're using UK business to subsidise Germany, Holland & Belgium. Very much like our train operators . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 June, 2018, 05:04:10 pm
Might also be that UK schools tend to all have their holidays at the same time whereas some sur le continent countries stagger them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 18 June, 2018, 05:12:51 pm
That when riding a time trial one has to have a top that covers ones shoulders, but when riding in a triathlon one can have bare shoulders.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 18 June, 2018, 05:21:16 pm
Might also be that UK schools tend to all have their holidays at the same time whereas some sur le continent countries stagger them.

A while ago - think back to when the Euro was worth less than the Pound - I thought the same so, mainly because I could, I sat down with a laptop and compared prices on a week by week, month by month basis.

Whilst prices rose incrementally towards the Summer in Europe, there was no obvious spike and they were consistently lower in Euros than the UK in Sterling. When the UK was on school holidays, however, the parks over here were absolutely rinsing the punters.

It isn't that we think we're paying over the odds, we ARE.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 19 June, 2018, 01:18:55 am
Might also be that UK schools tend to all have their holidays at the same time whereas some sur le continent countries stagger them.

*English* schools tend to have their hols at much the same time, but *Scottish* ones are on a different schedule. (No idea about Wales or NI.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 19 June, 2018, 02:22:56 am
CBD OIL, In capsules, seems to lessen the 22 1/2 year HELL OF PAIN that is my head a bit. In with the Opioids I'm feeling some, slight, hope.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 June, 2018, 07:32:57 am
I have learnt today that I am old enough to receive a 'Senior Discount' if booking at Center Parcs sur le continent*

There's one of their places in the Moselle, on a favourite route of mine: https://goo.gl/maps/T1YfhTpC1NF2

Doesn't look too alluring: https://goo.gl/maps/hvTDV618E482
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 19 June, 2018, 07:38:16 am
I have always had a hankering to visit Parc Asterix having passed it many times on the A1.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 19 June, 2018, 08:17:03 pm
CBD OIL, In capsules, seems to lessen the 22 1/2 year HELL OF PAIN that is my head a bit. In with the Opioids I'm feeling some, slight, hope.

That's a bit of good news, can you vape it?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 19 June, 2018, 11:39:13 pm
CBD OIL, In capsules, seems to lessen the 22 1/2 year HELL OF PAIN that is my head a bit. In with the Opioids I'm feeling some, slight, hope.

That's a bit of good news, can you vape it?

Afraid not, oil in the atomisers ain't good. Capsules are small and easy to carry. Unfortunately, at the price, a £20.00 weekly bill is restrictive. I have hopes on the current wave of "Make this stuff available on prescription" shouting that seems to have hit the headlines today.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuaran on 22 June, 2018, 12:05:49 am
The scientific name for twinflower is Linnaea borealis, because it was a favourite of Carl Linnaeus.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 June, 2018, 12:15:25 pm
Yesterday, in fact. That the Deltic engines in trains were a downrated version of an engine originally developed for motor torpedo boats. And many other facts about Deltics. Just some of the fascinating facts you pick up chatting to audaxers!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ScumOfTheRoad on 25 June, 2018, 12:24:46 pm
Deltics - I knew that they were originally developed for the Navy. Didst not know were for MTBs.
OK train buffs - are there still any Deltic locomotives running in service on UK railways.
(Prepare for incoming!!!)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 25 June, 2018, 12:49:06 pm
There are at least these two:-



http://royalscotsgrey.com/0/

http://thedps.co.uk/category/alycidon/

There are another four preserved, I believe.


Peter
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 26 June, 2018, 02:18:56 pm
That one of the uses of CO2 is in the slaughter of chickens and pigs. And Waitrose are restricting online purchases of frozen goods as they use dry ice to keep the deliveries cold (as I assume will all the other home delivery operators)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 26 June, 2018, 04:23:27 pm
That one of the uses of CO2 is in the slaughter of chickens and pigs. And Waitrose are restricting online purchases of frozen goods as they use dry ice to keep the deliveries cold (as I assume will all the other home delivery operators)

And it's a cruel and gruesome way to kill something. Sheesh.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 26 June, 2018, 06:30:55 pm
That one of the uses of CO2 is in the slaughter of chickens and pigs. And Waitrose are restricting online purchases of frozen goods as they use dry ice to keep the deliveries cold (as I assume will all the other home delivery operators)

And it's a cruel and gruesome way to kill something. Sheesh.

I wondered that.  Surely if you want to suffocate something with minimal distress, nitrogen would be better?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 26 June, 2018, 06:38:34 pm
That one of the uses of CO2 is in the slaughter of chickens and pigs. And Waitrose are restricting online purchases of frozen goods as they use dry ice to keep the deliveries cold (as I assume will all the other home delivery operators)

And it's a cruel and gruesome way to kill something. Sheesh.

I wondered that.  Surely if you want to suffocate something with minimal distress, nitrogen would be better?

no different really, asphyxiation is asphyxiation, ask any Tory MP
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 26 June, 2018, 06:48:21 pm
Shirley high concentrations of CO2 lowers the blood pH causing hyperventilation and associated panic, whereas breathing an inert gas just causes you to pass out from hypoxia?

Perhaps the Westminster Gasworks could perform some studies to confirm this...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 26 June, 2018, 06:56:23 pm
That was my understanding, at least from the dire safety briefings I was giving about liquid nitrogen handling (no travelling in lifts with it, etc.). But then I guess LN2 is a fair bit more expensive than CO2.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 26 June, 2018, 07:02:20 pm
Yes, carbon dioxide is a horrid way to go. Nitrogen isn't expensive, it's easily distilled from air, across a membrane or through adsorption.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 26 June, 2018, 07:08:45 pm
Hmm, unless suddenly switching to pure CO2 has an anaesthetic effect that's so quick you don't get a chance to notice your breathing is disrupted?  That's not the usual rebreathing-a-limited-supply-of-air or CO2-slowly-displacing-air scenario you tend to come across in elfin safe tea contexts.

*googles*

That appears to be the general idea.  Various sources seem to suggest it doesn't work that way in practice, thobut.   :-\
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 26 June, 2018, 07:17:50 pm
OT but liquid Nitrogen might well be quicker, but it’s potential effects on humans in the vicinity will likely be more extreme in the case of a leak. I visited a pesticide factory, where the containers are topped off with Nitrogen as a preservative. Instructions in case of the alarm going off were to head straight for the exits, and not to stop for anyone who collapsed, leave that for those in breathing gear.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 26 June, 2018, 08:23:07 pm
We're talking high enough concentrations that you aren't going to have time to go all pH-amok here.  High enough concentrations, displace the O2, respiration stops.

https://www.boconline.co.uk/internet.lg.lg.gbr/en/images/10021714410_39607.pdf?v=6.0 (https://www.boconline.co.uk/internet.lg.lg.gbr/en/images/10021714410_39607.pdf?v=6.0)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 June, 2018, 09:16:40 pm
I'd have thought that given the context, causing suffering is not something that in practice anyone's going to care about. (FWIW my FiL used to knock his pigs on the head with a gurt big hammer then slit their throats before they came round. No idea how this compares with CO2 etc, but probably the major difference is he only killed one pig at a time.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 26 June, 2018, 09:23:21 pm
From what I read earlier, excessive suffering tends to damage the product (bruising etc) and is therefore avoided.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 June, 2018, 09:26:06 pm
It's going to be bruised if you've hit it with a hammer! Whether that affects the quality of the pig brain jelly, I have no idea.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: redshift on 26 June, 2018, 09:31:39 pm
Michael Portillo did a documentary about the death penalty some years ago, and after being subjected to a hypoxia test came to the conclusion that a nitrogen-based method would at least be marginally more humane than any of the other more usual ones available.   The USAnian pro-death-penalty chap he spoke to was dead against it, for exactly the same reason. I think the unsubtle subtext was that there needed to be pain and anguish for there to be 'justice.'    ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 June, 2018, 07:57:04 am
If it's the one I'm thinking of, the euphoria of nitrogen narcosis was mentioned; to which the Pro-Death fellow responded that he didn't want them to die in euphoria, he wanted them gasping and struggling in panic. He was probably Pro-Life as well and generally Pro-Misery. Probably Pro-Broccoli too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 27 June, 2018, 12:41:56 pm
Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega was the first song to be encoded into MP3 format. Karlheinz Brandenburg who invented MP3 used it to fine tune and tweak the compression algorithm after hearing that some HiFi magazines used the song to test speakers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ScumOfTheRoad on 27 June, 2018, 01:00:38 pm
I learned this many years ago...
The first band to have their songs on the Internet were Les Horribles Cernettes. Some ladies at CERN who formed a group, and their first songs were about how their boyfriends were too busy skulking around underground to pay them any attention.

Apologies upfront if I'm being sexist.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 27 June, 2018, 04:57:11 pm
If it's the one I'm thinking of, the euphoria of nitrogen narcosis was mentioned; to which the Pro-Death fellow responded that he didn't want them to die in euphoria, he wanted them gasping and struggling in panic. He was probably Pro-Life as well and generally Pro-Misery. Probably Pro-Broccoli too.

I like broccoli, hate murder. Anyway, nitrogen narcosis is something different to merely suffocating. While carbon dioxide asphyxiation might be fine if done correctly, in practice it doesn't seem it is, and it's easy to get wrong.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 June, 2018, 05:11:06 pm
Narcosis comes from overpressure, doesn't it? Can't remember. Anyway, the method involved dropping the partial pressure of oxygen in the chamber, leaving only the nitrogen and whatever the victim breathed out. It's used in some slaughterhouses and causes no distress.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 27 June, 2018, 06:19:27 pm
(1) That the Google Nexus 5X boot loop of death can strike even a 2.5 year old phone (Mrs Ham's. And it had to happen when I scrolled a page on it....)
(2) That google support will tell you "Sorry your phone is out of warranty, go talk to the manufacturer"
(3) That when you tell them "Sorry, you're wrong, UK consumer rights extend past one year to at least five. Google it" they roll over without argument and provide a replacement phone.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 27 June, 2018, 06:41:48 pm
I also just learned that forgetting you put beer in the freezer is not a good idea

(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WmQknOd9cKg/WzPL4GF0bsI/AAAAAAACtJs/ItAz8QlpJxkoIz_5l8aB9ZY--uOijk1-wCKgBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180627_182502.jpg)

It was Estrella. Damn.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 28 June, 2018, 12:15:22 pm
(1) That the Google Nexus 5X boot loop of death can strike even a 2.5 year old phone (Mrs Ham's. And it had to happen when I scrolled a page on it....)
(2) That google support will tell you "Sorry your phone is out of warranty, go talk to the manufacturer"
(3) That when you tell them "Sorry, you're wrong, UK consumer rights extend past one year to at least five. Google it" they roll over without argument and provide a replacement phone.

To which I now have to add another learned item:

(4) That google can get a replacement into your hands in just over 12 hours from reporting it. Impressed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 June, 2018, 03:21:10 pm
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 29 June, 2018, 01:12:42 am
That having my skull drilled and stitched under local anaesthetic is "Interesting".
That, when things go wrong 3 hours later, going back to surgery and having more of the same is less than fun.
That, the following day when it all comes apart, going back to the hospital, being told by the surgeon that it needs re-fettling but there's no anaesthetist available until about 7 hours later and telling her to Just Do It without Anaesthetic is a little bit silly.
I did not scream out loud as she was cutting my scalp, doing a little bit more skull drilling and then stitching it all up, through Sheer Determination. At 00:40hrs this morning the dressing came off and I have had to "Improvise" to stop the plug and stud falling out again.
I am concerned that another trip to the, thankfully only 2 miles away, hospital may be on the agenda over the weekend.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 June, 2018, 08:08:35 am
I think I need another cuppa after reading that. :thumbsup: for pure grit.

Plug & stud sounds a bit, you known, cyborgian.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 June, 2018, 08:13:12 am
Sounds like another trip to hospital might be well called for!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 29 June, 2018, 01:07:55 pm
I am Lardicus of Borg. Resistance is futile, your sandwich will be assimilated. Got any Ketchup?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 June, 2018, 02:26:30 pm
Having had mediocre results from a bean-to-cup coffee machine (and gastritis to boot) I ignored it for a couple of months. The other day I tried it again, but had only some Sidamo I roasted in March - stale by any respectable standard.  Surprise: really quite good espresso.

Conclusion: bean-to-cup machines are designed to work best with supermarket coffee.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 30 June, 2018, 09:57:45 am
That after slopping sun screen all over your arms and legs, you should wash your  hands thoroughly before reaching for that full mug of coffee.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 July, 2018, 09:55:52 am
That waiting for the "Walk" sign costs the USA economy $2.6 billion a year.
Quote
According to an American study, people spend around 1.6 billion hours each year standing idly at the roadside, at the cost of US$2.6 billion to the American economy.
https://theconversation.com/does-pushing-the-walk-button-help-you-cross-the-street-faster-a-transport-engineer-weighs-in-98886
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 04 July, 2018, 10:00:43 am
Yeah we need them in their cars so they can use their mobiles to answer emails.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 04 July, 2018, 05:24:12 pm
That after slopping sun screen all over your arms and legs, you should wash your  hands thoroughly before reaching for that full mug of coffee.

Or rubbing your eyes
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 July, 2018, 08:39:10 am
But you can go and lean on that annoying car that's been parked in your space for the last three days.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 July, 2018, 03:49:25 pm
Meanwhile:

In the years following the Battle of Waterloo, false teeth were known as Waterloo teeth because raw material became plentiful.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 05 July, 2018, 09:18:14 pm
that also came up on the Antiques Roadshow this weekend just gone
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 06 July, 2018, 09:26:07 am
That I'm no where near as good at dealing with potential change than I thought I was.


I always thought I was crap at dealing with potential change but it turns out that I am monumentally atrocious at dealing with potential change. I suppose the thing to do is make a decision and then I only have to live with the consequences.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 06 July, 2018, 11:03:11 am
that also came up on the Antiques Roadshow this weekend just gone

Curious coincidence - I've never seen it. The Inlaws used to talk about it occasionally.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 06 July, 2018, 03:13:24 pm
That I'm no where near as good at dealing with potential change than I thought I was.


I always thought I was crap at dealing with potential change but it turns out that I am monumentally atrocious at dealing with potential change. I suppose the thing to do is make a decision and then I only have to live with the consequences.
The classic analogy for change is the grieving process and I think it is pretty close.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 06 July, 2018, 04:06:41 pm
That I'm no where near as good at dealing with potential change than I thought I was.


I always thought I was crap at dealing with potential change but it turns out that I am monumentally atrocious at dealing with potential change. I suppose the thing to do is make a decision and then I only have to live with the consequences.
The classic analogy for change is the grieving process and I think it is pretty close.
Although Dr Beardy (Mrs) aka Dr Death, being a scholar of death and dying questions the validity of grieving process, and I believe would cite research that backs such opinions. Being naught but a middle manager of technological development I wouldn’t know such things, though I have recently seen the model which you speak in a presentation to us by management intended to help us through the trauma of change.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 July, 2018, 02:57:54 pm
Insurers in France will only pay out on bike theft if the bike was secured with two locks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 10 July, 2018, 04:53:51 pm
That some models of chain splitters can be used as valve core tools.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 11 July, 2018, 05:45:32 am
That trying to audit a ship is harder than it sounds. The bloody things keep moving

First it was Rotterdam, then Teesport, then that was delayed to the weekend when I can't do it.

Now it's Marseilles and that's been delayed as well. Another night in the south of France, and rebook the flight.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 July, 2018, 08:08:57 am
That while my second cuppa is brewing I have the time to switch on the B2C machine, turn out a decent espresso, drink it and power down again before the tea-timer beeps.

Tea tastes a bit phunny, though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 11 July, 2018, 10:22:22 am
That B&Q 1000mm base units aren't 1000 long.  I'd have assumed they were about 999, or maybe exactly 1000.  Nope, they are 1003.5mm long.  Guess how long a space I'd left for the two 1000mm units in my workshop - correct, it wasn't 2007, it was 2005.  Spent hours with a variety of interesting tools hacking 3mm or so off the side of the very substantial wooden stand I'd built for my milling machine.  B&Q, you are bastards...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 11 July, 2018, 02:34:18 pm
Wouldn't it have been easier to perform surgery on (one of) the base units? 3mm is about the kerf of my circular saw blade ...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 13 July, 2018, 01:22:34 pm
The B-tension screw on a modern rear mech is necessary because of vertical dropouts. With horizontal dropouts you didn't need one - you slid the wheel back and forth to get the best angle and cog clearance, then fixed that position with the dropout adjustment screws.  You know, the ones that rust solid after a winter.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 14 July, 2018, 08:06:51 am
That cats won’t drink from water bowls placed next to their food. Evolution, apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 14 July, 2018, 10:09:58 am
That cats won’t drink from water bowls placed next to their food. Evolution, apparently.
IME cats prefer anything except the water provided by their domestic staff...puddles, scummy ponds, dripping taps...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 16 July, 2018, 12:11:58 am
That Nidd is in Yorkshire, near Harrogate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 16 July, 2018, 08:23:16 am
That Nidd is in Yorkshire, near Harrogate.
FSVO near. Harrogate isn't really in Nidderdale, though I agree it's nearer the Nidd than the Wharfe. :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 July, 2018, 12:02:44 pm
That Nidd is in Yorkshire, near Harrogate.
FSVO near. Harrogate isn't really in Nidderdale, though I agree it's nearer the Nidd than the Wharfe. :)

The main point is surely that it's isn't served by any TFL railway line.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 16 July, 2018, 12:29:53 pm
That Nidd is in Yorkshire, near Harrogate.
FSVO near. Harrogate isn't really in Nidderdale, though I agree it's nearer the Nidd than the Wharfe. :)

The main point is surely that it's isn't served by any TFL railway line.
There you go, spoiling a nice bit of pedantry with a sensible argument.  >:(
 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2018, 02:38:07 pm
How to remove ticks and what the initial symptoms of Lyme disease are.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 16 July, 2018, 05:00:10 pm
Wouldn't it have been easier to perform surgery on (one of) the base units? 3mm is about the kerf of my circular saw blade ...

Not after I'd assembled the pair of them, it wasn't...   I only measured them when I found they didn't fit!  Foolishly, I had believed a 1000 base unit was, well, 1000 long.  Seemed a reasonable enough assumption to me.  It would also have ruined the doors, which of course are MDF tat covered in some sort of film wrapping.  They were B&Q's basic ones, as its only a workshop, not a classy kitchen.  that said, we have far more expensive ones fitted in our kitchen by B&Q themselves, for the previous owners.  Their bloody soft close hinges really piss me off.  Entire civilisations has been created, evolved, and died out in the time it takes the bloody things to shut.  No, they aren't adjustable in that sense.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 20 July, 2018, 12:26:03 pm
That Judaism is not a religion, but a race. Albeit one you can convert too, but there you go. That I only believe in the human race this is somewhat contentious in my eyes in any case, but there you go.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 20 July, 2018, 12:32:49 pm
You may have been visiting the wrong kind of website there, because I really don't think that's right.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 20 July, 2018, 01:43:10 pm
Racists throughout the ages have considered it a race - e.g. converting to Christianity wouldn't save you from a pogrom or from the SS - but then race is a deeply dubious concept anyhow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 20 July, 2018, 03:50:22 pm
what defines a race?  If followers of judaism only marry and have offspring with others of the same faith, does that make the faith a race, or vice versa. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 20 July, 2018, 05:57:07 pm
Are Mormons a race?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 20 July, 2018, 06:33:37 pm
Are Mormons a race?

The Mormon church ( Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) was founded in 1820 by one person, and has relied on proselytizing to attract converts over the years. So, no.

 I'm inclined to agree with Beardy and Jakob W that there is only a human race, with variations in skin and hair color and various other characteristics occurring as an adaptation to different environments as humans migrated out of the African tropics to other parts of the world. But even if one accepts the concept of race, Mormons don't appear to qualify. The Mormon faith did, however, engage in some fairly racist behavior in my lifetime.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 20 July, 2018, 07:27:38 pm
If Judaism is inherited from your mother, it's a race.  Judaism does allow people to convert, though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 21 July, 2018, 07:33:10 am
If Judaism is inherited from your mother, it's a race.  Judaism does allow people to convert, though.

Huh? Judaism is a religion, plain and simple. While the religion defines itself as matrilineal, there is no concept of racial purity, so you're talking tosh. As you say, you can convert in, but you can't convert out. there's no escape. It's not unlikely that by that standard a substantial proportion of the world population are Jewish, by that reckoning, making it irrelevant.

Looking at a definition  a race is "a grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society" or "a group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.; an ethnic group". So while it would then be accurate to define Jews as a race, Judaism isn't.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 July, 2018, 07:37:01 am
The French for breed, as in dogs, is race.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 July, 2018, 02:31:34 pm
That the first Peace Race consisted of two simultaneous stages: Warsaw-Prague and Prague-Warsaw. Berlin didn't join in till 1952, which was the fifth edition. Presumably the two directions weren't just reverses of each other, as that could have got a bit messy somewhere in the middle!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 27 July, 2018, 04:52:41 pm
From Twitter today.

UK shoe size is measured in barleycorns, a unit of measurement based on the length of a grain of barley.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 July, 2018, 06:30:37 pm
Three to the inch IIRC.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 27 July, 2018, 09:06:59 pm
That's my recollection as well
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Panoramix on 27 July, 2018, 10:14:31 pm
Insurers in France will only pay out on bike theft if the bike was secured with two locks.
IME insurance in France is better to be considered as a tax than an insurance as they seem very good at not paying your losses.

Envoyé de mon E2033 en utilisant Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 July, 2018, 07:08:17 am
I dunno. When the 1999 hurricane took a chunk of our barn roof the geezer said "get it fixed and send us the bill". The dogs' vet insurance is excellent, too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 28 July, 2018, 08:40:57 am
....and carré neige ski insurance is amusingly bureaucratic but effective.  Follow instructions, get money back.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 28 July, 2018, 04:29:39 pm
That the coldest part of our new refrigerator is at the top. It says so in the instructions, that I uncharacteristically read (I was trying to see how long the manufacturer said to leave the appliance stood before turning on).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 29 July, 2018, 02:58:48 pm
That the Di2 battery for a Trek Domane can only be fitted one way round. And that is the opposite wa6 to the way I envisioned. Cue exchange of e-wire for a longer one. Plus adjusting saddle tilt on tghe seat post cap is a bugger of a job as a result of the opposing cone type clamping mechanism. Ah the joys of bike building.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 July, 2018, 04:01:45 pm
The Seine should be called the Yonne. At the point where the two rivers meet the Yonne is the larger; the Seine flows into it and is therefore a tributary.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 30 July, 2018, 02:38:44 pm
Another step ion my bike build odyssey, that Shimano ship flat mount calipers with a 140/160mm adaptor for the front, set at 140mm, but they don’t ship a similar adaptor for the rear, so I’ve had to buy that one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 31 July, 2018, 12:04:35 pm
(Last night on the anbaric distascope)
That power generation continued at Chernobyl until 2000.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 August, 2018, 07:24:54 am
That the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or Trash Vortex, which has been in the news over the last few years, was actually discovered as long ago as 1985. And there's a North Atlantic Trash Vortex which was discovered in 1972.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 August, 2018, 07:56:28 am
Currently centred over Westminster, I believe.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 August, 2018, 11:51:22 pm
That Faraday accepted various medals and awards but turned down a knighthood, saying it was in contradiction of Biblical teachings not to pursue riches and worldly rewards. He also twice refused to become president of the Royal Society.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 August, 2018, 08:30:34 am
Francis Crick once sent Winston Churchill a cheque for ten guineas, to be put towards the establishment of a brothel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill_College,_Cambridge#Chapel
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 13 August, 2018, 01:00:09 pm
LeBron James (for the benefit of Wowbagger, he is 'Often considered the best basketball player in the world and regarded by some as the greatest player of all time' - Wikipedia) is a keen cyclist. All of the students at the school for 'at-risk' children that he opened recently get a free bike. And since 2005 he has organized an annual bike ride to raise money for his children/education-based charity.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 August, 2018, 03:57:43 pm
It is not necessary to roll up one's left trouser-leg and expose one's left breast in order to buy a masonry drill.

Thank you Google, that could have been embarrassing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 25 August, 2018, 05:16:30 pm
If you are size XS or XXS, you can buy a full cycling wardrobe of the highest quality for next to nothing.

Needless to say, I am very average-sized and therefore everything costs full price.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 26 August, 2018, 12:37:41 am
That the "Posh" bike shop, Pinarello is their main, or only, stock. Is a Super-Twat with too much money targeted affair. The staff are Rude, Ignorant and I will be Grinking their directors next week, letting them know that I will openly refer to their staff as Shit headed Twunts, should the place be mentioned. A, non-weight weeny, disabled customer was standing at the counter being ignored by all three of the staff, less than 6 feet away, for over five minutes before they deigned to ask, in irritated tones, "Do you need something?". I leaned in and told them that "She probably wants to ask if you know of a decent bike shop in the area?" I pointed her to the Evans store, a few hundred yards away.
I did not buy anything from them.

Edited to Advertise Warn people. https://www.thebikerooms.com/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 26 August, 2018, 01:45:07 am
Manchester?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 August, 2018, 02:48:34 am
That Lerwick is on approximately the same latitude as Helsinki.  As is Teslin YT, which is where I was when I learned this.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Manotea on 26 August, 2018, 08:19:07 am
That the coldest part of our new refrigerator is at the top. It says so in the instructions, that I uncharacteristically read (I was trying to see how long the manufacturer said to leave the appliance stood before turning on).

That refrigerators have to be 'left to stand' before switching them on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 26 August, 2018, 09:12:17 am
That Lerwick is on approximately the same latitude as Helsinki.  As is Teslin YT, which is where I was when I learned this.

One of the coldest weeks Ive ever had was offshore in the Northern North Sea, midway between Shetland and Bergen, with a wind from the north in mid December.  That's when you realise how far from London you can be and still be in the UK (just about)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 26 August, 2018, 11:23:48 am
That the "Posh" bike shop, Pinarello is their main, or only, stock. Is a Super-Twat with too much money targeted affair. The staff are Rude, Ignorant and I will be Grinking their directors next week, letting them know that I will openly refer to their staff as Shit headed Twunts, should the place be mentioned. A, non-weight weeny, disabled customer was standing at the counter being ignored by all three of the staff, less than 6 feet away, for over five minutes before they deigned to ask, in irritated tones, "Do you need something?". I leaned in and told them that "She probably wants to ask if you know of a decent bike shop in the area?" I pointed her to the Evans store, a few hundred yards away.
I did not buy anything from them.

Edited to Advertise Warn people. https://www.thebikerooms.com/
They're useless, just a Pinarello boutique.  They wouldn't know how to repair anything.  When the Swindon one was called Total Bike, I was told, "we don't sell spares".  They used to have a series of mediocre mechanics, one of whom built the worst set of wheels it has ever been my misfortune to ride.  They pinged like a zither the first time I tried them, then went right out of true.  Full of twist.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: lou boutin on 26 August, 2018, 03:05:52 pm
Frustrated cats can attack you in your sleep. Said attack can lead to a bloody 20 minute drive to A&E for stitches. In the mean time said frustrated kitty may well make a dirty protest, make purring noises on your return, entice you to stroke you and then bite you again.  Oh and don't assume that frustrated cats can be plicated with Ed Sheeran, just because they are both ginger!! Ed Sheeran may lead to kitty hissing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 August, 2018, 04:05:31 pm
They crap on the sly and you slide on the crap.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: lou boutin on 26 August, 2018, 04:41:08 pm
I spotted it first, but he's since tried to trip me up on the stairs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 26 August, 2018, 11:08:31 pm
Manchester?
Yup.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Panoramix on 27 August, 2018, 05:46:48 am
And me who thought that my cat was a manipulative bastard, actually he is a saint.
Frustrated cats can attack you in your sleep. Said attack can lead to a bloody 20 minute drive to A&E for stitches. In the mean time said frustrated kitty may well make a dirty protest, make purring noises on your return, entice you to stroke you and then bite you again.  Oh and don't assume that frustrated cats can be plicated with Ed Sheeran, just because they are both ginger!! Ed Sheeran may lead to kitty hissing.

Envoyé de mon E2033 en utilisant Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 September, 2018, 04:20:16 am
In the past couple of days, actually, but Slow Internets have cramped my yacf habit somewhat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 September, 2018, 11:50:11 am
That the noise of builders drilling upstairs can activate Google voice recognition on your phone.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 04 September, 2018, 04:25:18 pm
Not today but on Saturday  I learnt that Felpham, sometime destination of the FNRTTC, is pronounced Felfam, rather than Felpam.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 September, 2018, 05:56:35 pm
Not today but on Saturday  I learnt that Felpham, sometime destination of the FNRTTC, is pronounced Felfam, rather than Felpam.

Gosh.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 04 September, 2018, 06:43:00 pm
That cleaned out F and E tanks don't stay clean for very long.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 04 September, 2018, 07:53:54 pm
Not today but on Saturday  I learnt that Felpham, sometime destination of the FNRTTC, is pronounced Felfam, rather than Felpam.

Gosh.

Either way it sounds like a particulary Tory kind of sexual deviancy
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 04 September, 2018, 08:41:11 pm
Not today but on Saturday  I learnt that Felpham, sometime destination of the FNRTTC, is pronounced Felfam, rather than Felpam.

Hmm.  Well we lived in Selsey for 20 years and always knew it as “Felpam”
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 04 September, 2018, 08:46:02 pm
I was once told that all (or many) of the place names with -ham at the end were originally pronounced as if they were two separate words. So Felp-ham, Cos-ham and so on. When telephones arrived, the operators, 'nicely spoken young ladies' had no idea about the local pronunciation and just read them as written 'Felf-am' 'Cosh-am'. The feeling then grew that 'posh people' who spoke properly did the latter whereas the original pronunciation marked you out as being lower class and less well educated.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Adam on 04 September, 2018, 08:48:06 pm
Not today but on Saturday  I learnt that Felpham, sometime destination of the FNRTTC, is pronounced Felfam, rather than Felpam.

Some of my fellow Bognorites do prononouce it Felfam, others don't.  I've also heard it as Felfem.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 04 September, 2018, 09:04:42 pm
R2D2 who does the announcements on Southeastern trains pronounces Meopham as Meffam but I've never ever ever heard a real live actual person say it that way.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 04 September, 2018, 09:37:43 pm
R2D2 who does the announcements on Southeastern trains pronounces Meopham as Meffam but I've never ever ever heard a real live actual person say it that way.
I don't think I'd realise where they're on about. It's always been Mep'm round here.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 04 September, 2018, 10:39:15 pm
Quernmore, Trough of Bowland area, is pronounced "Kormer"!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 September, 2018, 09:45:28 am
R2D2 who does the announcements on Southeastern trains pronounces Meopham as Meffam but I've never ever ever heard a real live actual person say it that way.

I do! But that's because I have obviously learned it from the delightful Miss Southeastern. I might risk ridicule by asking the fellow from Strood who is currently sulking under my house (because rain has stopped his fence painting).

I'm from Ilkeston (actually, I'm not but that was only option when I had my passport done) which, because people in the area consider words with more than two syllables unnecessarily adorned, is usually pronounced Ilson.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 September, 2018, 10:30:45 am
As an antidote to which, Southrop (village in Gloucestershire) has three syllables if you're local, or anything like local.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 05 September, 2018, 01:57:27 pm
That ian is from Ilson (or thereabouts).

I worked there from 1997 to 2001. Interesting place.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 05 September, 2018, 03:44:31 pm
I referreed rubgy there regularly from '97 to about 2003, eventually got used to being called "me duck" in the bar by a second row forward.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 September, 2018, 03:52:01 pm
Interesting isn't the word I'd use. Proper fighting town it is. I suspect that is because the dialect is unintelligible to everyone. Sometimes it's just easier to get to the punching.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Poacher on 05 September, 2018, 05:03:57 pm
Nowt wrong wi' Ilson!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 September, 2018, 05:38:57 pm
Nowt wrong wi' Ilson!

That's fatin talk tint it, yoff.

I spent my formative years bombing around the BMX track at Cotmanhay (don't attempt to pronounce it, unless you can manage two simultaneous glottal stops without the exstrophy of your lungs). I wonder if that's still there.

Curiously it was the site (well, Shipley) of the the former American Adventure theme park. I took my American girlfriend (at the time) there (to give her some respite from the dialect). I'll be honest, it wasn't as bad as you'd think it was without actually being any good. You didn't get free entry by presenting an American at the gates (a shame) and apparently it had 'authenticity' issues. She notably never wore the Indian headdress I gave her.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 05 September, 2018, 06:23:45 pm
I used to work in an office on Bath St (which had once been the smallest M&S in the world: I still have one of the mirrors from the changing room). My office overlooked the New Inn pub. I’d watch the regulars queuing up from 10:45 waiting for the doors to open.

Happy days!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 05 September, 2018, 06:28:35 pm
Dutch meths (spiritus) looks blue, like fountain pen ink.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 05 September, 2018, 06:43:36 pm
R2D2 who does the announcements on Southeastern trains pronounces Meopham as Meffam but I've never ever ever heard a real live actual person say it that way.
I've done the rail journey between Bromley South and Whitstable more times than I've had hot dinners (albeit probably not as many as you, D)
Travelling in either direction, the train always stops at Meopham.
I have never, ever seen anyone board or alight from the train at this station.
Does it stop there because it is the longest linear village in Kent / England / The World?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 September, 2018, 07:43:57 pm
There's a lot of strange stations thereabout. Farningham Road? Sole Street? I don't think anyone is under the illusion that they're actual places. Detrain at your peril. Reminds me of the bit between Dover and Canterbury. Shepherds Well is actually a portal to another dimension.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 05 September, 2018, 08:05:51 pm
twinned with Shippea Hill, a request only portal to the netherworld.  I always avert my gaze as I ride past.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 05 September, 2018, 09:32:25 pm
The only true presidential sport is hooverball (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooverball).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 05 September, 2018, 09:58:27 pm
That BAT Man is a job, and that BAT rustling is a thing.

Ms Beardy the senior, an employee of the National Trust is just recounting her need to call on the BAT Man due to a BAT taking up residence in the property she is currently a custodian of, and that said BAT Man warned her of sharing the existence of said BAT due to the risk of BAT rustlers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 05 September, 2018, 10:29:43 pm
Bat rustlers ???
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 05 September, 2018, 10:54:33 pm
Bat rustlers ???

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 September, 2018, 06:17:09 am
There's a lot of strange stations thereabout. Farningham Road? Sole Street? I don't think anyone is under the illusion that they're actual places. Detrain at your peril. Reminds me of the bit between Dover and Canterbury. Shepherds Well is actually a portal to another dimension.

This:

(https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8034/8001373727_01cdd7e165_o.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/dc48Dr)
P9180742 (https://flic.kr/p/dc48Dr) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr

is a Gateway to Hell and no, it's nowhere near Redmond WA.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ScumOfTheRoad on 06 September, 2018, 06:56:23 am
There's a lot of strange stations thereabout. Farningham Road? Sole Street? I don't think anyone is under the illusion that they're actual places. Detrain at your peril. Reminds me of the bit between Dover and Canterbury. Shepherds Well is actually a portal to another dimension.
Sole Street is the nearest station to the escellent country pub the Cock Inn at Luddesdowne   http://www.cockluddesdowne.com/
Absolutely unreconstructed 1950s hostelry. No children allowed - I've seen a family with a child being shown the door. Saucy pinups in the gents.








Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 06 September, 2018, 07:14:32 am
Luddesdowne? Another FAKE place. Shame.

I have my own gateway to Hell, so don't actually need another, it's a pretty easy commute. However, Shepherds Well is a portal to another dimension into an alternate Kent were the men wear top hats and the women dresses wide as steamships. This also explains why it takes four weeks to travel from Dover to Canterbury. The portal, not that hats and dresses.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 September, 2018, 08:34:57 am
That BAT Man is a job,
Working for British American Tobacco...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 06 September, 2018, 11:59:03 am
I have very large wasps nest in my attic.  I thought we were getting a lot of wasps this year - but people have been saying that it's a wasp-y year so didn't think that we were having anything but a few more than usual. 

There were a few wasps in the attic when I went up a few weeks ago-but I just put it down to the then hot weather.  A couple of days ago the single halogen recessed downlighter above my shower seemed to get dim, and then this morning it didn't come on at all.  Oh, well, needs a new bulb, thought I.

Pulled the fitting down out of the ceiling plasterboard and was showered with dead wasps.  This is not normal, I thought.  Then I noticed that the woven heat-resisting insulation on the wires to the bulb connector was partly missing. 

Now this really set the bells ringing.  Opened the attic trapdoor to go up and have a look at the wiring.  A few wasps about, and then I spotted a white mass, about 15" across, attached to the rafters above the shower room. 

Shut the trapdoor pronto and found a man who does infestations.  He's coming round later.  It's like I imagine having an alien in your house.

Edit:  The pest control man has been, in his van :N1** RAT (what else??) and removed the basketball-sized nest. There are a few vagrants hanging on, they were out on their travels and came back to find themselves homeless.  They'll only survive a day or so at this time of year apparently. He said to give it a couple of days before going back into the attic.  When I do, to mend the wiring and see what other damage there has been, I'll be wearing long trousies with the legs tucked into my socks, a long sleeved shirt and jumper, gloves and a hat...…  Bit sad to disturb the balance of nature, but I can't live in a house full of wasps.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 06 September, 2018, 12:36:09 pm
That BAT Man is a job,
Working for British American Tobacco...

There is (or used to be ) a road surfacing company called Belmont Asphalt.  They had a traffic management division called Belmont Asphalt Traffic Management. Their kit was marked "BATMAN". Which was nice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 06 September, 2018, 03:58:47 pm
I have very large wasps nest in my attic.  I thought we were getting a lot of wasps this year - but people have been saying that it's a wasp-y year so didn't think that we were having anything but a few more than usual. 

There were a few wasps in the attic when I went up a few weeks ago-but I just put it down to the then hot weather.  A couple of days ago the single halogen recessed downlighter above my shower seemed to get dim, and then this morning it didn't come on at all.  Oh, well, needs a new bulb, thought I.

Pulled the fitting down out of the ceiling plasterboard and was showered with dead wasps.  This is not normal, I thought.  Then I noticed that the woven heat-resisting insulation on the wires to the bulb connector was partly missing. 

Now this really set the bells ringing.  Opened the attic trapdoor to go up and have a look at the wiring.  A few wasps about, and then I spotted a white mass, about 15" across, attached to the rafters above the shower room. 

Shut the trapdoor pronto and found a man who does infestations.  He's coming round later.  It's like I imagine having an alien in your house.

Just as an aside, a few years ago it looked like we might have wasps in our attic, there were quite a few flying in, but not THAT many. Called a wasp-a-rator he had a look and said, no you don't have a wasp nest, but hang on a moment.... walked outside and spied intense wasp action about 6 doors down (in a line of Victorian semis)

Turns out wasps aren't that bright and often end up trying to find their nest in the house nearby that looks the same. Bit like coming home late from the pub, really.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 07 September, 2018, 03:28:12 pm
Atilla The Stockbroker and Mark Thomas both went to the same school, Christ's Hospital.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 07 September, 2018, 05:18:32 pm
I have very large wasps nest in my attic.  I thought we were getting a lot of wasps this year - but people have been saying that it's a wasp-y year so didn't think that we were having anything but a few more than usual. 

There were a few wasps in the attic when I went up a few weeks ago-but I just put it down to the then hot weather.  A couple of days ago the single halogen recessed downlighter above my shower seemed to get dim, and then this morning it didn't come on at all.  Oh, well, needs a new bulb, thought I.

Pulled the fitting down out of the ceiling plasterboard and was showered with dead wasps.  This is not normal, I thought.  Then I noticed that the woven heat-resisting insulation on the wires to the bulb connector was partly missing. 

Now this really set the bells ringing.  Opened the attic trapdoor to go up and have a look at the wiring.  A few wasps about, and then I spotted a white mass, about 15" across, attached to the rafters above the shower room. 

Shut the trapdoor pronto and found a man who does infestations.  He's coming round later.  It's like I imagine having an alien in your house.

Just as an aside, a few years ago it looked like we might have wasps in our attic, there were quite a few flying in, but not THAT many. Called a wasp-a-rator he had a look and said, no you don't have a wasp nest, but hang on a moment.... walked outside and spied intense wasp action about 6 doors down (in a line of Victorian semis)

Turns out wasps aren't that bright and often end up trying to find their nest in the house nearby that looks the same. Bit like coming home late from the pub, really.

we thought we might have a nest a few years back, with hordes of wasps in the front garden. Turns out the nest was in a hedge about 200yds away, but the wasps were making a beeline waspline stright for a tree in the front that had loads of small flies around it that the wasps were predating on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 07 September, 2018, 05:27:39 pm
Apropos of the wasps nest, I decided against having a shower this am, knowing that there would be bare wires at 240V a couple of feet above my head. I then removed the bulb holder by releasing the 2 wires from the terminal block.  The little bugg*rs had not only eaten most of the insulation, they'd also severely frayed the multistrand lead to the bulb holder.  How could they do that?  Do wasps have wire cutters?

Was able to re-insulate with some heat shrink, for now at least, and re-assemble.  Once I feel it's safe to go back into the attic I'll have a look at the rest of the light fitting from above the ceiling and decide if the fitting needs to be replaced.

I'll also have a look at the various other downlighters we have mounted in the upstairs ceilings.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 07 September, 2018, 07:11:14 pm
That the nose shape of the current generation Shinkansen is based very heavily on the shape of the kingfisher's bill.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 07 September, 2018, 07:45:29 pm
That the nose shape of the current generation Shinkansen is based very heavily on the shape of the kingfisher's bill.

that came up on a documentary of some kind I saw the other day, buggered if I can remember which
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 07 September, 2018, 09:22:53 pm
That the nose shape of the current generation Shinkansen is based very heavily on the shape of the kingfisher's bill.

that came up on a documentary of some kind I saw the other day, buggered if I can remember which
Impossible Railways perchance?  That's where I heard it today.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 08 September, 2018, 10:18:42 am
Was that an aesthetic or engineering decision? At a guess there's some similarities between birds diving into water and trains heading into tunnels?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 08 September, 2018, 10:30:48 am
Was that an aesthetic or engineering decision? At a guess there's some similarities between birds diving into water and trains heading into tunnels?
It was an engineering decision as per your guess.  The head bod. twigged that kingfishers go head first into water at high speed and create very little disturbance.  FWIW If you can stand the truly dreadful narration the "Impossible"  engineering series can be interesting to watch, at least when the Engineers are allowed to talk about what they've done.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 08 September, 2018, 11:49:17 am
That the nose shape of the current generation Shinkansen is based very heavily on the shape of the kingfisher's bill.

that came up on a documentary of some kind I saw the other day, buggered if I can remember which
Impossible Railways perchance?  That's where I heard it today.

No, it was something else, but I can't for the life of me remember what, but it also made the point about the engineer having watched kingfishers splashless-ly entering the water.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 08 September, 2018, 01:30:55 pm
Was that an aesthetic or engineering decision? At a guess there's some similarities between birds diving into water and trains heading into tunnels?
It was an engineering decision as per your guess.  The head bod. twigged that kingfishers go head first into water at high speed and create very little disturbance.  FWIW If you can stand the truly dreadful narration the "Impossible"  engineering series can be interesting to watch, at least when the Engineers are allowed to talk about what they've done.
Having read your post, I've just watched Impossible Railways.
Loved it and yes, the narration is pretty awful - like someone trying too hard to sound like Clarkson.
But a couple of observations which  stand out:
1) That so much, in cutting edge engineering, is derived from nature -  Biomimetics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomimetics)- as Wiki choose to call it.
2) The top end people involved in these high speed projects, the Japanese, the Italians and the Americans, all appear to be fluent in English.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 08 September, 2018, 04:21:20 pm
2) The top end people involved in these high speed projects, the Japanese, the Italians and the Americans, all appear to be fluent in English.

How many of them were educated in British and American universities? Too bad all that education isn't being used to build better railways in the UK and the US. the US could certainly use some improvements in its passenger rail system.

And yes, quite a few Americans speak reasonably good English.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 08 September, 2018, 04:47:57 pm
2) The top end people involved in these high speed projects, the Japanese, the Italians and the Americans, all appear to be fluent in English.

How many of them were educated in British and American universities? Too bad all that education isn't being used to build better railways in the UK and the US. the US could certainly use some improvements in its passenger rail system.

And yes, quite a few Americans speak reasonably good English.

Mark, in case it isn't obvious, it was a deliberate prod on my part  :P
No offence meant.
I hope none was taken.
If it was, I apologise.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 08 September, 2018, 05:01:51 pm
No offense taken.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 08 September, 2018, 07:29:27 pm
Quote from: Jurek
2) The top end people involved...all appear to be fluent in English.
Not just the "top" engineers.  The conductor on the Italian "Red Arrow" service spoke fluent, idiomatic English.  I was left wondering how many people in a similar position in a UK TOC could speak a second language so well.  Not throwing stones, I'm in no position to as my foreign language skills are pitiful; fragments of French & German and functional/rudimentary Greek, but it did drive it home how atrocious our approach to teaching and learning foreign languages is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 08 September, 2018, 07:38:09 pm
Quote from: Jurek
2) The top end people involved...all appear to be fluent in English.
Not just the "top" engineers.  The conductor on the Italian "Red Arrow" service spoke fluent, idiomatic English.  I was left wondering how many people in a similar position in a UK TOC could speak a second language so well.  Not throwing stones, I'm in no position to as my foreign language skills are pitiful; fragments of French & German and functional/rudimentary Greek, but it did drive it home how atrocious our approach to teaching and learning foreign languages is.
Indeed.
A good spot.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 09 September, 2018, 09:18:09 am
In the mid-70s a couple of us took a ferry across the ditch the that Hook, then the Rheingold Express to Munich. 7 of the 8 seats were occupied. It wasn't long before we'd ascertained that there were 4 languages spoken among 7 people.
About an hour in a passenger opened the door and in a heavy accent asked, in English, if the seat was taken. Everybody answered in English.
So, how many languages do English-speakers need to learn? Much easier for all the others to learn English.

BTW, as an aside, the UK seems to be almost against foreign students and foreign STEM personnel. Looking at items re. STEM research in the USA, there's a hell of a lot from Asian people - we're really missing out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 09 September, 2018, 09:54:32 am
BTW, as an aside, the UK seems to be almost against foreign students and foreign STEM personnel. Looking at items re. STEM research in the USA, there's a hell of a lot from Asian people - we're really missing out.
It wouldn’t matter who did the STEM research in the U.K., we’d still need to give away any discoveries or inventions for them to be realised as a useful product or service.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 09 September, 2018, 10:24:41 am
I was once staying in a hotel in Belgium where all the conversation in the restaurant was in English despite my colleague and I being the only English people there.
But as Giraffe says, which language do we learn? It does put us at a disadvantage.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 09 September, 2018, 01:33:49 pm
When I started working in Turkey, knowing that I would be there for maybe up to 5 years, I asked one of the local girls on our engineering team, who had lived in the UK and was fluent in English, to teach me enough Turkish to get by.

Why? she said.  Thwere are 80 million Turks and 70 million of them live in Turkey, and most of the rest in Germany.  Why would you want to learn Turkish? Well, I did, enough to get around, buy meals and drinks, and follow enough of a conversation to know what it was about. 

But all, everyday engineering discussions, specifications, drawings, calculations etc were in English.  My Turkish engineer colleagues had all been taught at least part of their courses in English, and sat technical exams in English.  They were more keen to converse with me in English, a native English speaker, to sharpen their language skills. 

I did need to talk to the site labourers in Turkish though, which prompted a number of on-site and time-consuming discussions, them with a Turkish-English dictionary, me with an English-Turkish dictionary.  It took time, but we got there.  Great fun too.  Lovely people.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 September, 2018, 02:36:53 pm
I found that music lessons at an early age and a liking for opera gave me quite a few handy Italian expressions.

Useful note: the phrase "mai più, mai più", often sung by distressed female characters, does not refer to their reserved places in church.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 09 September, 2018, 05:13:55 pm
I learnt this one earlier in the week, but had to keep it under my hat until now, as I used it as a Thing of Interest on my Tandem Club ride today.

Jomo Kenyatta, Prime Minister and first President of Kenya lived in Storrington during World War 2 and was employed growing tomatoes at a market gardeners in nearby Thakeham.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 09 September, 2018, 06:52:30 pm
I understand fromDutch colleagues that all Dutch medical school teaching is in English as nobody can afford to print Dutch medical textbooks.  Fluency in English is apparently a requirement for university entrance.  Perhaps we should make fluency in English a requirement for University entrance here?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 09 September, 2018, 06:59:32 pm
The four Avro Lancasters loaned by the RAF for filming The Dam Busters cost £130 per hour to run and aperational costs amounted to 10% of the film's overall budget.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 September, 2018, 07:19:06 pm
Perhaps we should make fluency in English a requirement for University entrance here?

It usually is, Shirley?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 09 September, 2018, 07:24:20 pm
Doesn't it depend on course requirements?

Or is it solely the size of the cheque?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 09 September, 2018, 07:34:31 pm
I think Chris may be referring to the UK undergraduates' command of their native tongue...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 September, 2018, 07:38:06 pm
I think Chris may be referring to the UK undergraduates' command of their native tongue...

Where they usually require a C at GCSE[1].

Special arrangements for international students, where size of the cheque does appear to be a factor.


[1] Which in my day was all about counterpointing the vogonity of the underlying metaphor, but now appears to include actual English skills.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 09 September, 2018, 07:47:30 pm
It took me 5 attempts to get an o level in English, although it was my first attempt at an o level English exam that was successful.

From what Dr Beardy (Mrs) recounts - frequently - there are very few requirements to get into a degree course these days, other than the ability to secure funding. With the current system whereby the universities are now businesses and unconditional offers are becoming the norm, i wouldn’t be surprised if the Student Loan Company doesn’t start imposing a minimum academic standard to secure a loan.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 09 September, 2018, 08:05:03 pm
(edited for posting weirdness)
I think Chris may be referring to the UK undergraduates' command of their native tongue...

Where they usually require a C at GCSE[1].
Which, in practice - based on some of the UG essays I've seen - appears to provide bugger-all evidence that they can actually string a sentence together, never mind craft an argument or structure a piece of writing.

Quote
Special arrangements for international students, where size of the cheque does appear to be a factor.
I think this may depend on the institution; as an UG at an institution where overseas students paid extortionate fees I never encountered anyone who was struggling because of lack of English, but I've heard horror stories from elsewhere. Ironically PG courses may be more susceptible, though even they pretty much universally require IELTS or equivalent.
Quote
[1] Which in my day was all about counterpointing the vogonity of the underlying metaphor, but now appears to include actual English skills.
And you learned a useful skill! Again, many UGs wouldn't know a metaphor if it bit them in the *redacted*.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 09 September, 2018, 08:51:00 pm
That most bar showers have 150mm between pipe centres and the same fittings. Unfortunately how far the fitting needs to stick out from the tiles isnt standardised ....

Luckily an extra rubber washer in each fitting sorted it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 09 September, 2018, 09:31:42 pm
That most bar showers have 150mm between pipe centres and the same fittings. Unfortunately how far the fitting needs to stick out from the tiles isnt standardised ....

Luckily an extra rubber washer in each fitting sorted it.

Fascinating. Are those used to make t-shirts wet? I don't normally visit that type of bar, I didn't realise they had standards.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 09 September, 2018, 10:09:17 pm
I think Chris may be referring to the UK undergraduates' command of their native tongue...

Where they usually require a C at GCSE[1].

Special arrangements for international students, where size of the cheque does appear to be a factor.


[1] Which in my day was all about counterpointing the vogonity of the underlying metaphor, but now appears to include actual English skills.

Not for an engineering degree surprisingly.  My offer was basically pass chemisty and maths A-levels, but then I was going to Bath and had indicated enthusiasm for rugby and beer and the west country in general ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 September, 2018, 10:54:25 pm
Yeahbut the average home student has already got their GCSE results and declared them on the application form, so they're only going to become conditions if the pass in English or Maths is conspicuously absent.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 10 September, 2018, 09:43:04 am
I'm oldish so it might have changed, but in my day you needed both maths and English O Level*/GCSE to stay on sixth-form or go to college, so if you failed them the first around, you had resit them. Those less academically inclined could do CSEs where they got a pass for turning up and managing to put their name on the paper.

*we were the last lot to sit O levels.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 10 September, 2018, 10:21:13 am
it's almost 30 years ago now that I was applying to universities, I can't remember is much attention was paid to GCSEs or that was just a given, considering you were already studying subjects relevant to desired degree at A level.

GCSE maths and Chemistry being clearly required at GCSE to do those at A-level and form the basis of university offers for example - English admittedly less directly linked, but nonetheless useful for report writing etc
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Blazer on 10 September, 2018, 10:59:44 am
That I didn't have enough diesel to make the Shell garage at Farlington and should have stopped (of my own accord) before joining the A27  :hand:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Blazer on 10 September, 2018, 11:01:18 am
That the breakdown assistance as part of bank account works well, especially when they classify that you've broken down in a high risk location...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 10 September, 2018, 12:49:16 pm
it's almost 30 years ago now that I was applying to universities, I can't remember is much attention was paid to GCSEs or that was just a given, considering you were already studying subjects relevant to desired degree at A level.

GCSE maths and Chemistry being clearly required at GCSE to do those at A-level and form the basis of university offers for example - English admittedly less directly linked, but nonetheless useful for report writing etc

In the early 80s you needed Maths and English O'level or GCSE equivalent for university or you weren't considered to have matriculated, didn't matter what the course was. This was certainly still the case in the late 80s as it caused my sister no end of trouble trying to get into uni as a mature student - she just doesn't get maths and had retry at night school several times. She has a masters now mind and they keep asking her to do a doctorate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 10 September, 2018, 01:01:49 pm
Can't remember what went on the old university application forms, but they didn't let us get into sixth form without O Level passes in Maths and English. It still makes me laugh when I get job applications from people in the forties who still diligently list their O and A levels and the fact that they were head girl or some such in 1984 or a got prize for a best essay in a school competition when they were 11. I got a fleet of O Level, though I can't remember them all, probably all As apart from French. My deep abiding shame, like everyone in the East Midlands we weren't allowed to do O Level French and had to the do CSE. I got a grade 2. I think the simple expedient of being about to stay conscious for the entire exam got you that. Je suis le factuer!

My niece just scraped through her GCSEs this year, so that it – I'm the one and only person ever in my family to go to university.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 10 September, 2018, 01:51:36 pm
R2D2 who does the announcements on Southeastern trains pronounces Meopham as Meffam but I've never ever ever heard a real live actual person say it that way.
I've done the rail journey between Bromley South and Whitstable more times than I've had hot dinners (albeit probably not as many as you, D)
Travelling in either direction, the train always stops at Meopham.
I have never, ever seen anyone board or alight from the train at this station.
Does it stop there because it is the longest linear village in Kent / England / The World?

I have got on and off trains at Meopham many times, but only ever before or after an audax ride - which to my mind is the only reason to visit the place (esteemed audax organiser Tom OTP lives there, so maybe he'll be along shortly to big up its charms, which I'm sure are many).

I didn't know that interesting fact about it being the longest linear village in England, but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I remember at the end of one audax after climbing Wrotham hill (ugh!), passing the village sign and thinking, 'Oh good, nearly finished,' and it was most dispiriting to then find myself riding for several more miles before reaching the scout hut - although at least it's mostly downhill.

Anyway, back to the -ham place names, I just remembered that Faversham is Faver-sham rather than Favers-ham - it's rendered as Father's Ham in Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker though, but that's an invention; the original etymology is related to an Old English word for metal workers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 11 September, 2018, 09:37:32 am
That really only PET and HDPE plastics (codes 1 and 2 - "soda" bottles and milk bottles) are recycled in the UK.  :-\  This was prompted by looking at a small pot that had had rollmops in it. It carried the recycling triangle and the number 5. But the label stated that it wasn't currently recycled. Curious, I googled it. It's PP - and so are all those "fresh" soup pots that have taken over from cans because they're "better"  ::-) and it's not currently collected for recycling, although it is recyclable.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 11 September, 2018, 10:44:56 am
That really only PET and HDPE plastics (codes 1 and 2 - "soda" bottles and milk bottles) are recycled in the UK.  :-\  This was prompted by looking at a small pot that had had rollmops in it. It carried the recycling triangle and the number 5. But the label stated that it wasn't currently recycled. Curious, I googled it. It's PP - and so are all those "fresh" soup pots that have taken over from cans because they're "better"  ::-) and it's not currently collected for recycling, although it is recyclable.

I worked in municipal waste management for about 25 years, as an engineering geologist designing, building and rehabilitating landfills, and landfill gas collection and energy recovery systems.  The national game plan changed with the EU Landfill Directive around 2000, with financial instruments steering the nation away from landfill, now very successfully.  We now collect much more msw for recycling, but not all of it can be.  Particularly some plastics.  As you found, PET (polyester - think fleeces) and PE (polyethylene - milk bottles) are easily recycled, but most plastics are not.  But they have huge energy value, which can be (and is) recovered in Energy from Waste plants. So, the plastic you put out for recycling may not be recycled (which is the best way) but can be recovered (which is maybe second best).  Whatever, local authorities don't want to landfill it because they have to pay landfill tax on each tonne, it's better to sell it to an EfW plant.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 September, 2018, 12:26:35 pm
How does that compare to recycling a metal or glass container, thobut?  I'm guessing it's a no-brainer if it's aluminium, but the energy costs get pretty marginal for glass...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 11 September, 2018, 01:13:33 pm
How does that compare to recycling a metal or glass container, thobut?  I'm guessing it's a no-brainer if it's aluminium, but the energy costs get pretty marginal for glass...
As I recall, the economics of glass recycling are marginal.  IIRC, some local authorities, remote from the glass factories, found that it cost them to get the cullet to the factory for recycling, Anglesey springs to kind.  There's value in clear glass, but much less in green or brown because we don't make many wine bottles in the UK.

The opening of the new glass plant near Ellesmere Port may have changed the balance a bit - they make beer bottles AIUI.

There have been research projects into alternative uses for bulk low-value glass, in concrete and non-skid road surfaces for example.  You can get a low-volume glass bottle crusher which produces cullet with no sharps - I've specified that in some small recycling projects - in a small Caribbean island for example.  They were to use the crushed glass as construction aggregate.

And yes, there's a lot of value in an aluminium can, a bit less so in a steel can. But they are very recyclable.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 September, 2018, 01:20:40 pm
There have been research projects into alternative uses for bulk low-value glass, in concrete and non-skid road surfaces for example.  You can get a low-volume glass bottle crusher which produces cullet with no sharps - I've specified that in some small recycling projects - in a small Caribbean island for example.  They were to use the crushed glass as construction aggregate.

I recall Greenwich council experimenting with using it to grit cyclepaths at one point.  With hilarious consequences.

Construction aggregate makes a lot more sense...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 11 September, 2018, 01:34:24 pm
That really only PET and HDPE plastics (codes 1 and 2 - "soda" bottles and milk bottles) are recycled in the UK.  :-\  This was prompted by looking at a small pot that had had rollmops in it. It carried the recycling triangle and the number 5. But the label stated that it wasn't currently recycled. Curious, I googled it. It's PP - and so are all those "fresh" soup pots that have taken over from cans because they're "better"  ::-) and it's not currently collected for recycling, although it is recyclable.

I worked in municipal waste management for about 25 years, as an engineering geologist designing, building and rehabilitating landfills, and landfill gas collection and energy recovery systems.  The national game plan changed with the EU Landfill Directive around 2000, with financial instruments steering the nation away from landfill, now very successfully.  We now collect much more msw for recycling, but not all of it can be.  Particularly some plastics.  As you found, PET (polyester - think fleeces) and PE (polyethylene - milk bottles) are easily recycled, but most plastics are not.  But they have huge energy value, which can be (and is) recovered in Energy from Waste plants. So, the plastic you put out for recycling may not be recycled (which is the best way) but can be recovered (which is maybe second best).  Whatever, local authorities don't want to landfill it because they have to pay landfill tax on each tonne, it's better to sell it to an EfW plant.

Hmm, good point, tho whether or not our "recycling" gets sorted with the residue sent to EfW plants I don't know - I assume so as Bucks has a relatively new EfW plant not far from us. I hope so. In any event it's got to be better than putting it into the landfill bin.

The comment was also about how the public in general (including me in this case) may be misled by the "recycling" triangle.  It's a bit like Cost coffe sating their cups are recyclable. Well yes, but IIRC only one small plant is equipped so to do, as the film liner takes some separating from the card substrate. Not cost effective for most paper recyclers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 11 September, 2018, 01:40:27 pm
How does that compare to recycling a metal or glass container, thobut?  I'm guessing it's a no-brainer if it's aluminium, but the energy costs get pretty marginal for glass...
As I recall, the economics of glass recycling are marginal.  IIRC, some local authorities, remote from the glass factories, found that it cost them to get the cullet to the factory for recycling, Anglesey springs to kind.  There's value in clear glass, but much less in green or brown because we don't make many wine bottles in the UK.

The opening of the new glass plant near Ellesmere Port may have changed the balance a bit - they make beer bottles AIUI.

There have been research projects into alternative uses for bulk low-value glass, in concrete and non-skid road surfaces for example.  You can get a low-volume glass bottle crusher which produces cullet with no sharps - I've specified that in some small recycling projects - in a small Caribbean island for example.  They were to use the crushed glass as construction aggregate.

And yes, there's a lot of value in an aluminium can, a bit less so in a steel can. But they are very recyclable.
When I was studying, word was that any aluminium product you had, was composed of ~17% 'new' aluminium - the rest having been recycled.

I cannot for one minute imagine how this was worked out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 September, 2018, 01:48:06 pm
How does that compare to recycling a metal or glass container, thobut?  I'm guessing it's a no-brainer if it's aluminium, but the energy costs get pretty marginal for glass...
As I recall, the economics of glass recycling are marginal.  IIRC, some local authorities, remote from the glass factories, found that it cost them to get the cullet to the factory for recycling, Anglesey springs to kind.  There's value in clear glass, but much less in green or brown because we don't make many wine bottles in the UK.

The opening of the new glass plant near Ellesmere Port may have changed the balance a bit - they make beer bottles AIUI.

There have been research projects into alternative uses for bulk low-value glass, in concrete and non-skid road surfaces for example.  You can get a low-volume glass bottle crusher which produces cullet with no sharps - I've specified that in some small recycling projects - in a small Caribbean island for example.  They were to use the crushed glass as construction aggregate.

And yes, there's a lot of value in an aluminium can, a bit less so in a steel can. But they are very recyclable.
I thought most wine, worldwide, was transported in huge cisterns and mise en bouteille au pays de marche. There is a "wine train" that collects them from Avonmouth docks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 September, 2018, 02:53:50 pm
Related point: Who thought tetra-pak was a good idea?  I suppose you can burn them...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 11 September, 2018, 03:04:17 pm
Related point: Who thought tetra-pak was a good idea?  I suppose you can burn them...

I imagine the beneficiaries the Tetra-Pak fortune. Well, the ones who aren't dead.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 11 September, 2018, 03:31:57 pm
I thought most wine, worldwide, was transported in huge cisterns and mise en bouteille au pays de marche. There is a "wine train" that collects them from Avonmouth docks.

I'm sure that's right, but WRAP gives the current glass prices:

• Clear cullet prices dropped to £15 per tonne in early July, having previously held at £18 per tonne since January 2018
• Amber cullet prices also declined in early July to £10 per tonne, having previously achieved £13 per tonne since  September 2017
• Green cullet prices continued the slow decline seen over the last few months. Current prices in early July are £8 per tonne.
• Mixed cullet prices also dropped to £8 per tonne.

Think we bottle a lot more jam and marmalade in the UK than wine!  I suspect the brown (amber) cullet gets a better price than the green because we bottle more British (cf The Pub Landlord) beer (rather than that Continental fizzy pop) than we do bulk imported wine (as in fermented fruit drink for the lady...….).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 September, 2018, 03:36:28 pm
Related point: Who thought tetra-pak was a good idea?  I suppose you can burn them...

I imagine the beneficiaries the Tetra-Pak fortune. Well, the ones who aren't dead.
Everyone used to think Tetra-Pak was a good idea. Well, everyone who could open them. It's only relatively recently that we've become concerned about recyclability and waste disposal. A good prompt to ask what aren't we concerned about now that we will realize in ten or thirty years time we should have been? Could be some surprising answers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 September, 2018, 03:41:41 pm
A good prompt to ask what aren't we concerned about not that we will realize in ten or thirty years time we should have been?

Nazis.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 11 September, 2018, 06:05:28 pm
Legendary Radio 1 prat Mike Read refused to play "New Song" by Howard Jones because it sounds a bit like "Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel.  Just the first line.  And it's in a different time signature.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 11 September, 2018, 06:10:35 pm
Just how much of a rapacious bunch of bastards a certain Teutonic car manufacturer is.

A piece of plastic trim smaller than a postage stamp costs over 14 quid. Rinsed or what...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 11 September, 2018, 06:21:32 pm
That the Welsh term for busking translates into English as "singing in the street".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 12 September, 2018, 10:39:10 pm
Today  think I may have learned what happened to the old Birmingham library after they demolished it.
I've just seen the new Dundee V&A on the news.
 :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 September, 2018, 10:49:30 pm
Today  think I may have learned what happened to the old Birmingham library after they demolished it.
I've just seen the new Dundee V&A on the news.
 :facepalm:

The BBC have some lovely photos, which I'm sure barakta will be along to rant about in due course: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-45432993
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 13 September, 2018, 09:20:37 am
Yeah that's got all the usual fuckwitted contenders for pissing me off...

I want to flash strobes in the eyes of every fucker who signed off on those until they apologise (and then some more just so they know how painful it is), rip it down and build something which isn't sensorily hostile! I bet the acoustics are appalling!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 September, 2018, 03:07:25 pm
That main hall or whatever it is looks like a barn roof after a bad hailstorm. Waste of wood.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 13 September, 2018, 09:40:56 pm
That main hall or whatever it is looks like a barn roof after a bad hailstorm. Waste of wood.

Must have taken a lot of effort to get those panels as mis-aligned as that, and then miss a few out.  Even I could have got them installed better than that......
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 14 September, 2018, 12:37:47 am
Yeah that's got all the usual fuckwitted contenders for pissing me off...

I want to flash strobes in the eyes of every fucker who signed off on those until they apologise (and then some more just so they know how painful it is), rip it down and build something which isn't sensorily hostile! I bet the acoustics are appalling!

But it's art ...

Out of interest, what are 'the usual fuckwitted contenders'? I presume lighting is the primary issue? Spots/point sources? Harsh contrasts (eg in the photo of the stairs) and shadows?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 14 September, 2018, 01:55:51 pm
Usual contenders are:

Lighting:
* Exposed lighting strip in wooden (often striped) background - they hurt me to look at and are often placed in eyelines.
* Exposed bulbs in whatever fancy arrangement. (Faux 40s ones often flicker).
* Spotlights which are too dispersed so there's point sources of pain while it's just too dim overall - usually spotable by shadows. For extra shits and giggles sometimes you end up with multiple shadows from multiple light sources which means I'm getting eye strain from focus issues. Shadow is often a warning sign for me. 
* Reflections of light sources on too much glass or glossy surfaces - I can't tell what's real and what's reflection and my brain goes into panic.
* Just TOO damned bright overall, overlit at 600-800Lux Cos Airy...

Any and often many types of lighting can flicker for various reasons, e.g. wornout CFLs, magnetic ballast fluorescents at end of life and modern LEDs with shit control electronics.  I can't tell if flicker exists without either video at 60fps (it beat frequencies with our likely UK 100Hz harmonics) or seeing it for myself. Sometimes if the light is v bright it can be flickering but I can't see it - but still get headaches from hell. I can often SEE the flicker, it makes everything stripy in my vision.

Stripy interiors:
There is a mathematical formula for how "visually stressful" something is, basically closer to the ratio of 3 cycles per degree which is the relative width of stripes to one another... Eyecatching for some, debilitating for others.

I also struggle with aircon grilles which tend to be silver with black holes and they literally vibrate and are unbearable for me to look at.

Often patterns of dots can also be visually stressful, too much visual noise, too much to focus on. Extra lolz if they use strong conflicting colours like blue and red/orange as those bother most people.

Lots of clashingly harsh contrast, so super white walls with often dark or bright red or strong colour interiors. Some contrast good, too much contrast bad. Also when contrast is used for no purpose, so doesn't denote doorways or walking lines, but is just random.

This video covers some of the stripy stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBOzv9HgoWM


And the acoustics of these things are often AWFUL. There's no legal requirements for it. :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 14 September, 2018, 02:01:40 pm
That the Milton Keynes cycle paths are really quite fun. For certain varieties of bumpy fun.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hulver on 14 September, 2018, 04:45:38 pm
Just on the flickery lights thing, I read this the other day. Which, despite the hyperbolic headline is quite interesting.

https://theconversation.com/leds-could-be-harmful-to-health-the-eu-halogen-ban-will-make-it-worse-102589
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 14 September, 2018, 05:47:30 pm
I hadn't seen that specific article Hulver, but I know Professor Arnold's work well and he wrote a longer one at the same place https://theconversation.com/the-scientific-reason-you-dont-like-led-bulbs-and-the-simple-way-to-fix-them-81639 which I do share often.

I find people *don't* believe me when I say lighting flickers. I like the fidget spinner idea, see how well that correlates...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 15 September, 2018, 07:04:18 pm
James Robertson Justice served in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. I'm not sure what Sir Lancelot Spratt would have made of that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 15 September, 2018, 08:16:39 pm
I find people *don't* believe me when I say lighting flickers.

Ah.  Thanks for reminding me.  Last week I reported via the council's website that an LED streetlight near us was on all the time.  Remarkably, on Friday they came to change the head unit.  Very speedy fix.  The website said up to 60 days for a non-emergency repair.

Woke up at 4am today to wonder why the room was lit by a strobe (these new LED streetlights are a bit too bright for my liking).  It was the replaced LED head flashing at about 5 Hz.

Seeing your post reminded me to re-report a fault on that light.

But, before I did, I stuck my head out of the front door, to confirm that it was still flashing.  Only to see that the light is behaving as it should (but it's still too sodding bright....).  Maybe it needed an on-off cycle to reset the sensor.

But thx anyway.



Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 15 September, 2018, 08:42:32 pm
Oh yeah, definitely flickerable.  My laptop has developed a nasty habit of making my second external screen flicker nastily.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 16 September, 2018, 09:01:07 pm
That Enoch Powell and Fitzroy Maclean were the only two men to start the Second World War as Privates and end it as Brigadiers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 September, 2018, 06:01:41 am
I learnt this one earlier in the week, but had to keep it under my hat until now, as I used it as a Thing of Interest on my Tandem Club ride today.

Jomo Kenyatta, Prime Minister and first President of Kenya lived in Storrington during World War 2 and was employed growing tomatoes at a market gardeners in nearby Thakeham.

He was also the great-uncle of Rage Against The Machine/Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 17 September, 2018, 07:11:16 pm
Nachschlag.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 17 September, 2018, 07:32:07 pm
I believe they are a German beat combo, your lordship.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 17 September, 2018, 07:44:40 pm
I hadn't seen that specific article Hulver, but I know Professor Arnold's work well and he wrote a longer one at the same place https://theconversation.com/the-scientific-reason-you-dont-like-led-bulbs-and-the-simple-way-to-fix-them-81639 which I do share often.

I find people *don't* believe me when I say lighting flickers. I like the fidget spinner idea, see how well that correlates...
From that web page,
Quote
In contrast, some LEDs flash only 400 times per second. This flicker is still far too rapid to be seen directly, but some people can see multiple images of the lamps every time they make a saccade, which is unpleasantly distracting.

400 Hz!!! Luxury!!! 50 Hz mains lighting tends to flicker at 100 Hz and the taillights on some VW cars flicker at 100 Hz, with just 1 ms on / 9ms off. The prats who signed that off should have asked Prof Arnold for a few wise words.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 September, 2018, 08:02:33 pm
400Hzish seems to be common for quality LED fixtures with PWM dimming (if you're lucky, some of them will stop flickering at 100% duty cycle), but the capacitive dropper or inadequate smoothing 100Hz type are surely much more prolific.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 18 September, 2018, 10:07:43 am
I can see up to 2-6kHz flicker directly in many instances (depending on the amplitude of flicker and overall brightness of light) - it's unpleasant and sometimes makes it impossible for me to SEE where stuff IS.

One issue is that even when I can't see visual artefacts from the flicker often cos the light is too bright, I still get immediate discomfort and develop migraines from it.

Problem is the sort of thing that means some of us see this are poorly researched and deemed "controversial". I tend to say "many autistic people are affected" as autism seems to be more valid than other impairments right now. Shit, but true.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 September, 2018, 12:17:25 pm
If the flickering comes from poor conversion of AC mains supply to the DC needed to power the diodes, presumably an LED powered from DC, eg a battery, does not flicker. LED domestic lighting seems to be here to stay, so perhaps it's time to look at the domestic power supply. Could we have a separate DC supply specifically for lighting, either rectified on a per-building basis or once for each district? Apparently in the past some countries did have separate domestic lighting and power supplies as each was metered differently, though the supply was the same.

I'm not convinced domestic LEDs are overall an environmental benefit in any case. In addition to the flickering and health issues, the electronic thingers in them are a bit nastier than a strand of wire in a vacuum, and it all gets thrown away at the end.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 September, 2018, 01:02:35 pm
If the flickering comes from poor conversion of AC mains supply to the DC needed to power the diodes, presumably an LED powered from DC, eg a battery, does not flicker.

Simplistically true, but not for the reason you'd expect.  An efficient DC->DC converter is much the same internally as an AC->DC switched-mode power supply[1], and with battery-powered devices what the converter lacks in efficiency you have to make up for with more battery, so manufacturers of battery-powered lighting tend to make a better effort with the drivers.

It's basically a case of certain cost-cutting driver designs (capacitive droppers and the like) that inherently flicker at twice the mains voltage being impractical with DC, rather than a fundamental AC/DC thing.

And if an LED lamp is designed to be dimmable, they nearly always do it by pulse-width modulation (ie. switching on and off at variable duty cycle), rather than controlling the DC current through the LED.  There are sound reasons for that - simple, efficient dimming electronics, consistent brightness control, and the colour of the light not going funny at the bottom end - but most PWM drivers operate at a frequency in the hundreds of hertz that is merely considered to be 'good enough'.  There's some movement towards designing theses things to operate above the human auditory range (coils and such in the drivers can produce an audible whistle), which neatly solves the flicker problem (not even barakta can see a light flickering at 20kHz), but I wouldn't hold your breath.


Quote
LED domestic lighting seems to be here to stay, so perhaps it's time to look at the domestic power supply. Could we have a separate DC supply specifically for lighting, either rectified on a per-building basis or once for each district? Apparently in the past some countries did have separate domestic lighting and power supplies as each was metered differently, though the supply was the same.

No point.  DC or AC, transmission losses go up with the square of the current (and the length of the line), so you want to keep the voltage high for as long as possible to reduce that.  Converting high-voltage DC to an appropriate voltage for driving LEDs is at least as difficult as converting high-voltage AC to an appropriate voltage.

What's needed are standards and regulation for the flicker of lighting, like the ones we have for brightness and energy consumption.  First allow people to know which of the identical-looking lamps in the shop have flicker-free driver electronics, and then mandate that lamps with more than some quantitative flicker measurement not be fitted in new builds or even sold.

Like energy consumption, it's easy enough to test for, given suitable equipment.  You expect the bulbs in the lightbulb shop to be marked with their power consumption, let's require them to be marked with their flicker-factor[2].


Quote
I'm not convinced domestic LEDs are overall an environmental benefit in any case. In addition to the flickering and health issues, the electronic thingers in them are a bit nastier than a strand of wire in a vacuum, and it all gets thrown away at the end.

Agreed.  We've got to the point where an LED fixture develops a fault after n years, and the solution is to throw the entire fixture in the bin.  That's clearly stupid.

Obviously it's not in the manufacturer's interests to design them conservatively for longer life (which is approximately a thermal design trade-off against brightness and materials cost), or for ease of repair.


[1] The average wall-wart first rectifies your 240V AC supply to about 338V DC, before converting to regulated lower voltage with high-frequency switchy regulatey cleverness.  Many will happily run on DC with no modifications (albeit with some risk of overheating).
[2] I predict some single consumer-friendly rating that encompasses frequency, depth of modulation, and weird phosphor-lag colour effects.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 September, 2018, 01:26:25 pm
So having a special 240V DC supply would be no good cos flicker would still be induced by converting it to the low voltages needed for LEDs? Obviously having a whole town supplied at 5V or whatever is stupid. What do they do for street lighting? People don't seem to complain about that; is that because the manufacturers are using better converters (cos obviously they're charging more) or cos people don't notice it so much cos it's outside (and there are competing multiple sources) or just cos I haven't heard them?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 September, 2018, 01:51:40 pm
So having a special 240V DC supply would be no good cos flicker would still be induced by converting it to the low voltages needed for LEDs?

Not really, as switched-mode converters tend not to produce visible flicker[1], and resistive droppers on DC produce no flicker at all (while wasting fuckloads of power).  But you can use those flicker-free switched-mode converters just fine on the AC mains we have right now without going to the effort of re-wiring everything.


Quote
What do they do for street lighting? People don't seem to complain about that; is that because the manufacturers are using better converters (cos obviously they're charging more) or cos people don't notice it so much cos it's outside (and there are competing multiple sources) or just cos I haven't heard them?

Street lighting is traditionally sodium or mercury vapour discharge lamps, with magnetic ballasts, which flicker at 100Hz[1].  Those are gradually being replaced with LED fixtures which may flicker at 100Hz, some other frequency, or not at all.  People certainly do complain about LED street lighting, but usually on the grounds of colour temperature or perceived brightness.



[1] It's one of those "how shoddy is the design?" questions, but the typical combination of some output smoothing and switching frequencies in the serverals of kilohertz (which make the transformers smaller and cheaper) means that you tend to just get a little ripple at a frequency the human eye can't detect.
[2] Note that nearby light fixtures that flicker at double the mains frequency will be in sync with each other, at least if they're on the same phase of the mains supply (which they usually will be for wiring/safety reasons).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 18 September, 2018, 02:32:26 pm
The architect for that Dundee V&A looks like a Japanese version of one of the architects I work with.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 18 September, 2018, 08:27:59 pm
The Donald has a knob like a Nintendo character.  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/18/stormy-daniels-tell-all-book-on-trump-salacious-detail-and-claims-of-cheating
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 September, 2018, 10:51:55 am
Sounds like Henry VIII
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 19 September, 2018, 11:37:59 am
Not to enter "toad's tool" as an Internet search term.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 20 September, 2018, 01:02:28 pm
One of those linguistic/cultural differences that I'd completely missed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cider_in_the_United_States
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 September, 2018, 01:05:11 pm
One of those linguistic/cultural differences that I'd completely missed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cider_in_the_United_States
I bet that leads to a lot of disappointed Brits in Usania and surprised Yanks in Britoland. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rr on 20 September, 2018, 01:40:11 pm
R2D2 who does the announcements on Southeastern trains pronounces Meopham as Meffam but I've never ever ever heard a real live actual person say it that way.
I've done the rail journey between Bromley South and Whitstable more times than I've had hot dinners (albeit probably not as many as you, D)
Travelling in either direction, the train always stops at Meopham.
I have never, ever seen anyone board or alight from the train at this station.
Does it stop there because it is the longest linear village in Kent / England / The World?

I have got on and off trains at Meopham many times, but only ever before or after an audax ride - which to my mind is the only reason to visit the place (esteemed audax organiser Tom OTP lives there, so maybe he'll be along shortly to big up its charms, which I'm sure are many).

I didn't know that interesting fact about it being the longest linear village in England, but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I remember at the end of one audax after climbing Wrotham hill (ugh!), passing the village sign and thinking, 'Oh good, nearly finished,' and it was most dispiriting to then find myself riding for several more miles before reaching the scout hut - although at least it's mostly downhill.

Anyway, back to the -ham place names, I just remembered that Faversham is Faver-sham rather than Favers-ham - it's rendered as Father's Ham in Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker though, but that's an invention; the original etymology is related to an Old English word for metal workers.
See also Wit-ham in Essex and With-am in Linc's.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rr on 20 September, 2018, 01:41:38 pm
it's almost 30 years ago now that I was applying to universities, I can't remember is much attention was paid to GCSEs or that was just a given, considering you were already studying subjects relevant to desired degree at A level.

GCSE maths and Chemistry being clearly required at GCSE to do those at A-level and form the basis of university offers for example - English admittedly less directly linked, but nonetheless useful for report writing etc

In the early 80s you needed Maths and English O'level or GCSE equivalent for university or you weren't considered to have matriculated, didn't matter what the course was. This was certainly still the case in the late 80s as it caused my sister no end of trouble trying to get into uni as a mature student - she just doesn't get maths and had retry at night school several times. She has a masters now mind and they keep asking her to do a doctorate.
I needed B in English language and a C in a foreign language for my chemical engineering course in 81.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 21 September, 2018, 09:55:28 am
One of those linguistic/cultural differences that I'd completely missed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cider_in_the_United_States
I bet that leads to a lot of disappointed Brits in Usania and surprised Yanks in Britoland.

When I was first over there, I was shocked – SHOCKED – to see Americans handing out cider to their little kids at the town fete. Admittedly, that's probably normal for Bristol. Once, as a wayward teen, half a litre of already-drunk Woodpecker cider boiled out of my nose. I've kind of struggled with any kind of cider since then.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 21 September, 2018, 10:03:24 am
Once, as a wayward teen, half a litre of already-drunk Woodpecker cider boiled out of my nose. I've kind of struggled with any kind of cider since then.

Aah that echos my last experience (at a slightly more advanced age) of Newcastle Brown
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 21 September, 2018, 10:34:49 am
See also Southern Comfort. I can't touch that. I can't even be in the same room. Cider, I can probably sniff, but then's the Proustian remembrance of teenage sick. I still remember the first time we got drunk at a party. As a cunning plan to disguise the smell of cheap cider, our drunken brains convinced us to eat a tube of toothpaste. Each.

So instead of just looking drunk, we ended up looking like we were suffering the advanced symptoms of rabies.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 21 September, 2018, 12:37:48 pm
*tries very hard not to laugh out loud in a room where I am supposed to be being quiet*
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 21 September, 2018, 12:45:31 pm
*tries very hard not to laugh out loud in a room where I am supposed to be being quiet*

Ditto, but I failed, and people are looking at me  :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 21 September, 2018, 12:58:08 pm
I loathe cider, the smell makes me sick, but I like Southern Comfort :)

Fortunately I can smirk as much as I like, unlike later.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 September, 2018, 01:02:40 pm
See also Southern Comfort.
For an instant, I thought this was the baby names thread.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 September, 2018, 01:09:14 pm
I always loved traditional British cider, and was very disappointed on coming to France to find that French cider is peely-wally sparkling stuff like Babycham.  But a few years ago, cycling down towards a wall-enclosed farmyard a few k from here, I was delighted to smell the smell of good strong UK-style cider, and reckoned they must be pressing & fermenting à l'anglaise.  As I passed the gate and glanced in, I saw that they were moving the manure-heap.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 21 September, 2018, 08:19:53 pm
That at least some railway bridges still have their distance/position from $whereever measured in miles and chains and that even when brand new distance markers are affixed they still display the distance in miles and chains.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 21 September, 2018, 09:14:52 pm
it's almost 30 years ago now that I was applying to universities, I can't remember is much attention was paid to GCSEs or that was just a given, considering you were already studying subjects relevant to desired degree at A level.

GCSE maths and Chemistry being clearly required at GCSE to do those at A-level and form the basis of university offers for example - English admittedly less directly linked, but nonetheless useful for report writing etc

In the early 80s you needed Maths and English O'level or GCSE equivalent for university or you weren't considered to have matriculated, didn't matter what the course was. This was certainly still the case in the late 80s as it caused my sister no end of trouble trying to get into uni as a mature student - she just doesn't get maths and had retry at night school several times. She has a masters now mind and they keep asking her to do a doctorate.
I needed B in English language and a C in a foreign language for my chemical engineering course in 81.

E in chemistry and E in maths was my offer from Bath.  I think they basically recognised me as their kind of person
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 21 September, 2018, 09:33:01 pm
So basically they were saying that you were someone who needed a bath, then?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 21 September, 2018, 09:55:50 pm
So basically they were saying that you were someone who needed a bath, then?

something like that  ;D

Or I just liked odd shaped balls
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 21 September, 2018, 10:20:48 pm
That at least some railway bridges still have their distance/position from $whereever measured in miles and chains and that even when brand new distance markers are affixed they still display the distance in miles and chains.
All of them I believe*. They also have a three or four character  Engineers Line Reference (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer%27s_Line_Reference) to identify the line.

*HS1 is measured in km and m, as it's a FOREIGN thing from ABROAD.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 22 September, 2018, 07:24:31 am
That at least some railway bridges still have their distance/position from $whereever measured in miles and chains and that even when brand new distance markers are affixed they still display the distance in miles and chains.
All of them I believe.
My sample size was small (3 bridges so far this week) and all in N/NE Kent so was quite expecting it to be a relic from whichever company originally built the line (VIR) rather than a system currently in use.

V codes here : http://www.railwaycodes.org.uk/elrs/elrv.shtm
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 September, 2018, 08:59:15 am
That at least some railway bridges still have their distance/position from $whereever measured in miles and chains and that even when brand new distance markers are affixed they still display the distance in miles and chains.
All of them I believe*. They also have a three or four character  Engineers Line Reference (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer%27s_Line_Reference) to identify the line.

*HS1 is measured in km and m, as it's a FOREIGN thing from ABROAD.
I have a feeling the Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth line is also measured in km, presumably because the Welsh are foreign. Or perhaps because the Walian railway was built by foreign Saxons.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 22 September, 2018, 10:20:41 am
Quote from: Cudzoziemiec
...presumably because the Welsh are foreign...
Indeed.  The clue is in the name; wælisc*. :)


*Alternative etymologies have been proposed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 September, 2018, 10:39:49 am
That at least some railway bridges still have their distance/position from $whereever measured in miles and chains and that even when brand new distance markers are affixed they still display the distance in miles and chains.
All of them I believe*. They also have a three or four character  Engineers Line Reference (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer%27s_Line_Reference) to identify the line.

*HS1 is measured in km and m, as it's a FOREIGN thing from ABROAD.
I have a feeling the Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth line is also measured in km, presumably because the Welsh are foreign. Or perhaps because the Walian railway was built by foreign Saxons.

Ooh, there's a thing.  According to the ELR database TheLurker linked to
Quote
Briefly also marked in km from Sutton Bridge Junction; ERTMS signalling system still uses km
(It's line SBA). So that's  my Thing I Have Learned Today covered already.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 22 September, 2018, 10:52:56 am
The bod. who runs the ELR reference site has a couple of flickr albums and one contains this image ...

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/pdeaves2/6009247037/

I am deliberately not embedding the picture, it has to be a surprise, but it definitely deserves a dekko.  :)

I think it's utterly brilliant. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 24 September, 2018, 09:15:58 am
One of those linguistic/cultural differences that I'd completely missed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cider_in_the_United_States

So, Apple Juice or Cider then?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 25 September, 2018, 11:29:10 am
Today I have learned why occasionally people knock at my door hoping that I will cut some keys for them, even though the house next door but one has a key shaped sign that says  Locksmiths.
It happened  again today.  Out of curiosity, I typed "keys Llandysul " into my phone.  Ah.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 25 September, 2018, 07:48:31 pm
there is a Deliveroo type thing in Norway (Stavanger at least) and its PINK
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 25 September, 2018, 08:01:28 pm
Hire bikes in Portland and Seattle are a rather lurid green (or rather lime). In Portland they have electric Lime scooters. In Seatlle a mix of pedal-powered and electric bikes. Also Lime.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Moleman76 on 26 September, 2018, 06:12:12 am
Seattle also has yellow and orange ones for rent, along with the bright green
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 26 September, 2018, 09:08:10 am
That mole meat tastes unpleasant. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Buckland)

Sorry, Moleman76.  It wasn't through personal experience, you understand!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 26 September, 2018, 09:19:39 am
Seattle also has yellow and orange ones for rent, along with the bright green

They seem to have mostly been eclipsed by lime now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 29 September, 2018, 07:48:47 pm
That it is possible to play the Star Wars main theme on piano accordian.  Possible, but very, very odd.  Almost as odd as hearing someone play Wooden Heart on the bagpipes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 29 September, 2018, 10:35:56 pm
That there is s device on our power supply called a recloser.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 29 September, 2018, 11:08:28 pm
there is a Deliveroo type thing in Norway (Stavanger at least) and its PINK

Also in Oslo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 01 October, 2018, 02:07:37 pm
That Phil Lynott was Leslie Crowther's son-in-law.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 01 October, 2018, 05:51:11 pm
That Lynda Carter (yes, the Wonder Woman one) did a cover version of "She's Always A Woman" by Billy Joel.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 01 October, 2018, 06:01:24 pm
That there is s device on our power supply called a recloser.

Yes, they are like fuses but are not one-time operation and are automatic.
Its because most overhead line faults are transient ( eg a branch falling ) and the actual fault self-clears pretty quickly.
So a recloser will restore power after a pause, without requiring human intervention.
They will attempt to reclose a few times (2 or 3 usually) before locking out and requiring human intervention.

You need to be careful of them if you come across downed power lines.

If power lines have come down in a storm and appear dead, be cautious.
They may re-energise a couple of times before the recloser locks out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 01 October, 2018, 06:07:44 pm
the actual fault self-clears

Read: Disappears in a puff of smoke (magic or otherwise).


Quote
If power lines have come down in a storm and appear dead, be cautious.

I think the rule of thumb is that any power thingy that isn't visibly tied to a known-good earth with a sturdy conductor is inherently not to be trusted.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 01 October, 2018, 06:22:12 pm
That Phil Lynott was Leslie Crowther's son-in-law.
And that Phil Lynott's wife was a glamour model / soft porn star.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 01 October, 2018, 08:56:30 pm
I had to google both Phil Lynott and Leslie Crowther. Neither was who I thought they were.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 October, 2018, 09:09:19 pm
I had to google both Phil Lynott and Leslie Crowther. Neither was who I thought they were.
Ha! Me too. Well, not Phil Lynott. I mean, he's a cricketer, everybody knows that. But I was (genuinely) confusing Leslie Crowther and Aleister Crowley.

Whereas ian might have been mixing up Leslie Crowther and Lesley Judd. In fact the similarity is greatest between Lesley Judd and Aleister Crowley...

(https://c8.alamy.com/comp/G4A0EH/lesley-judd-G4A0EH.jpg)
Occultist with Black Cat


(https://cleorecs.com/store/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2308-720x720.jpg)
Blue Peter presenter with One He Made Earlier
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 01 October, 2018, 09:38:54 pm
Quite spookily, I did leap the same conclusive delusion of cricketer and relative of the devil-worshipper
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2018, 10:45:24 am
That if you left Bristol's floating harbour in a narrow boat and headed upstream, after about two hours you would reach Hanham lock. Which would be handy for visiting the nearby Argos Cycles (and Kim's Cafe!). That's right, you're still firmly within Bristol and not even in the proper suburbs. I knew canal boats were slow, but didn't realize they were quite that slow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 02 October, 2018, 11:55:25 am
I thought that a punk band called Ted Turd and the Toolsheds was a joke, made up by one of my mates. I have learned that it was a genuine band.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 October, 2018, 12:27:20 pm
That if you left Bristol's floating harbour in a narrow boat and headed upstream, after about two hours you would reach Hanham lock. Which would be handy for visiting the nearby Argos Cycles (and Kim's Cafe!). That's right, you're still firmly within Bristol and not even in the proper suburbs. I knew canal boats were slow, but didn't realize they were quite that slow.
4mph.  They will go a bit faster but it's discouraged as it washes away the banks.  Locks are the real time hog, though; if all the locks are against you (empty when you're going down, or full when you're going up) it can take ages to get anywhere.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 02 October, 2018, 12:33:46 pm
It's also impossible to operate a canal boat without booze in hand. Leastways, it is in Londonshire. Unless it's in Hackney, in which case a bottle of wine will also suffice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 October, 2018, 12:58:27 pm
It's also impossible to operate a canal boat without booze in hand. Leastways, it is in Londonshire. Unless it's in Hackney, in which case a bottle of wine will also suffice.

https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/16908532.revellers-sink-canal-boat/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 October, 2018, 01:06:47 pm
Doesn't surprise me. I've seen drunks on canal boats here trying to spear swans.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 October, 2018, 01:15:09 pm
Doesn't surprise me. I've seen drunks on canal boats here trying to spear swans.

 :o  I hope they got a broken arm.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 02 October, 2018, 01:57:19 pm
That the M25 remains a dreadful road with no alternative routes.

Five hours it took us to get from Heathrow to the East of the Eastern Angles. FIVE HOURS. It’s only a 119 of the BRITONS miles and it’s dual carriageway for all but the last spit. Damned pantechnicon drivers* , driving when they should be asleep in bed and not at the wheel. And the polis’s insistence in doing s full collision investigation there and then even though it means closing the motorway for hours during the peak travelling time.  Pah!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 02 October, 2018, 02:05:22 pm
Googling "Ebay Enlarger" produces quite a range of results. I was interested in flogging Dad's old photographic kit.  Rookie error to leave out the term "photographic", as I got lots of things to enlarge things other than photographs. Todgers, for example.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 02 October, 2018, 02:09:46 pm
That the M25 remains a dreadful road with no alternative routes.

Five hours it took us to get from Heathrow to the East of the Eastern Angles. FIVE HOURS. It’s only a 119 of the BRITONS miles and it’s dual carriageway for all but the last spit. Damned pantechnicon drivers* , driving when they should be asleep in bed and not at the wheel. And the polis’s insistence in doing s full collision investigation there and then even though it means closing the motorway for hours during the peak travelling time.  Pah!

There was an incident of a ball bearing fired at an HGV near Cambridge, head injuries for the driver.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 October, 2018, 02:27:59 pm
Doesn't surprise me. I've seen drunks on canal boats here trying to spear swans.

 :o  I hope they got a broken arm.

Being drunk, they missed. Should have fallen in.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 02 October, 2018, 03:56:36 pm
That the M25 remains a dreadful road with no alternative routes.

Five hours it took us to get from Heathrow to the East of the Eastern Angles. FIVE HOURS. It’s only a 119 of the BRITONS miles and it’s dual carriageway for all but the last spit. Damned pantechnicon drivers* , driving when they should be asleep in bed and not at the wheel. And the polis’s insistence in doing s full collision investigation there and then even though it means closing the motorway for hours during the peak travelling time.  Pah!

There was an incident of a ball bearing fired at an HGV near Cambridge, head injuries for the driver.

There was me thinking we had a monopoly on dickheads in the North of England...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 October, 2018, 03:59:53 pm
There was me thinking we had a monopoly on dickheads in the North of England...

*gestures vaguely in the direction of the Westminster Gasworks*
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 02 October, 2018, 04:06:48 pm
It's also impossible to operate a canal boat without booze in hand. Leastways, it is in Londonshire. Unless it's in Hackney, in which case a bottle of wine will also suffice.

https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/16908532.revellers-sink-canal-boat/

Pissed up Yahoos. 'Yesterdays Boatorised Morons' would be a somewhat eclectic thread...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 02 October, 2018, 04:51:41 pm
It's also impossible to operate a canal boat without booze in hand. Leastways, it is in Londonshire. Unless it's in Hackney, in which case a bottle of wine will also suffice.

https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/16908532.revellers-sink-canal-boat/

Pissed up Yahoos. 'Yesterdays Boatorised Morons' would be a somewhat eclectic thread...

T'aint new. Here's some fiction:
Quote
A noisy and inconsiderate party of city-dwellers (dubbed the 'Hullabaloos' by the children) aboard the hired motor cruiser Margoletta threaten Number 7 nest by mooring in front of it. This nest is home of the coot with the white feather which is a mascot of the Coot Club and one of many of its monitored nests. Despite warnings "not to mix with foreigners", Tom stealthily loosens the Margoletta's moorings to save the nest and later hides behind the Teasel. Mrs. Barrable does not betray Tom to the Hullabaloos, instead asking him and the twins to sail the Teasel and teach the Callums to sail. Tom involves some of the other members of the Coot Club, the twin girls Port and Starboard Farland, and three younger boys — Joe, Bill and Pete (the Death and Glories).

from here (http://arthur-ransome.wikia.com/wiki/Coot_Club)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2018, 06:14:55 pm
What I have learned is that Tim Hall read and remembers the same childhood books I did.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 October, 2018, 07:12:17 pm
It's also impossible to operate a canal boat without booze in hand. Leastways, it is in Londonshire. Unless it's in Hackney, in which case a bottle of wine will also suffice.

https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/16908532.revellers-sink-canal-boat/

Pissed up Yahoos. 'Yesterdays Boatorised Morons' would be a somewhat eclectic thread...

I expect the canal boat forum have one, for when they're tired of discussing the finer details of bilge pump o-rings[1] and rabid brexiteering.


[1] IANA boatist, but I assume that's their equivalent of recumbent gear ratios.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2018, 07:34:31 pm
[1] IANA boatist, but I assume that's their equivalent of recumbent gear ratios.
Wouldn't that be something like drive-screw vane width? Probably in combination with rudder length and, I dunno, prow angle? But I'm sure bilge-pump o-ring sizes is a hot topic!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 October, 2018, 07:46:32 pm
In other news, I've just discovered that Captain Cyborg was responsible for Jimmy Savile's fixit-badge-dispensing robotic chair.  I know that makes perfect sense, but still.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 02 October, 2018, 07:52:03 pm
Googling "Ebay Enlarger" produces quite a range of results. I was interested in flogging Dad's old photographic kit.  Rookie error to leave out the term "photographic", as I got lots of things to enlarge things other than photographs. Todgers, for example.

Remind me - how long you've been using the interwebs.....

ETA - Why weren't you at the Prince William Henry in Southwark last Thursday?
Your company was missed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 02 October, 2018, 08:50:13 pm
Googling "Ebay Enlarger" produces quite a range of results. I was interested in flogging Dad's old photographic kit.  Rookie error to leave out the term "photographic", as I got lots of things to enlarge things other than photographs. Todgers, for example.

As bad as an ex colleague of mine, looking for a toll manufacturer of a polymer searched for " llatex, rubber" predictable outcome. One click and he was never the same.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 02 October, 2018, 10:09:05 pm
Googling "Ebay Enlarger" produces quite a range of results. I was interested in flogging Dad's old photographic kit.  Rookie error to leave out the term "photographic", as I got lots of things to enlarge things other than photographs. Todgers, for example.

Remind me - how long you've been using the interwebs.....

ETA - Why weren't you at the Prince William Henry in Southwark last Thursday?
Your company was missed.
Aw, shucks. I had half a plan to go but the following day involved a lot of driving, so I gave it a miss. Net time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 03 October, 2018, 08:35:16 am
That "cachinnation" is the sound of loud laughter.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 03 October, 2018, 09:03:33 am
I learnted that yesterday!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 October, 2018, 01:18:40 pm
That "Bride Of Frankenstein" star Elsa Lanchester was from Lewisham.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 October, 2018, 01:39:48 pm
That's why it takes so long to warm up a studio audience - procachinnation is the thief of time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 03 October, 2018, 02:12:15 pm
I thought that a punk band called Ted Turd and the Toolsheds was a joke, made up by one of my mates. I have learned that it was a genuine band.
Indeed. From round here. Some old acquaintances of mine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 03 October, 2018, 08:08:21 pm
I thought that a punk band called Ted Turd and the Toolsheds was a joke, made up by one of my mates. I have learned that it was a genuine band.
Indeed. From round here. Some old acquaintances of mine.

I just looked you up in the members list; you are in Kent. My mate was a student at Canterbury. It makes sense now!

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 04 October, 2018, 11:26:59 am
Novichock was the name of one of Pavlov's dogs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 October, 2018, 12:32:36 pm
Make it fit at A and it will no longer fit at B. Make it fit at B and it will no longer fit at A. Redo from start.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 04 October, 2018, 03:32:32 pm
Rather much linked to something like the above, I have learned that it is a good idea to check your squares every now and again to see if they are still square.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 October, 2018, 06:44:24 pm
That Charles Richardson, engineer on the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway in 1863 and the Severn Tunnel in 1886, also invented the spliced cricket bat and bowling catapult.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 October, 2018, 07:19:08 pm
That Charles Richardson, engineer on the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway in 1863 and the Severn Tunnel in 1886, also invented the spliced cricket bat and bowling catapult.

Presumably an invention that was promptly banned in the manner of the UCI and recumbent bicycles, on the grounds that it would make cricket too exciting.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 October, 2018, 07:25:05 pm
There's a firm down the road from me that makes them. I'd like to say it was the Richardson Proprietary Bowling Catapult Company, but actually it has the oh so inventive name of Bola.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 06 October, 2018, 07:29:44 pm
Surely it should be Batta  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 06 October, 2018, 07:31:38 pm
Surely it should be Batta  :)

Surely that would be the Richardson Proprietary Ball Hitting Machine?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 06 October, 2018, 08:33:54 pm
Surely it should be Batta  :)
Some years ago on an FNRTTC, his Legship had us stop somewhere near Tilbury at the site of the Bata shoe factory and gave a marvellous lecture about modernist architecture and Company towns.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 07 October, 2018, 06:15:14 pm
Surely it should be Batta  :)
Some years ago on an FNRTTC, his Legship had us stop somewhere near Tilbury at the site of the Bata shoe factory and gave a marvellous lecture about modernist architecture and Company towns.
As the years roll by I wonder how many still know who that is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 07 October, 2018, 06:42:03 pm
Surely it should be Batta  :)
Some years ago on an FNRTTC, his Legship had us stop somewhere near Tilbury at the site of the Bata shoe factory and gave a marvellous lecture about modernist architecture and Company towns.
As the years roll by I wonder how many still know who that is.
Many.

ETA To very loosely paraphrase someone, I forget whom - Wowbagger can probably help out: Once you've been for a bike ride with someone, you have a friend for life.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 09 October, 2018, 08:15:11 pm
I broke my phone screen* on Sunday and it's away for repair (actually on the way back already, they've done it).  In the meantime I foolishly opened Facebook on a normal browser.  It's like standing behind a bin lorry and asking the driver to engage the tipper function.  The adblocker (AdBlock Ultimate in this case) was overloaded and Firefox locked up completely.  Moral: if you must use Faecebook, only do it on a phone and with Ublock Origin or similar weapons-grade ad-blocking enabled.

*Galaxy S8, would be £240 but I have finally found a use for the mobile phone insurance that comes with my current account!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 October, 2018, 08:24:26 am
I broke my phone screen* on Sunday and it's away for repair (actually on the way back already, they've done it).  In the meantime I foolishly opened Facebook on a normal browser.  It's like standing behind a bin lorry and asking the driver to engage the tipper function.  The adblocker (AdBlock Ultimate in this case) was overloaded and Firefox locked up completely.  Moral: if you must use Faecebook, only do it on a phone and with Ublock Origin or similar weapons-grade ad-blocking enabled.

*Galaxy S8, would be £240 but I have finally found a use for the mobile phone insurance that comes with my current account!

This Unit uses and recommends the FB Purity browser add-on (https://www.fbpurity.com/).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 12 October, 2018, 11:59:23 am
That the Balti Triangle no longer exists.
Chum of mine went to Birmingham last week to visit old mates and found no balti houses on either Ladypool Rd or Stoney Lane.  He says they've all become steak houses and the like.  Seems that's what the young trendy Asians are into now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 12 October, 2018, 01:55:33 pm
That the Balti Triangle no longer exists.
Chum of mine went to Birmingham last week to visit old mates and found no balti houses on either Ladypool Rd or Stoney Lane.  He says they've all become steak houses and the like.  Seems that's what the young trendy Asians are into now.

The classic Goodness Gracious Me sketch about going out for an English after a few lassis springs to mind.  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 12 October, 2018, 02:26:26 pm
Not so much learned today, but had the lesson reinforced today

The "Intelligence" bit of Intelligence Corps does not necessarily mean what the dictionary thinks it does :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 12 October, 2018, 03:48:34 pm
Hence the classic example of an oxymoron: "military intelligence"?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 12 October, 2018, 06:00:29 pm
Hence the classic example of an oxymoron: "military intelligence"?

E.g. the GRU?  ;D :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 12 October, 2018, 07:58:32 pm
That the Balti Triangle no longer exists.
Chum of mine went to Birmingham last week to visit old mates and found no balti houses on either Ladypool Rd or Stoney Lane.  He says they've all become steak houses and the like.  Seems that's what the young trendy Asians are into now.
Not the Hindus, presumably?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 12 October, 2018, 08:00:00 pm
That I really shouldn't have drunk that much gin yesterday evening.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 12 October, 2018, 08:06:36 pm
just how effective my B&M Luxos really is, I was out before sun-up this morning. 

Mor night rides to come I think
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 12 October, 2018, 08:43:02 pm
That the Balti Triangle no longer exists.
Chum of mine went to Birmingham last week to visit old mates and found no balti houses on either Ladypool Rd or Stoney Lane.  He says they've all become steak houses and the like.  Seems that's what the young trendy Asians are into now.
My favourite, The Royal Naim, was opposite the Mermaid pub, but is now a sari shop. The last time I was on Stoney Lane, The Royal Al-Faisal had become very chintzy & blingy, but that was 10 years ago.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 13 October, 2018, 12:38:13 am
That I continue to be blessed with really good friends. It’s something that I’ll never really come to terms with, but they do keep proving that they actually really like my company.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 13 October, 2018, 01:29:21 pm
I on the other hand, Have realised that long-term mates are just that, mates. Some friends I've known far less time are much more likely to offer help, support and guidance, whereas the long-termers merely wonder amongst themselves what's up without reaching out to me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 18 October, 2018, 09:10:12 am
Note to self: Plasterboarding ceiling, esp with 12mm board, to be filed under "stuff I did happily 20 years ago, not to be repeated in the future". Body does not appreciate same the next day.

kthxbai

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 18 October, 2018, 01:00:37 pm
That the Balti Triangle no longer exists.
Chum of mine went to Birmingham last week to visit old mates and found no balti houses on either Ladypool Rd or Stoney Lane.  He says they've all become steak houses and the like.  Seems that's what the young trendy Asians are into now.
My favourite, The Royal Naim, was opposite the Mermaid pub, but is now a sari shop. The last time I was on Stoney Lane, The Royal Al-Faisal had become very chintzy & blingy, but that was 10 years ago.
The RA-F was terribly basic in the 1980s.  Ten quid for four, though!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Moleman76 on 20 October, 2018, 08:01:37 am
when your pillowcase is in the laundry box, a t-shirt can be substituted
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 20 October, 2018, 11:31:46 am
The "short" of Short Magazine Lee Enfield (A kind of rifle, m'lud) refers to the barrel length and not, as I thought, to the size of the magazine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 22 October, 2018, 09:04:05 am
That Khashoggi is originally a Turkish name meaning 'spoon maker'
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 22 October, 2018, 08:39:52 pm
Some guys are refining the Birkeland-Eyde process* and reckon they can now match the Haber process for energy efficiency.  Imagine being able to make fertilizer in the middle of the desert from PV electricity...and not using fossil fuel or producing greenhouse gases.

*you've seen The Heroes Of Telemark, right?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 October, 2018, 09:52:27 pm
Some guys are refining the Birkeland-Eyde process* and reckon they can now match the Haber process for energy efficiency.  Imagine being able to make fertilizer in the middle of the desert from PV electricity...and not using fossil fuel or producing greenhouse gases.

That sounds like a game-changer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 23 October, 2018, 08:46:54 am
.

*you've seen The Heroes Of Telemark, right?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45938874?fbclid=IwAR2LDdSdDkB3b-1Nwb6mm2SApk5TybznKNT4DMs8xqygdz2VC07z3AlM_B4 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45938874?fbclid=IwAR2LDdSdDkB3b-1Nwb6mm2SApk5TybznKNT4DMs8xqygdz2VC07z3AlM_B4)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 23 October, 2018, 04:39:43 pm
That 'Assisted Suicide -The Musical' is a thing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 23 October, 2018, 04:55:58 pm
Some guys are refining the Birkeland-Eyde process* and reckon they can now match the Haber process for energy efficiency.  Imagine being able to make fertilizer in the middle of the desert from PV electricity...and not using fossil fuel or producing greenhouse gases.

*you've seen The Heroes Of Telemark, right?

Seen the film, read the books, the one by Ray Mears is particularly good
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 October, 2018, 11:57:40 pm
Two new words for me today: razzers and frig bobs. They sound like something in the city centre on a Saturday night, but they're actually types of saw used in quarrying and stone masonry.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 October, 2018, 07:54:47 am
I learnt yesterday that not cycling for just 10 days plays Old Harry with your fitness.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 28 October, 2018, 10:09:10 am
I just learned that today, two weeks in Saudi with running and yoga, but hell my knees were complaining today.

As for those saws, I'll have to ask my sisters other half, he's a stonemason.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 October, 2018, 10:26:11 am
As for those saws, I'll have to ask my sisters other half...

Sounds like the saws have already been at work.

Meanwhile, I have discovered that the 5cm muscle roller the missus got me last birthday makes a really good sandpapering block for volutes etc.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 29 October, 2018, 02:49:18 pm
I found out today that one of my great-great-great grandfathers (or someone with the same name, same residence and same profession as one of my GGG GFs) received a "sabre cut on the right shoulder" at Peterloo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 02 November, 2018, 11:45:41 am
That William Fotheringham has written a book about the film "A Sunday in Hell" and is now working on a book about Beryl Burton.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 November, 2018, 01:27:14 pm
Yesterday I learnt that my winter cycling tights are not waterproof. :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 02 November, 2018, 01:28:10 pm
That William Fotheringham has written a book about the film "A Sunday in Hell" and is now working on a book about Beryl Burton.

Ooh. I'll keep an eye out for that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 November, 2018, 05:27:30 pm
https://www1.nyc.gov/nyc-resources/faq/493/is-it-legal-to-keep-piranhas
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nikki on 03 November, 2018, 10:07:24 pm
That it's not a great idea to foam roll the upper part of your back whilst wearing a hoodie.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 03 November, 2018, 10:10:42 pm
[Old]  ??? [/Old]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nikki on 04 November, 2018, 06:01:30 am
A loose clothing and rotating machinery kind of situation.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 04 November, 2018, 07:56:04 am
A loose clothing and rotating machinery kind of situation.
A marginally less stylish Isadora Duncan moment.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2018, 07:05:38 pm
That in 1895 George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell collided with each other while cycling from Tintern to Trellech. This was probably less stylish than Isadora Duncan too, but also less fatal.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 November, 2018, 08:34:36 am
A coming-together of great minds.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 06 November, 2018, 10:04:03 am
That in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot an Observance of the 5th of November Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observance_of_5th_November_Act_1605 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observance_of_5th_November_Act_1605)) was passed. "It required church ministers to hold a special service of Thanksgiving annually on 5 November, during which the text of the act was to be read out loud."
The act was repealed in 1859.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 November, 2018, 02:00:25 pm
MrsT's grandmother's brother-in-law was killed by a sniper as he was going up the gangway onto the boat to go home, on 12th November 1918.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 15 November, 2018, 06:00:09 am
I still really struggle with German numbers in a hurry as they are backwards. On the phone at work someone tells me their number and it is: null sieben eins vierundzwanzig neununddreißig zweiundziebzig, which sounds like 0719429327 but is actually 071243972. Four-and-twenty nine-and-thirty two-and-seventy.

I remember my grandmother used to say “it’s five-and-twenty past four” so it’s not completely unfamiliar. However, today someone pointed out that English still does it too now: thir-teen, six-teen, eight-teen. I had never noticed that before!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ScumOfTheRoad on 15 November, 2018, 07:59:11 am
Regarding numbers, in the Suisse Romande they speak a dialect of French which has features from a long time ago.

60 soixante
70 septant
80 huitante
90 nonante

Much, much easier adnt o me more logical  than quatre-vingts etc.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 15 November, 2018, 08:31:43 am
Regarding numbers, in the Suisse Romande they speak a dialect of French which has features from a long time ago.

60 soixante
70 septant
80 huitante
90 nonante

Much, much easier adnt o me more logical  than quatre-vingts etc.

Except, if you are comfortable with the standard this version is REALLY confusing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 15 November, 2018, 09:43:29 am
Belgian French does the same
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 November, 2018, 12:13:56 pm
Stream of digits.  It's the only way to be sure.  (At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 15 November, 2018, 12:17:55 pm
Stream of digits.  It's the only way to be sure.  (At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate.)

+1

Or should that be 00 1?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 November, 2018, 12:23:32 pm
Stream of digits.  It's the only way to be sure.  (At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate.)
But we're already in that debate. The correct punctuation in German is in pairs. Except for the first three digits, it seems.
071243972
"Oh Seven One Twenty-four Thirty-nine Seventy-two"
Perhaps Auntie H knows why they don't say "Oh Seventy-one"?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 15 November, 2018, 12:37:10 pm
Vierundzwanzig Amseln.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 November, 2018, 12:49:30 pm
Stream of digits.  It's the only way to be sure.  (At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate.)
But we're already in that debate. The correct punctuation in German is in pairs. Except for the first three digits, it seems.
I doubt it... *googles*

Yep, variable length area codes, subscriber numbers that can go down to 2 digits, so their dialplan is even more of a mess than ours:

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


Of course in the real world cellular users and most people under the age of about 40 only ever dial the fully-qualified number, and the old people who still dial subscriber numbers manually will recognise their own area code.  So it's only really telecoms engineers who have to care about dialplans who actually *need* to get the punctuation right.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 November, 2018, 12:58:07 pm
What do you doubt, Kim? When I was a child, our phone number was four digits. It was <area code> 3463. I think the area code had six digits including the initial 0. Point is, the phone number 3463 is said in English as separate digits "three four six three" whereas in German it's said as two pairs "thirty-four sixty-three". This is what is causing confusion to Auntie H, along with the way German puts units before tens in those pairs. I have a feeling French treats phone numbers in pairs too, but as they do their tens and units in the same order as us it's probably less of a problem. Except for the Germans, of course.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 November, 2018, 01:08:23 pm
Regarding numbers, in the Suisse Romande they speak a dialect of French which has features from a long time ago.

60 soixante
70 septant
80 huitante
90 nonante

Much, much easier adnt o me more logical  than quatre-vingts etc.

Ditto the Belgians, who also use savoir and pouvoir in slightly different contexts from the French, e.g. both would say "je ne sais pas nager", meaning "I don't know how to swim", but whereas someone French who can't find a seat might say "je ne peux pas m'asseoir", a Belgian similarly discommoded could come out with "je ne sais pas m'asseoir".

I reckon that "quatre-vingt" & its buddies come from counting on fingers & toes. Apparently it comes from the Celts, who applied it for any number greater than 20.

http://www2.ac-lyon.fr/ressources/loire/mathematiques/spip.php?article75
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 November, 2018, 01:12:47 pm
Anyway, what I learnt today is that the word toxic comes from the Greek toxikon pharmakon, meaning poison for arrows. We retain the bit that means arrows to mean poison, whereas the real poison is the pharmakon bit.

Kinda pithy, that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 November, 2018, 01:24:56 pm
What do you doubt, Kim?

I doubt that the German phone system parses numbers as multiple pairs.  It clearly doesn't - it has a variable-length area code and a variable-length subscriber code, much like ours does (though the total length is less consistent).  To correctly punctuate a German number you'd write "(0[area code]) [subscriber number]" or "+49 [area code] [subscriber number]" just like you would in the UK - so the reader knows which part(s) they can omit.  My limited experience suggests that German signwriters are just as ignorant of how phone numbers work as British ones are, often inserting random spaces and dashes in the interests of clarity over semantics.  I'm not familiar enough with German phone numbers to know whether they actively break the semantics like Brits often do with London numbers ("(0207) xxxxxxx").

Reading out pairs of digits as discrete numbers is nothing to do with the phone system, it's just a cultural (in)convenience.

My understanding is that the French telephone system has no concept of area codes and subscriber numbers:  The first two digits are geographical, but you always have to dial the full number (which Googlepedia informs me is always 10 digits).  As there's no meaningful way to punctuate the number, they always write them as 5 two-digit numbers, as they would be spoken.  This seems like a much better approach for the modern world (in as much as humans should have to care about phone numbers at all).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 15 November, 2018, 01:28:23 pm
Stream of digits.  It's the only way to be sure.  (At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate.)
But we're already in that debate. The correct punctuation in German is in pairs. Except for the first three digits, it seems.
I doubt it... *googles*

Yep, variable length area codes, subscriber numbers that can go down to 2 digits, so their dialplan is even more of a mess than ours:

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


Of course in the real world cellular users and most people under the age of about 40 only ever dial the fully-qualified number, and the old people who still dial subscriber numbers manually will recognise their own area code.  So it's only really telecoms engineers who have to care about dialplans who actually *need* to get the punctuation right.
That and pub quizzers.

I was at a school fund raising quiz night some years ago, post April 2000.  The question was "what is the dialing code for inner London".
This caused a <twitch> from me.
The answer was given as 0207, eliciting a further <twitch>.

I went up to discuss it with the question setter, as did another bloke.  The question setter was having none of it, but when the other bloke called him a wanker I made my excuses and left.
I don't think we won either.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 November, 2018, 01:39:59 pm
What do you doubt, Kim?

I doubt that the German phone system parses numbers as multiple pairs. 
German language parses phone numbers as multiple pairs.

Quote
Reading out pairs of digits as discrete numbers is nothing to do with the phone system, it's just a cultural (in)convenience.
This is the point.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 November, 2018, 01:42:04 pm
Yes, and I specifically wanted to avoid talking about semantic punctuation, until you suggested we already were.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 15 November, 2018, 01:45:36 pm
Stream of digits.  It's the only way to be sure.  (At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate.)
But we're already in that debate. The correct punctuation in German is in pairs. Except for the first three digits, it seems.
I doubt it... *googles*

Yep, variable length area codes, subscriber numbers that can go down to 2 digits, so their dialplan is even more of a mess than ours:

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


Of course in the real world cellular users and most people under the age of about 40 only ever dial the fully-qualified number, and the old people who still dial subscriber numbers manually will recognise their own area code.  So it's only really telecoms engineers who have to care about dialplans who actually *need* to get the punctuation right.
That and pub quizzers.

I was at a school fund raising quiz night some years ago, post April 2000.  The question was "what is the dialing code for inner London".
This caused a <twitch> from me.
The answer was given as 0207, eliciting a further <twitch>.

I went up to discuss it with the question setter, as did another bloke.  The question setter was having none of it, but when the other bloke called him a wanker I made my excuses and left.
I don't think we won either.

I think the problem is with the "code" part of the question - if it were "prefix" then there is some justification, 020 being the dialing code but 7xxx xxxx relating to the old geographic inner london.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 November, 2018, 03:22:06 pm
Yes, and I specifically wanted to avoid talking about semantic punctuation, until you suggested we already were.
Well not quite. You said "At least until we get into the correct punctuation of phone numbers debate." To which I responded that we already were, because what were we talking about other than how German phone numbers are spoken in pairs? You've now introduced "semantic punctuation" which is interesting because it suggests you had a completely different sense of punctuation in mind. To me, "semantic" is to do with meanings of words. The only words here are numbers, and they don't have any meaning in this context. But I see Google defines it as "relating to meaning in language or logic." So if you were thinking of the "logic" of a phone system, clearly numbers have meanings and their "punctuation" by the logic of the phone system alters their meaning. But that's got so little to do with phone numbers as we read them that it hadn't occurred to me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 November, 2018, 07:08:34 pm
A telephone number isn't really a number though, it's an address.  This was probably more intuitive in the days of exchange names rather than STD codes, but we all know that they don't really count telephones, any more than house numbers count houses.  Standard ways of formatting addresses are useful.

I'm reminded of barakta's prehistoric Mac, which is so old that you have to enter its IPv4 address as a single decimal (or hexadecimal) number, rather than the dotted-quad representation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-decimal_notation) we've become used to.  Semantically, it's actually the binary representation that's important (for computers to make "this network"/"other network" distinctions, much like a telephone exchange has to), but humans are even worse at long binary numbers than they are at long decimals.

I suppose dotted-quad IPv4 addresses are a bit like the French approach of using 5 two-digit numbers for telephones - a standard format that makes the address clearer to humans for accurate transcription, but is only loosely related to the underlying system.

(CIDR/E164 analogy left as an exercise for the reader)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 15 November, 2018, 07:21:42 pm
A telephone number isn't really a number though, it's an address.  This was probably more intuitive in the days of exchange names rather than STD codes, but we all know that they don't really count telephones, any more than house numbers count houses.  Standard ways of formatting addresses are useful.

I'm reminded of barakta's prehistoric Mac, which is so old that you have to enter its IPv4 address as a single decimal (or hexadecimal) number, rather than the dotted-quad representation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-decimal_notation) we've become used to.  Semantically, it's actually the binary representation that's important (for computers to make "this network"/"other network" distinctions, much like a telephone exchange has to), but humans are even worse at long binary numbers than they are at long decimals.

I suppose dotted-quad IPv4 addresses are a bit like the French approach of using 5 two-digit numbers for telephones - a standard format that makes the address clearer to humans for accurate transcription, but is only loosely related to the underlying system.

(CIDR/E164 analogy left as an exercise for the reader)

I was with you up to the end of your first paragraph.....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 15 November, 2018, 08:26:59 pm
A telephone number isn't really a number though, it's an address.  This was probably more intuitive in the days of exchange names rather than STD codes, but we all know that they don't really count telephones, any more than house numbers count houses.  Standard ways of formatting addresses are useful.

I'm reminded of barakta's prehistoric Mac, which is so old that you have to enter its IPv4 address as a single decimal (or hexadecimal) number, rather than the dotted-quad representation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-decimal_notation) we've become used to.  Semantically, it's actually the binary representation that's important (for computers to make "this network"/"other network" distinctions, much like a telephone exchange has to), but humans are even worse at long binary numbers than they are at long decimals.

I suppose dotted-quad IPv4 addresses are a bit like the French approach of using 5 two-digit numbers for telephones - a standard format that makes the address clearer to humans for accurate transcription, but is only loosely related to the underlying system.

(CIDR/E164 analogy left as an exercise for the reader)

I was with you up to the end of your first paragraph.....
Yebbut, don't know about you, but I could read it all day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 15 November, 2018, 09:20:00 pm
A telephone number isn't really a number though, it's an address.  This was probably more intuitive in the days of exchange names rather than STD codes, but we all know that they don't really count telephones, any more than house numbers count houses.  Standard ways of formatting addresses are useful.

I'm reminded of barakta's prehistoric Mac, which is so old that you have to enter its IPv4 address as a single decimal (or hexadecimal) number, rather than the dotted-quad representation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-decimal_notation) we've become used to.  Semantically, it's actually the binary representation that's important (for computers to make "this network"/"other network" distinctions, much like a telephone exchange has to), but humans are even worse at long binary numbers than they are at long decimals.

I suppose dotted-quad IPv4 addresses are a bit like the French approach of using 5 two-digit numbers for telephones - a standard format that makes the address clearer to humans for accurate transcription, but is only loosely related to the underlying system.

(CIDR/E164 analogy left as an exercise for the reader)

What the everlasting fuck are you on about?  ???  Do you do after-dinner speeches?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 15 November, 2018, 09:29:10 pm
It's like someone downloaded ESL into a computer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 15 November, 2018, 09:48:16 pm
Does anyone want a history lesson about telephone numbers in the UK? If not, I’ll go back to my posting pause.  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: matthew on 15 November, 2018, 09:53:22 pm
Does anyone want a history lesson about telephone numbers in the UK? If not, I’ll go back to my posting pause.  :)

Go on then. I can remember my childhood exchange going from 0344 to 01344 and at another time the phone number went from XXXXX to 6XXXXX but the logic of the development is not one i know.

I am also aware that big cities got shorter exchange codes and longer local numbers while more rural exchanges tend to longer codes and fewer numbers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 November, 2018, 09:55:06 pm
Here, let Tom Scott do it for you:
(Video contains bonus random CDC for extra YACF-compliance)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsxRaFNropw
https://youtu.be/LsxRaFNropw
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: matthew on 15 November, 2018, 10:14:52 pm
I had seen that before but i suspect Beardy has inside knowledge and is no longer bound by professional silence to protect his employer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 15 November, 2018, 10:28:43 pm
Does anyone want a history lesson about telephone numbers in the UK? If not, I’ll go back to my posting pause.  :)
I do !!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 16 November, 2018, 01:02:15 am
Ok then, with the proviso that this is all from memory, and I was trained as a telephone engineer when they were still extending the old clockwork (well, electro-mechanical, bit it still required a LOT of spring adjustments) exchanges, common control exchanges used either wire 'fingers' (Crossbar) or read switches Telephone eXchange Electronic (TXE) and the first all digital exchanges were still being developed.

Ok. Lesson 1
There were two fundamental kinds of local telephone exchange architecture in the Strowger automatic era, director, and non-director. The older of these two was the non-directory and is the basis of the UK numbering scheme. The director exchanges were a slightly later version of Strowger and were installed in the big cities. You’d recognise these as the 0XX XXX XXXX numbers in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh and of course London. It was rumoured that Leeds and Bradford were going to be the next conurbation to receive a director system but the plans were overtaken by technology.

Lesson 2
Non-director numbering (as I was apprenticed to the post office telephone department in Bradford, this is the one I am more familiar with)
Before automatic exchanges (aka 'autos') numbering schemes were governed by the population size, and were 3 or 4 digits long. Exchanges were called by their town names. When auto came along the local numbers remained the same and each Telephone Area introduced local exchange dialling codes dependent upon traffic between specific exchanges with less common routes requiring longer local dealing codes and more common routes requiring shorter codes. Just about the only common feature in all these codes was that the parent Group Switching Centre was based in the local city and would be reached with a singe 9 (because that’s were the emergency operators were based and the first 9 of 999 took you there. It made things a LOT simpler for alsorts of technical and practical reasons. 0 of course, took you to the same switchboards, but didn’t light the read flashing light. Trunk calls needed an operator to assist as they needed to connect you via the truck network.

Lesson 3
STD. No, nothing to do with social diseases, and no, not Straight Throgh Dialing, but Subscriber Trunk Dialing. (No one owned a phone, but the Post Office and you subscribed to use the service. This was still the case when I started, and customers were generally referred to as 'subs').
Now this is where it gets both messy and simpler at the same time. Remember the brief mention of Director exchanges, well because of the densities of the areas they served a structure was very easy to impose. Each unit had a theoretical 9999 4 digit numbers  it I don’t think they were all used) and each unit had a 3 digit identity. Quite early on they realised that by adding letters to the dial, these digits didn’t need to be random and they could be a represented as a three letter 'pointer' at the geographical location of the unit. This idea was carried over to the STD numbering schemes as they were introduced, hence Bradford was 0274 and Brighton was 0273. No where near each other geographically, but alphabetically very close in a list of the GSCs at the time. These were what we referred to as the 0ABC digits. Next came the local area Dialing code from the GSC to the local exchange, which could be 1, 2 or 3 (or even 4) digits and finally the actual subs line number of 3, 4 or 5 digits. Although early on it will only have been the cities where you’d get 5 digits.

Because for the way that the telephone network grew almost organically, and because of the way local dialing codes were allocated according to traffic levels, it tended to be that bigger exchanges with longer subs numbers had shorter local dialing codes so on the whole, STD numbers tended to even themselves out to mostly 10 digits. Not a hard and fast rule, but mostly.

Lesson 4
Of course, in an early implementaof Moore’s law* telephones got cheaper and people became more affluent so more telephones were installed and more telephone numbers were required. In the early days of expansion (where Director exchanges weren’t introduced to meet heavy demand) exchange 'mults' (their number ranges) were increased by the simple expedient of adding an additional digit to the front of a number. You might have experienced this in the bigger towns and cities as the numbers were increased from 4 to 5 or 5 to 6 digits. But then some standardisation came along and it was decided that subs would have a 6 digit exchange number and an STD code of 3 digits (the first 0 isn’t counted) and that local dialing codes would be phased out. The STD codes were already 3 and  sometimes extended to include the local dialing codes. This was trimmed back to three and the subs number extended to include the local dialing code (where possible) Because of a combination of planning and serendipitous traffic requirements as described above, this was as far as the subs were concerned just a moving of a comma, and an education program to get them to dial 6 digits when they were calling Edna next door but one, instead of the 3 or 4 they were used to. Some changes though were more painful as changes had to be made where clashes would occur, especially where 5 digits were already in use. It also meant that some local codes between GSC areas that had been heavy traffic routes had to be withdrawn and the calls would need a full STD code to be dialled.

So that left us with 2 basic numbering standards, Director 0AB CDE XXXX where 0AB was the city CDE the unit, possibly geographically significant and XXXX the subs number AND Non-Director 0ABC DEXXXX where 0ABC were the city number, mostly geographically significant, DEXXXX the subs number, but DE being a specific town exchange. At this same time BT (who had just been created) decided to remove letters from the dial** /keypad because it was getting increasingly difficult to make the relevant numbers geo significant.

*might not be totally true :D
** This proved to be a mistake. A few opportunities were missed as a consequence of this, although the mobile letter to number allocation is different to the old dial layout, so it’s perhaps as well in the long run because it would have been hellishly confusing for everyone. We just need to get computer and telephone number pads the same way up now.

Lesson 5
Oftel/Ofcom and Massive expansion.
Not long after the creation of BT, Oftel was born and they took ownership of the UK telephone numbering schemes. The first big change was already in the pipeline and that was the splitting of London into two codes by making London the same as other Direcor areas and introducing additional digits at the front so 01 became 071 and 081 depending of your location and more importantly to BT allowed a doubling of the London numbers but kept the same logic across the board.  Then a bit later, Oftel decided that competition would benefit if they (Oftel) could give different competitors different number ranges and the bast way to do this was to add another digit in front. Completely contrary to Oftel/Ofcom normal logic, BT was given the digit 1 as a prefix and other operators given other digits. This wasn’t a strategical thought out plan because London by this time was growing even faster than any reasonable expectations and the numbers were going to run out again. But at this time all other areas in the uk in the BT network also received the prefix of 1. (Remember, the leadings 0 isn’t counted )
So when London did threaten to run out of numbers again, a whole new scheme was decided on and 020 became the code, but a prefix was added to the three digit unit code, but by this time I was a long ways away from my humble roots as a telephone engineer and I thing I was worrying about the millennium bug.

So that’s a potted history of how we got to where we are today, but of course with the advent of mobile phones we’ve all got used to numbers not really signifying location, or indeed any specific operator. For the time being however, number portability on the fixed line network is being resisted, though whether that’s the operators or Ofcom, I really couldn’t say. Certainly, it’s been technically possible to point any number at any network point since the completion of the digitalisation of the network as the number is only name and the actual address it is translated to is flexible. Though whether or not it’s worth the complexity of introducing such a scheme given the rat that  PSTN traffic is falling is perhaps debatable. Universal VoIP i recon will be here within the next decade.

I realise that my writing style is a bit of a core dump, so if you’ve got any questions I’ll try and answer them
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 16 November, 2018, 05:38:13 am
German numbers in pairs is just how people say them. It is so hard to write down though, as you cannot write consecutively.

Mind you, Brits do this with ‘double’. My number is 0171 double four double six three double nine double two is much harder to write down than 0171 four four six six three nine nine two two.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 16 November, 2018, 09:23:58 am
I work with a company in Didcot. Yes, Didcot. And all their phone numbers are 020 7.

Which is cheating because Didcot numbers should be 0666 as everyone knows.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: matthew on 16 November, 2018, 11:00:33 am
Thank you Beardy.

My client company has multiple sites in our operating area however all the phone numbers are on the exchange at head office because all the phones are on the company VOIP system. So it doesn't matter if I am on site in Bray, Brighton, Farnborough or Canterbury they will still have an 01634 Maidstone number due to the Snodland head office.

Equally if I sit in the corporate office in London and log into my Jacobs phone system it will still have my Reading phone number.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tom M on 16 November, 2018, 12:16:09 pm
There's an old-school type TV/appliance repair place near me that still has the sign up outside with the phone number dialing code as the 4 digit (without added 1) type. I mean, that was in 1995 (so Google tells me)! How long after that do you have to get around to thinking "Hmm, perhaps we should get the number on the sign changed"?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 November, 2018, 12:36:10 pm
I work with a company in Didcot. Yes, Didcot. And all their phone numbers are 020 7.

Which is cheating because Didcot numbers should be 0666 as everyone knows.

I've re-purposed the one true dialling code for Didcot internally, for the extension that makes Satan, the evil vibrating alarm clock, ring.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 16 November, 2018, 06:04:51 pm
Two further questions;

Some business phone numbers used to have ts suffix (n lines). How did that work?

And what about the MOD's apparently separate and parallel phone system?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 November, 2018, 06:08:44 pm
There's an old-school type TV/appliance repair place near me that still has the sign up outside with the phone number dialing code as the 4 digit (without added 1) type. I mean, that was in 1995 (so Google tells me)! How long after that do you have to get around to thinking "Hmm, perhaps we should get the number on the sign changed"?

A TV repair place that's still in business has probably fallen through a wormhole from 1995.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 16 November, 2018, 06:18:54 pm
Business phone number options_used_ to be individual numbers, 2-10 lines on the same number, and 11 and over lines. The reason for this is that a two-motion Strowger selector had 10 outlets on a level with each level representing one digit. The system used one group-selector for each digit with the selector going up to the appropriate level according to the digit dialled and then ‘hunting’ for,the next free outlet for the next selector on that number. The final selector was different though, in that it was controlled vertically and horizontally be each of the last two digits dialled. However, a 2-10 final selector ‘hunted’ for the next free line (with those lines over the number installed for a specific customer being artificially ‘busied out’ A 11&over selector used an additional vertical bank and did some weired voodoo magic to find the next free line.
As for the MOD, I _could_ explain to you about overlay networks a other stuffs, but the I’d have to kill you utterly to DETH. Sorry*.

*killing you utterly to DETH would be more of an imposition on you than me, but these days I’m not really up to eating the evidence in a single sitting.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: yorkie on 16 November, 2018, 06:21:13 pm
Two further questions;

Some business phone numbers used to have ts suffix (n lines). How did that work?


"n lines" means the number of incoming lines to the premises, ie. the maximum number of simultaneous calls that could be carried out at any one time.
And what about the MOD's apparently separate and parallel phone system?
British Rail also had their own phone network, larger than the MOD's!  ;) :D
I spent the 90's working for British Rail's Signals and Telecommunications department, in Telecomms. Initially, I was in York, working on the Switching Section, on the scheme to replace the Eastern Region's ancient Strowger PABXs** with brand spanking new digital PABXs. Guess who got the job of programming 9 x 3000 line exchanges!  ::-) Some of our switches had 30 or 60 lines in from BT to the switchboard, 30 or 60 lines for Direct Dial In to an internal number and 30 or 60 lines for dialling out.

** PABX = Private Automatic Branch eXchange.

I then got moved to Mordor, where I got to do Call Logging and Tracing (Internally to the BR network) as well as programming and collating Performance Stats. Then back to York and we all got made redundant after privatisation! Ar$e!  >:(


Edit: Slight X-post with Beardy (Who remembers a heck of a lot more about it than I do!)

 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 16 November, 2018, 08:15:06 pm
Sod your phone numbers, my mum is still waiting for a BT cream trimphone. They were apparently made from the lingering supplies of late 80s unobtainium.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 16 November, 2018, 08:24:32 pm
I can’t say I’ve ever seen a cream trimphone.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 16 November, 2018, 08:52:54 pm
Exactly
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 16 November, 2018, 09:26:11 pm
I can’t say I’ve ever seen a cream trimphone.

I discovered, quite by accident, that I could do a very passable impression of a trimfone. Unfortunately I was 12. Pity the receptionists in the hotel we were staying in...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pickled Onion on 17 November, 2018, 08:23:08 am
Point is, the phone number 3463 is said in English as separate digits "three four six three" whereas in German it's said as two pairs "thirty-four sixty-three".

With a notable exception: Four Eighty-Four Fifty-Two Five Five

What I have learned today: I still remember that jingle after 40 years or so.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2018, 11:37:36 am
Point is, the phone number 3463 is said in English as separate digits "three four six three" whereas in German it's said as two pairs "thirty-four sixty-three".

With a notable exception: Four Eighty-Four Fifty-Two Five Five

What I have learned today: I still remember that jingle after 40 years or so.
Is that an English or German number? Presumably English as you remember it, but it would seem to be an exception to both.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2018, 11:41:23 am
Yesterday I learnt the term Aframax. This sounds to me like it should be a style of music, a genre of maxxed out Afrobeat, probably with reggae crossover. Actually it's "Average Freight Rate Assessment Maximum" crude oil carrier. Larger than Panamax* but not as large as Suezmax.** Chartering an Aframax seems to cost around $19,000 a day – I reckon that should get you Fela Kuti and Bob Marley, perhaps Elvis Presley too!

*Ultra-wide screen cinema?
**Large-bore water mains?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 17 November, 2018, 11:46:40 am
I can’t say I’ve ever seen a cream trimphone.

I was very small at the time we got a telephone, but I'm pretty sure my mother was swooning over the pre-BT phone catalogue which had a choice standard rotary phones and the trimphone variant. Or, if you were of significant means (which we were definitely not) the one with buttons. All in cream or grey. I think the reality was you either ordered (a) the grey rotary phone or (b) a long disappointing wait.

Of course, when we got the phone, no one was allowed to use it, on the grounds it was 'too expensive.' I don't think it actually rang for a decade and we had to consult the manual when it finally did happen.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 17 November, 2018, 01:12:21 pm
Point is, the phone number 3463 is said in English as separate digits "three four six three" whereas in German it's said as two pairs "thirty-four sixty-three".

With a notable exception: Four Eighty-Four Fifty-Two Five Five

What I have learned today: I still remember that jingle after 40 years or so.
Is that an English or German number? Presumably English as you remember it, but it would seem to be an exception to both.
It was the number for Capital Radio, voiced on thousands of jingles by Kenny Everett. Presumably they omitted the leading 01 as they were targetting a London audience.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 November, 2018, 01:30:19 pm
Yesterday I learnt the term Aframax. This sounds to me like it should be a style of music, a genre of maxxed out Afrobeat, probably with reggae crossover. Actually it's "Average Freight Rate Assessment Maximum" crude oil carrier. Larger than Panamax* but not as large as Suezmax.** Chartering an Aframax seems to cost around $19,000 a day – I reckon that should get you Fela Kuti and Bob Marley, perhaps Elvis Presley too!

*Ultra-wide screen cinema?
**Large-bore water mains?

I did an audit earlier this year on a Handymax size tanker, the British Cumulus.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2018, 02:59:15 pm
Yesterday I learnt the term Aframax. This sounds to me like it should be a style of music, a genre of maxxed out Afrobeat, probably with reggae crossover. Actually it's "Average Freight Rate Assessment Maximum" crude oil carrier. Larger than Panamax* but not as large as Suezmax.** Chartering an Aframax seems to cost around $19,000 a day – I reckon that should get you Fela Kuti and Bob Marley, perhaps Elvis Presley too!

*Ultra-wide screen cinema?
**Large-bore water mains?

I did an audit earlier this year on a Handymax size tanker, the British Cumulus.
Which by rights should have been carrying German smartphones! Malaccamax is my favourite though, there's a nice resonance to it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 19 November, 2018, 07:10:18 am
Wombats have square poo

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/18/scientists-unravel-secret-of-cube-shaped-wombat-faeces (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/18/scientists-unravel-secret-of-cube-shaped-wombat-faeces)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 19 November, 2018, 08:30:06 am
Wombats have square poo

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/18/scientists-unravel-secret-of-cube-shaped-wombat-faeces (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/18/scientists-unravel-secret-of-cube-shaped-wombat-faeces)

Crumbs. :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 19 November, 2018, 08:45:45 am
Wombats have square poo

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/18/scientists-unravel-secret-of-cube-shaped-wombat-faeces (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/18/scientists-unravel-secret-of-cube-shaped-wombat-faeces)
Which reminds me:
Person walks past a pet shop and spies an advert in the window. "Parrot for sale, £2000"
Hmm she thinks, that's a lot for a parrot. Intrigued she ventures into the shop
"£2000 for a parrot" she says to the shop keeper "it must be very special"
"Why yes, yes it is" says the shopkeeper "for it lays cube shaped eggs"
"Ooh, that is special. Can it talk as well?" she asks.
"Yes, but it can only say one word"
"Pray tell, what is the one word it speaks?"
"Kerrrrrist"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 November, 2018, 09:14:22 am
Wombats have square poo

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/18/scientists-unravel-secret-of-cube-shaped-wombat-faeces (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/18/scientists-unravel-secret-of-cube-shaped-wombat-faeces)

Trump has recruited a dozen and is taking lessons:

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=10502.msg2341080#msg2341080
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 19 November, 2018, 11:05:26 am
Wombats have square poo

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/18/scientists-unravel-secret-of-cube-shaped-wombat-faeces (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/18/scientists-unravel-secret-of-cube-shaped-wombat-faeces)

So they're always shitting bricks?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 19 November, 2018, 11:14:44 am
Wombats have square poo

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/18/scientists-unravel-secret-of-cube-shaped-wombat-faeces (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/18/scientists-unravel-secret-of-cube-shaped-wombat-faeces)
Which reminds me:
Person walks past a pet shop and spies an advert in the window. "Parrot for sale, £2000"
Hmm she thinks, that's a lot for a parrot. Intrigued she ventures into the shop
"£2000 for a parrot" she says to the shop keeper "it must be very special"
"Why yes, yes it is" says the shopkeeper "for it lays cube shaped eggs"
"Ooh, that is special. Can it talk as well?" she asks.
"Yes, but it can only say one word"
"Pray tell, what is the one word it speaks?"
"Kerrrrrist"

Very similar joke in an episode of the Good Life, along the lines of the rare Oooh-Aaah bird, that lays square eggs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 November, 2018, 01:29:55 pm
That in 2012 the European Parliament wanted to celebrate the 40th anniversary of InterRail by providing a free InterRail pass to every 18-year-old in the EU "to promote European unity." The idea was rejected by the Commission (too expensive).

(Camel case? Seems to be the current spelling, originally it was either hyphenated or two separate words.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 28 November, 2018, 02:19:21 pm
That there was a Don't Copy That Floppy 2.  With Klingons!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUCyvw4w_yk
https://youtu.be/hUCyvw4w_yk
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 November, 2018, 02:54:44 pm
When I was at Univac in 1975 a colleague was done for pirating music cassettes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 28 November, 2018, 07:12:20 pm
A cow-orker is seven months pregnant.  She found this out LAST WEEK.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 28 November, 2018, 07:14:17 pm
That there was a Don't Copy That Floppy 2.  With Klingons!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUCyvw4w_yk
https://youtu.be/hUCyvw4w_yk
ISTR that copying software wasn't illegal until the late 1980s as the existing law didn't anticipate such things, a bit like lesbianism never being illegal because Queen Victoria didn't believe women would really do that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 28 November, 2018, 07:29:42 pm
A cow-orker is seven months pregnant.  She found this out LAST WEEK.

Cripes. Head in the sand or truly a huge shock?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 28 November, 2018, 07:33:58 pm
Huge shock.  She's not even fat so has probably been dieting to offset the weight gain  :facepalm:

The doctors must be going nuts - past 28 weeks, she's in her 40s, and no scans or anything!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 November, 2018, 07:41:05 pm
When I was at Univac in 1975 a colleague was done for pirating music cassettes.
So who else spent a second wondering whether Univac referred to a specific university or was an abbreviation for university vacations?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 28 November, 2018, 07:44:51 pm
When I was at Univac in 1975 a colleague was done for pirating music cassettes.
So who else spent a second wondering whether Univac referred to a specific university or was an abbreviation for university vacations?
I'll have you know our savings accounts still sit on a Unisys 2200 platform, which isn't a million miles removed from a Univac.  Apparently Lloyds run their current accounts from one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 November, 2018, 07:46:16 pm
When I was at Univac in 1975 a colleague was done for pirating music cassettes.
So who else spent a second wondering whether Univac referred to a specific university or was an abbreviation for university vacations?
I'll have you know our savings accounts still sit on a Unisys 2200 platform, which isn't a million miles removed from a Univac.  Apparently Lloyds run their current accounts from one.
I'm also thinking "Do the shake and vac and put the freshness back".  :hand:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 28 November, 2018, 07:47:30 pm
That leaving the EU will damage the UK economy. Well I never .........
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 28 November, 2018, 07:55:18 pm
When I was at Univac in 1975 a colleague was done for pirating music cassettes.
So who else spent a second wondering whether Univac referred to a specific university or was an abbreviation for university vacations?
I'll have you know our savings accounts still sit on a Unisys 2200 platform, which isn't a million miles removed from a Univac.  Apparently Lloyds run their current accounts from one.

That's a "no" actually. Mind you, guessing where you work from your approximate location, I'd have sixpence that says that part of your employer's physical document archive retrieval system still depends on a PC running NT and token ring.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 28 November, 2018, 09:38:31 pm
That leaving the EU will damage the UK economy. Well I never .........

No shit!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 28 November, 2018, 09:45:14 pm
A cow-orker is seven months pregnant.  She found this out LAST WEEK.

I feel for her. Finding out at 4 months was bad enough, and with a premature baby, felt like a horrendous shock. If her baby was as prem as mine, she could have a couple of weeks of pregnancy to get used to the idea. 18 weeks weren't enough. I spent 6 months feeling mentally as though I had been run over. Best wishes and sympathy to her.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 28 November, 2018, 09:51:53 pm
That leaving the EU will damage the UK economy. Well I never .........

What do experts know. 

And lets not forget the 350 million we will be getting.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 28 November, 2018, 09:55:06 pm
When I was at Univac in 1975 a colleague was done for pirating music cassettes.

Home taping is killing music.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 28 November, 2018, 10:11:49 pm
That leaving the EU will damage the UK economy. Well I never .........

What do experts know. 

And lets not forget the 350 million we will be getting.
Apparently it’s Project Fear and the figures are unreliable. No matter that these are the government’s own figures, you know the governement whose policy is Brexit.
Satirists are going to have to work very hard when all this is over, if they are ever going to revive satire.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 28 November, 2018, 10:21:41 pm
Sadly, satire died on the table some time back. They tried hard to revive it, but in the end, the doctors had to declare.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 28 November, 2018, 11:23:39 pm
That leaving the EU will damage the UK economy. Well I never .........

What do experts know. 

And lets not forget the 350 million we will be getting.
Apparently it’s Project Fear and the figures are unreliable. No matter that these are the government’s own figures, you know the governement whose policy is Brexit.
Satirists are going to have to work very hard when all this is over, if they are ever going to revive satire.

Well it is what was voted for.

But then I am just trolling ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 28 November, 2018, 11:25:26 pm
Sadly, satire died on the table some time back. They tried hard to revive it, but in the end, the doctors had to declare.

At a guess you heard the same item on radio 4, when a cartoon satirist was being interviewed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 29 November, 2018, 10:48:53 am
Sadly, I've never listened to Radio 4 in my life, but it seems we're on the same wavelength.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 November, 2018, 03:10:03 pm
That leaving the EU will damage the UK economy. Well I never .........

What do experts know. 

And lets not forget the 350 million we will be getting.
Apparently it’s Project Fear and the figures are unreliable. No matter that these are the government’s own figures, you know the governement whose policy is Brexit.
Satirists are going to have to work very hard when all this is over, if they are ever going to revive satire.

And the day after I lead the Panzers down Whitehall, Gammons who think they're being frightfully witty in replying "Fake news!!1!" to articles they've either not read or not understood will be in the reëducation camps reading the Daily Mail all day every day until their heads melt.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 29 November, 2018, 03:39:39 pm

And the day after I lead the Panzers down Whitehall, Gammons who think they're being frightfully witty in replying "Fake news!!1!" to articles they've either not read or not understood will be in the reëducation camps reading the Daily Mail all day every day until their heads melt.

What, instead of sitting at home reading the Volkischer Beobachter Daily Mail all day every day? It won't affect their heads - reading that rag every day has already melted their branes. That's *why* they're gammons.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 29 November, 2018, 05:12:46 pm
Sadly, I've never listened to Radio 4 in my life, but it seems we're on the same wavelength.

Might have been something on TV...I can't remember accurately.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: matthew on 29 November, 2018, 06:04:01 pm
No it was Radio 4 this morning who had based the Today program in Belfast and had a Northern Irish Comic on. The Skit was around how NI couldn't have different regulations than GB with regards to the EU whilst not having same sex marriage, Abortion rights ... ... ... multiple other examples of different regulations. But the DUP are adamant that NI must not have different regulations for trading with Europe.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 29 November, 2018, 08:06:14 pm
Yesterday rather than today, but still...

Cellulose thinners and Jakar cutting mats do not play nicely together. Oh well never mind; cutting mats aren't terribly expensive.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 29 November, 2018, 08:09:09 pm
Yesterday rather than today, but still...

Cellulose thinners and Jakar cutting mats do not play nicely together. Oh well never mind; cutting mats aren't terribly expensive.
Thank you for that - I have a new cutting mat, yet to be used.  It would have been a shame to destroy it early in life.  I increasingly use acetone as a solvent - how do mats get on with that?  And SWMBO now raids my 1 litre bottle - something to do with her war paint I'm advised.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 29 November, 2018, 08:14:47 pm
Taht the passport 'service' (HA!) is staffed by utter spanners.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 29 November, 2018, 08:38:15 pm
Taht the passport 'service' (HA!) is staffed by utter spanners.

Sounds like a story behind that...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 29 November, 2018, 08:46:06 pm
You could well be right!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 29 November, 2018, 08:48:37 pm
That leaving the EU will damage the UK economy. Well I never .........

What do experts know. 

And lets not forget the 350 million we will be getting.
Apparently it’s Project Fear and the figures are unreliable. No matter that these are the government’s own figures, you know the governement whose policy is Brexit.
Satirists are going to have to work very hard when all this is over, if they are ever going to revive satire.

And the day after I lead the Panzers down Whitehall, Gammons who think they're being frightfully witty in replying "Fake news!!1!" to articles they've either not read or not understood will be in the reëducation camps reading the Daily Mail all day every day until their heads melt.

so for or against?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 29 November, 2018, 08:58:59 pm
Onza Chill Pills (https://www.bricklanebikes.co.uk/onza-chill-pill-break-cable-hangers-blue) appear to be worth money. I have two unused pairs, BNIB.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 30 November, 2018, 09:33:13 am
When writing the word "ditto" in lower-case, cursive, script, it is wise to close the loop on the "d"!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 30 November, 2018, 10:11:38 am
When writing the word "ditto" in lower-case, cursive, script, it is wise to close the loop on the "d"!

Also, it is not advisable to scribble "Clint Eastwood" in a hurry.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 30 November, 2018, 07:15:20 pm
That Lerwick is on approximately the same latitude as Helsinki.  As is Teslin YT, which is where I was when I learned this.

Whereas I was in Lerwick...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 30 November, 2018, 07:39:39 pm
One of the coldest weeks I've spent was on a platform midway between Shetland and Bergen, Norway, in December with the wind from the North [where's that "brrrr" smiley?]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 30 November, 2018, 09:23:50 pm
I'm surprised it wasn't in the fens, with that 'lazy' wind that's travelled uninterrupted, straight from Siberia...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 November, 2018, 10:02:37 pm
I think I'd probably have guessed Lerwick to be north of Helsinki. But I'd have been wrong, clearly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 30 November, 2018, 10:03:05 pm
I'm surprised it wasn't in the fens, with that 'lazy' wind that's travelled uninterrupted, straight from Siberia...

Picture the north sea, same wind, just closer to siberia
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 30 November, 2018, 10:16:06 pm
Suppose so. I felt colder in Cambridge than in Lerwick.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 01 December, 2018, 07:41:40 pm
I found out today that one of my great-great-great grandfathers (or someone with the same name, same residence and same profession as one of my GGG GFs) received a "sabre cut on the right shoulder" at Peterloo.


Today I learned that there were 2 weavers called James Entwistle living in Manchester at the time of Peterloo and that the one who suffered the sabre cut was the one who wasn't my great-great-great grandfather.

Probably.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 01 December, 2018, 08:08:46 pm
That two great-uncles were in the first boat to go ashore at Gallipoli.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 02 December, 2018, 08:40:44 am
That two great-uncles were in the first boat to go ashore at Gallipoli.

Having spent 3 years working in Canakkale, just across the Dardanelles, I regularly used to bike around the war graves, of both sides in the conflict, and the peninsula on a Sunday.  It's still a sombre place, even in summer, and particularly so in winter.  Utter and total madness, a throwback to the stupidity of some of our forebears.  The recent Armistice commemorations were very moving in our small village, but having been around the Gallipoli peninsula, I still have a tear in my eye.  Desperately sad. Did they survive?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 02 December, 2018, 09:38:17 am
That two great-uncles were in the first boat to go ashore at Gallipoli.

Having spent 3 years working in Canakkale, just across the Dardanelles, I regularly used to bike around the war graves, of both sides in the conflict, and the peninsula on a Sunday.  It's still a sombre place, even in summer, and particularly so in winter.  Utter and total madness, a throwback to the stupidity of some of our forebears.  The recent Armistice commemorations were very moving in our small village, but having been around the Gallipoli peninsula, I still have a tear in my eye.  Desperately sad. Did they survive?
My brother (who's the one who's done all the digging) and I had half a plan to go out for the 100th anniversary, but, events. (Instead I cycled up for the dawn commemoration at Wellington Arch on ANZAC day.) He got hold of a copy of the AIF 9th Battalion's First War history, written in the Thirties, and I'm ploughing my way through that now, and it's in this that the names of those in the first boat are listed.

Both survived the entire Gallipoli campaign and were then transferred to the Western Front. The younger of the two was killed at the Battle of the Somme and the elder at Passchendale (the Battle of the Menin Road). The elder had been injured, returned to the UK, recovered, and then sent back out. I have his metal trunk in my garage.

We visited the area last year and were at Robert's grave on the 100th anniversary of his death.

You have to see the (numerous) graveyards to get a hint of the scale of the loss.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 02 December, 2018, 10:12:01 am
That two great-uncles were in the first boat to go ashore at Gallipoli.

Having spent 3 years working in Canakkale, just across the Dardanelles, I regularly used to bike around the war graves, of both sides in the conflict, and the peninsula on a Sunday.  It's still a sombre place, even in summer, and particularly so in winter.  Utter and total madness, a throwback to the stupidity of some of our forebears.  The recent Armistice commemorations were very moving in our small village, but having been around the Gallipoli peninsula, I still have a tear in my eye.  Desperately sad. Did they survive?
My brother and I (who's the one who's done all the digging) had half a plan to go out for the 100th anniversary, but, events. (Instead I cycled for up the dawn commemoration at Wellington Arch on ANZAC day.) He got hold of a copy of the AIF 9th Battalion's First War history, written in the Thirties, and I'm ploughing my way through that now, and it's in this that the names of those in the first boat are listed.

Both survived the entire Gallipoli campaign and were then transferred to the Western Front. The younger of the two was killed at the Battle of the Somme and the elder at Passchendale (the Battle of the Menin Road). The elder had been injured, returned to the UK, recovered, and then sent back out. I have his metal trunk in my garage.

We visited the area last year and were at Robert's grave on the 100th anniversary of his death.

You have to see the (numerous) graveyards to get a hint of the scale of the loss.

If you haven't been to the Gallipoli peninsula, you might like to.  It's easy to get from the airport to Canakkale (Pron: Chanackaley) by bus (almost every hour, takes about 6 hours) and since it's a holiday area for the Turks, there are loads of hotels outside the main season.  Eceabat (pron: Edgeeabat) is about 20 mins across the straights on the ferry, and there are smaller hotels there - and they run battlefield tours.  Car hire is easy too - you need at least a day to explore the battlefields.  I'd go in May. April and Anzac day and August it is rammed.  The Turks are very friendly, many speak some English, and I have nothing but affection for them.  They are very well aware of their history, but also very respectful of ours.  The terrain itself is fairly inaccessible - as the Allies found out; scrubby, hilly, dusty and dry in summer, but the main sites are accessible by road or track, as are all the graveyards.  It's all very sombre, somehow, even on the hottest summer days.  Even now, 10 years later, I still shudder when thinking about my many visits there.

There are some good books on the campaign which help to understand what happened, where and when.

Troy, Asos and other major historic sites are all within an hour's drive of Canakkale on that coast.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 December, 2018, 02:18:49 pm
Harley Benton machine heads aren't worth shit.  I had one give up the ghost during my last build, and another went this morning while I was fiddling with the guitar set-up prior to sending it off. Too late now to get a different brand.

You get what you pay for.  I bought cheap when I was experimenting and had no trouble, though, so I saw no reason to change. Bugger. :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 December, 2018, 03:29:15 pm
Oh aye, the other interesting thing I learnt recently is that kakis are of the ebenaceae family, which includes the species used for ebony. The astringency in unripe kakis comes from tanin, whereof ebony contains a great deal. You can ebonize woods that are less rich in tanin by painting them with iron acetate. You can even do it by steeping pale softwoods in tea first, though the effect is pretty poor.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 December, 2018, 04:31:53 pm
Yesterday I happened by chance to see a rowing race and noticed that rowers' shoes are attached to the boat on a permanent basis and furthermore they do up in a manner sufficiently odd to make SPDs seem normal.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 December, 2018, 04:33:04 pm
Yesterday I happened by chance to see a rowing race and noticed that rowers' shoes are attached to the boat on a permanent basis and furthermore they do up in a manner sufficiently odd to make SPDs seem normal.

IIRC rower40 OTP has SPD pedals on his boat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 December, 2018, 04:49:06 pm
These didn't come out. The rowers removed their landside footwear and wriggled their feet into black things looking a bit like Crocs with a sort of buckle to adjust for size. They were all fixed in the boat permanently, part of the boat not footwear per se.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 02 December, 2018, 05:26:40 pm
These didn't come out. The rowers removed their landside footwear and wriggled their feet into black things looking a bit like Crocs with a sort of buckle to adjust for size. They were all fixed in the boat permanently, part of the boat not footwear per se.

As an ex-rower (and rugby player - which explains why I'm a rubbish cyclist - I haven't been Chris Froome's weight since I was about 16), the shoes are attached to a cross beam (the stretcher) which adjusts fore and aft.  You adjust the position to get the position of the maximum effort of the stroke where you want it - to be consistent with the rest of the crew.  The fore and aft position also affects the point at which the blade enters and leaves the water, and the whole crew need to be doing this at the same time.

When you get into a boat, you put your own shoes under the sliding seat - or they get handed in to go shorewards until you get back to the landing stage.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 December, 2018, 07:42:42 pm
From Wikipedia:

Quote
In 2006, Muslim groups complained about the release of a blow up doll named Mustafa Shag, claiming that the doll was offensive to Muslims
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 02 December, 2018, 08:13:25 pm
Humbrol enamel thinners will remove dried on splashes of EzeDope from spectacle lenses, don't ask, without removing the lens coating.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 03 December, 2018, 07:52:04 am
Humbrol enamel thinners will remove dried on splashes of EzeDope from spectacle lenses, don't ask, without removing the lens coating.

That was either a leap of faith, or an act of desperation.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hulver on 03 December, 2018, 02:02:57 pm
That there's a new version of "Jeff Wayne's musical War of the Worlds" with Liam Neeson doing the narration.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 03 December, 2018, 02:50:56 pm
I have the remastered original on CD.  My dad still has the vinyls with the big booklet - wonder if that's worth anything now?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hulver on 03 December, 2018, 03:37:32 pm
I have the remastered original on CD.  My dad still has the vinyls with the big booklet - wonder if that's worth anything now?

Same. I used to love looking at all the artwork when I was a kid.

I don't think it'll be worth much, I think most people owned a copy in the 70s.  ;D

I had a quick check on ebay (there are a lot for sale on there) and it looks like the ones that actually sold go for about £10-20.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 03 December, 2018, 08:50:06 pm
Humbrol enamel thinners will remove dried on splashes of EzeDope from spectacle lenses, don't ask, without removing the lens coating.

That was either a leap of faith, or an act of desperation.
Yes. :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 04 December, 2018, 10:12:36 pm
That the first escalator in a London tube station was a helical one in Holloway road station that was never used by the public, probably due to safety concerns, and was lost for many years. It was designed by Jesse Reno, the creator of normal escalators and predated a standard escalator in a tube station by 5 years or so - 1906 and 1911 respectively. The remains that were discovered in 1988 (1993 according to a different article) are now at the London Transport Museum Acton Depot, which has 3 open weekends a year.

As far as I can tell, it is the only spiral/helical escalator ever to have been built in the UK. There are recent ones elsewhere, notably Las Vegas.

And the first escalator in the UK was opened 16th November 1898 in Harrods, where staff would wait at the top to revive nervous customers with smelling salts and cognac.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 05 December, 2018, 07:59:24 am
That the first escalator in a London tube station was a helical one in Holloway road station that was never used by the public, probably due to safety concerns, and was lost for many years. It was designed by Jesse Reno, the creator of normal escalators and predated a standard escalator in a tube station by 5 years or so - 1906 and 1911 respectively. The remains that were discovered in 1988 (1993 according to a different article) are now at the London Transport Museum Acton Depot, which has 3 open weekends a year.

As far as I can tell, it is the only spiral/helical escalator ever to have been built in the UK. There are recent ones elsewhere, notably Las Vegas.

And the first escalator in the UK was opened 16th November 1898 in Harrods, where staff would wait at the top to revive nervous customers with smelling salts and cognac.

... and at the Nordstrom department store in San Francisico there is a series of curved escalators that follow the gentle arc shape of the massive atrium - a weird sensation first time you use it.

Rob
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 05 December, 2018, 10:52:19 am
That someone involved in the building of our Doctors surgery website uses the term "crow mile" as a measure of distance, as in "those who are more than a crow mile from the local pharmacy in a rural area are known as "dispensing patients"..."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 05 December, 2018, 05:41:44 pm
That the Welsh for "Piece to camera" seems to be "Piece to camera".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 05 December, 2018, 10:07:42 pm
I am size S (small, in fact the smallest available) in the Joe Browns shirt range.  This is rather odd as I am 5'10", nearer 13st than 12st, and have to buy 42" jackets to fit my General Marvin Bombthebastards shoulders.  I think they cater for the outsize male.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 December, 2018, 10:40:56 pm
As a prelude to buying a pair of shoes (a hateful task), I checked my existing collection for a size reminder. I run from 7 to 10. Helpful it is not. It's a conspiracy to save the high street I tell you.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 06 December, 2018, 03:55:15 pm
Have been perusing some Londoncentric motorcycle vlogs - Royal Jordanian & Baron von Grumble if it matters - and it would seem that any black Ford Galaxy within the M25 belongs to Addison Lee . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 06 December, 2018, 04:09:37 pm
As a prelude to buying a pair of shoes (a hateful task), I checked my existing collection for a size reminder. I run from 7 to 10. Helpful it is not. It's a conspiracy to save the high street I tell you.

Shame we aren't all on Paris Points (Size = [last length in cm] x 1.5)

Suspect your feet are about 28.5cm long, which is about a 9/(43) and American sizes are n+1 (unless they are for women, when they are n+1.5)

I wish there were real sizes that related to real measurements!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hulver on 07 December, 2018, 10:28:22 am
Have been perusing some Londoncentric motorcycle vlogs - Royal Jordanian & Baron von Grumble if it matters - and it would seem that any black Ford Galaxy within the M25 belongs to Addison Lee . . .

Watching any of those makes me goggle that anybody would drive into London.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Si S on 07 December, 2018, 12:35:59 pm
Humbrol enamel thinners will remove dried on splashes of EzeDope from spectacle lenses, don't ask, without removing the lens coating.

Whereas if you touch the centre of your lens with liquid poly on your finger nothing will fix it, and yes I do have a blur in the middle of my vision  ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 08 December, 2018, 08:39:15 am
As a prelude to buying a pair of shoes (a hateful task), I checked my existing collection for a size reminder. I run from 7 to 10. Helpful it is not. It's a conspiracy to save the high street I tell you.

Shame we aren't all on Paris Points (Size = [last length in cm] x 1.5)

Suspect your feet are about 28.5cm long, which is about a 9/(43) and American sizes are n+1 (unless they are for women, when they are n+1.5)

I wish there were real sizes that related to real measurements!
Having just fitted a new stair carpet, I measured the effective depth of tread (front of carpet on the riser to the 'hard' nose of the tread). This was 25cm - my size 13 walking shoes are 34cm! No wonder I wear out the carpet on the nose of the tread.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 December, 2018, 04:41:25 pm
That my cheap eBay mountain bike light will happily run from a 5V supply.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 December, 2018, 02:48:37 pm
After using a hot-glue gun, it's not a good idea to leave it lying on its side.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 09 December, 2018, 09:45:03 pm
A new word:

fissiparous adj. - Inclined to cause or undergo division into separate parts or groups.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 December, 2018, 02:29:14 pm
That the Brazilian Air Force flew combat operations in Italy in WW2.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 10 December, 2018, 02:33:38 pm
I bet they tore those eye-ties off a strip.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 10 December, 2018, 07:03:33 pm
I bet they tore those eye-ties off a strip.
Please stick to the bare facts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 10 December, 2018, 08:40:02 pm
I'll bet landing was tricky, with a short runway
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 10 December, 2018, 10:15:10 pm
That there's a GP in the neighbouring town called Gerraint Thomas.

I do hope he cycles to work.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 10 December, 2018, 10:25:55 pm
You used to be able to get a pump action hacksaw. It looked like the steel outline of a pistol with a hacksaw blade mounted in the barrel. I want one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 10 December, 2018, 11:01:53 pm
As a prelude to buying a pair of shoes (a hateful task), I checked my existing collection for a size reminder. I run from 7 to 10. Helpful it is not. It's a conspiracy to save the high street I tell you.

Shame we aren't all on Paris Points (Size = [last length in cm] x 1.5)

Suspect your feet are about 28.5cm long, which is about a 9/(43) and American sizes are n+1 (unless they are for women, when they are n+1.5)

I wish there were real sizes that related to real measurements!

They do. Just counting down instead of up and the manufacturers sometimes aren't as accurate as they should be. Also, the width of your feet makes a difference what size you can manage with.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 10 December, 2018, 11:23:25 pm
You used to be able to get a pump action hacksaw. It looked like the steel outline of a pistol with a hacksaw blade mounted in the barrel. I want one.
Wow!  Me too.
Well, actually a gardening version for winter pruning would be nice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 11 December, 2018, 08:34:32 am
That the Brazilian Air Force flew combat operations in Italy in WW2.
Didn't they make a Hollywood film about that?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 December, 2018, 08:49:29 am
As a prelude to buying a pair of shoes (a hateful task), I checked my existing collection for a size reminder. I run from 7 to 10. Helpful it is not. It's a conspiracy to save the high street I tell you.

Shame we aren't all on Paris Points (Size = [last length in cm] x 1.5)

Suspect your feet are about 28.5cm long, which is about a 9/(43) and American sizes are n+1 (unless they are for women, when they are n+1.5)

I wish there were real sizes that related to real measurements!

They do. Just counting down instead of up and the manufacturers sometimes aren't as accurate as they should be. Also, the width of your feet makes a difference what size you can manage with.
Also some measure the whole last and some measure the inside of the shoe.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 11 December, 2018, 08:58:06 am
You used to be able to get a pump action hacksaw. It looked like the steel outline of a pistol with a hacksaw blade mounted in the barrel. I want one.

I may still have one of those in the bottom of my toolbox. Useful for cutting sheet material.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 11 December, 2018, 09:15:25 am
That there's a GP in the neighbouring town called Gerraint Thomas.

I do hope he cycles to work.

The locum GP I saw at my local practice when I wanted a doctor's note for a big foreign bike ride was called Chris Boardman.

I don't know whether he cycled to work, but he did tell me he had a bike with his name on it.

And he didn't charge me the £40 he should have done for the note.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 11 December, 2018, 09:27:24 am
You used to be able to get a pump action hacksaw. It looked like the steel outline of a pistol with a hacksaw blade mounted in the barrel. I want one.

I may still have one of those in the bottom of my toolbox. Useful for cutting sheet material.

I seem to remember my dad having something like this, but I remember it as a pistol grip to use like a keyhole saw
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 11 December, 2018, 09:47:13 am
This is the beastie:

(https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/360/0213/13/leytool-vintage-pump-action-hacksaw_360_a373d28763cf78d7107e97cf98f8e212.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 11 December, 2018, 09:58:48 am
That's the one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 December, 2018, 10:28:46 am
Rather limited depth of cut, though. OK for bolts & such, I suppose.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 11 December, 2018, 10:37:24 am
Rather limited depth of cut, though. OK for bolts & such, I suppose.

Nope. The blade is fixed, but the tubular section above is telescopic and sprung loaded, so travels back into the barrel exposing a length of blade. This allows cutting through sheet without being limited by the "hoop" of a conventional hacksaw - the nose of the telescopic part rests on the upper surface of the material being cut.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 11 December, 2018, 11:13:33 am
There’s a modern version now available

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/kptax0t1ww30m09/File%2011-12-2018%2C%2011%2009%2057.jpeg?raw=1)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 11 December, 2018, 11:52:13 am
what's the difference between that and a padsaw? is it just having a guard which it can pull against? (which you could obv fettle without any aggro)

eg
https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/12-Mini-Hacksaw-With-Bi-metal-Blade-24tpi-Metal-Wood-Light-Saw-Amtech-M0945/2254352420?iid=113155839301
or
https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/Handy-Handheld-Saw-adjustable-Length-Hacksaw-Blade-Fitted-Into-a-Plastic-Handle/8012044886?iid=252712884071 ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 11 December, 2018, 11:58:58 am
what's the difference between that and a padsaw? is it just having a guard which it can pull against? (which you could obv fettle without any aggro)

It looks much cooler of course!

I think the actual advantage is that the blade is supported all the time its cutting so less wobbly for neater cuts. Could be wrong though as I haven't used one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 11 December, 2018, 12:04:27 pm
You can use a padsaw for cutting through a door frame, and then use the blade to pop the latch of a Yale lock from the outside. DAMHIKT.
I don't think you could do that with your pump-action thingy.
Not unless it was a 12 bore.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 December, 2018, 01:07:28 pm
Rather limited depth of cut, though. OK for bolts & such, I suppose.

Nope. The blade is fixed, but the tubular section above is telescopic and sprung loaded, so travels back into the barrel exposing a length of blade. This allows cutting through sheet without being limited by the "hoop" of a conventional hacksaw - the nose of the telescopic part rests on the upper surface of the material being cut.

Gotcha. In my hands that'd probably result in a zigzagged blade.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 11 December, 2018, 02:34:54 pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyhole_saw (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyhole_saw)

This was more like what my dad used to have
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 13 December, 2018, 04:57:09 pm
That the British bought the wreck of the scuttled German pocket battleship Graf Spee in February 1940 for £14,000 so that they could unbolt bits of her electronic systems and ship them back to the UK for technical analysis.

In true British bureaucratic fashion, the Admiralty was involved in a two-year fight with the Treasury to justify the expenditure.

http://intelmsl.com/insights/4308/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 December, 2018, 10:12:50 am
Butane heaters don't work too well if the gas bottle is at 5°C or less. Vaporisation pressure and all that. :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: sg37409 on 17 December, 2018, 05:28:34 pm
Gary Numan is older than Gary Oldman
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 17 December, 2018, 05:40:56 pm
That’s really tickled me.
 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 17 December, 2018, 07:09:04 pm
I really should have greased the bottom bracket better when I fitted it 6 years ago. It’s looking expensive....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 17 December, 2018, 07:22:10 pm
Chimney sweeps used to get a unique form of scrotal cancer  :hand:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 17 December, 2018, 07:40:15 pm
I am descended from the Hendersons, late of Pablo Fanque’s fair.

Although it’s possible this is a family myth.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 17 December, 2018, 08:10:27 pm
Chimney sweeps used to get a unique form of scrotal cancer  :hand:
Not my chimney sweep.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 December, 2018, 09:14:26 pm
Chimney sweeps used to get a unique form of scrotal cancer  :hand:
Not my chimney sweep.

Nor my cousin, or should I say cousine?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 17 December, 2018, 09:16:35 pm
Chimney sweeps used to get a unique form of scrotal cancer  :hand:
Not my chimney sweep.

Nor my cousin, or should I say cousine?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimney_sweeps%27_carcinoma

Less common now they don't do the job half naked, shower at the end of the day, and few people have coal fires.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 20 December, 2018, 07:56:05 am
That in Chicago, every car regularly used in the city has to have a "city sticker". A "wheel tax" as it's described.  Around £75 a year for a small car at present. Without one, if you get caught parking illegally, or speeding, they slap another $25 fine on, just because. Cool.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 December, 2018, 04:18:52 pm
That the Curtis Mayfield album Roots has nothing to do with the TV series of the same name. Not that there was really any reason why it should, I just wondered.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 23 December, 2018, 10:11:39 pm
Paddy Ashdown's first name was not actually Patrick shortened to Paddy.  He and I shared a birthday.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 23 December, 2018, 10:22:19 pm
I was surprised at that as well
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 24 December, 2018, 08:22:42 am
Patricia?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 24 December, 2018, 04:38:33 pm
Jeremy John Durham... Paddy was a nickname from school because of his Norn Irish 'brogue' which he then lost at the school, but he preferred Paddy to Jeremy so it stuck. I don't think his given name was a secret, but no one ever referred to him as anything but Paddy Ashdown.

I am however struck at how easy people find it to call someone a name-of-choice like Paddy, or Tanni for Tanni Grey-Thompson yet seem to find it impossible to correctly name a trans person who has changed their name or revealed their deadname...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 December, 2018, 01:04:19 pm
Jeremy John Durham... Paddy was a nickname from school because of his Norn Irish 'brogue' which he then lost at the school, but he preferred Paddy to Jeremy so it stuck. I don't think his given name was a secret, but no one ever referred to him as anything but Paddy Ashdown.

I am however struck at how easy people find it to call someone a name-of-choice like Paddy, or Tanni for Tanni Grey-Thompson yet seem to find it impossible to correctly name a trans person who has changed their name or revealed their deadname...
It can be odd when people you know change their name. There's a woman I've known since I was about 5, she was one of my mum's best friends so we saw her a lot when I was a child but not much since. And then I spent a bit more than a decade living in various foreign parts and when I came back, I found she, now in her 70s, had changed her name from Celia to Alice. I still find it a bit odd to call her Alice. Perhaps it being an anagram makes it weirder (apparently this was not deliberate on her part!). Though she doesn't really mind if you call her Celia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 25 December, 2018, 01:08:15 pm
It's also an anagram of Leica - has she a photographic memory?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 December, 2018, 01:14:56 pm
I'll have to mention that next time I see her! (The last time I saw her, she filled me with Pims to the extent that I wasn't entirely sure I'd manage the ride home without falling in the canal – unlike Basil's canal adventures, this is a disused one, the water's probably cleaner but no one to pull you out!)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Aunt Maud on 25 December, 2018, 01:43:26 pm
I have learnt that although I'm responsible for the Christmas dinner, I can still be evicted from the kitchen.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 27 December, 2018, 07:48:46 pm
Holly sprigs in a wood-burning stove are good fun.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 27 December, 2018, 11:41:01 pm
♭ is called b rotundum.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 28 December, 2018, 12:16:05 am
Samsung have a digital assistant (think Siri/Alexa) called Bixby... We had never heard of it, possibly cos it's only available for en-US devices, but may be in a fridge coming your way soon...

(Triggered by a friend trying to turn off the "okay google" feature on his new device)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 28 December, 2018, 06:12:27 am
The first thing everyone with a Galaxy S8 or later does is to turn off Bixby.  It sucks, and you have Google Assistant already.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 29 December, 2018, 08:03:13 pm
Pablo Casals and Lionel Tertis were born on the same day (29th December 1876).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 29 December, 2018, 08:34:07 pm
I found out today that the English civil war was caused because the king levied a port tax on the users of the ports, namely the new merchant class and this being the first tax levied directly on them the took umbridge. The merchants then enabled a ‘popular’ uprising funding Cromwell and his cronies.

How things have(n’t) changed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 29 December, 2018, 08:47:24 pm
Chimney sweeps used to get a unique form of scrotal cancer  :hand:

That's Pott's!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 29 December, 2018, 08:51:59 pm
♭ is called b rotundum.

But it looks 'flatter' than a 'normal' b....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 29 December, 2018, 09:03:14 pm
♭ is called b rotundum.

But it looks 'flatter' than a 'normal' b....
i alwaysthought it looked sharper, which is a bit of a conundrum really.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 December, 2018, 09:28:39 pm
That two of Miss von Brandenburg's grandparents was due to be evacuated from Gdynia on board the MV Wilhem Gustloff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Wilhelm_Gustloff) but decided to walk instead.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 January, 2019, 11:17:21 pm
My B-i-L has reached the age of 63 without ever having seen "Monty Python And The Holy Grail".

This omission has now been rectified.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 January, 2019, 12:07:06 am
That two of Miss von Brandenburg's grandparents was due to be evacuated from Gdynia on board the MV Wilhem Gustloff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Wilhelm_Gustloff) but decided to walk instead.
A lucky decision. But... that's Prussia not Brandenburg! (and barely Prussia come to that)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 January, 2019, 12:18:07 am
My B-i-L has reached the age of 63 without ever having seen "Monty Python And The Holy Grail".

Ni!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 02 January, 2019, 09:26:07 am
I'm not nearly that old though I've not seen an entire Monty Python anything (I've seen individual sketches, though I've never felt the urge to watch an entire movie).

I've also never listened to a Led Zepellin album (I can't manage a song).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 02 January, 2019, 10:18:19 am
I'm not nearly that old though I've not seen an entire Monty Python anything (I've seen individual sketches, though I've never felt the urge to watch an entire movie).

I've also never listened to a Led Zepellin album (I can't manage a song).

You could always start with The Immigrant Song (https://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/vikingkittens). Actually, thinking about it, you may have done the graphics.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 January, 2019, 10:27:48 am
That two of Miss von Brandenburg's grandparents was due to be evacuated from Gdynia on board the MV Wilhem Gustloff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Wilhelm_Gustloff) but decided to walk instead.
A lucky decision. But... that's Prussia not Brandenburg! (and barely Prussia come to that)

It was the Reuter side of the family; the Brandenburg side were, IIRC, from Berlin or at least were there when the Formidable Red Army arrived.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 02 January, 2019, 12:35:20 pm
I'm not nearly that old though I've not seen an entire Monty Python anything (I've seen individual sketches, though I've never felt the urge to watch an entire movie).

I've also never listened to a Led Zepellin album (I can't manage a song).

So you'd not fancy the 2CD live album currently in my car, with one song that's about 25 mins long, and an extended Stairway to Heaven?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 02 January, 2019, 01:25:34 pm
Given the state I was usually in when liatending to Led Zep I cant imagine driving to their dulcet tones, especially extended versions there off.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 02 January, 2019, 02:35:29 pm
I'm not nearly that old though I've not seen an entire Monty Python anything (I've seen individual sketches, though I've never felt the urge to watch an entire movie).

I've also never listened to a Led Zepellin album (I can't manage a song).

So you'd not fancy the 2CD live album currently in my car, with one song that's about 25 mins long, and an extended Stairway to Heaven?

Honestly, I'd take the escalator and get it over with. Heaven, I figure, is pretty much like a department store bureau de change.

Long and dull dad-rock. I'm not having any of it. I'll stick to sneaking Disco Tits on in the Heathrow Dixons and then turning up the volume and running off.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 02 January, 2019, 07:15:00 pm
Courtesy of some browsing prompted by reading Karla's blog (recommended reading, BTW), that Google streetview put cameras on boats over in that there Japan (https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3033684,141.3283125,3a,75y,117.74h,105.63t/data=!3m10!1e1!3m8!1s_3IUC2A_ZN81bSRZvMxuFA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D_3IUC2A_ZN81bSRZvMxuFA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D312.8516%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656!9m2!1b1!2i43)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 03 January, 2019, 08:53:39 am
What a dolphin striker and a bob-stay is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 03 January, 2019, 03:21:53 pm
Long and dull dad-rock. I'm not having any of it. I'll stick to sneaking Disco Tits on in the Heathrow Dixons and then turning up the volume and running off.
Today I have learned about Ms Lo's oeuvre...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 03 January, 2019, 05:33:14 pm
And her nipples.

But it is (probably was now) on the device playlist for the Beats speaker at the T5 Dixons Travel.

Don't tell them it was me though, I have an Apple Watch to collect when I next pass through...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 03 January, 2019, 06:08:26 pm
I'm not nearly that old though I've not seen an entire Monty Python anything (I've seen individual sketches, though I've never felt the urge to watch an entire movie).

I've also never listened to a Led Zepellin album (I can't manage a song).

So you'd not fancy the 2CD live album currently in my car, with one song that's about 25 mins long, and an extended Stairway to Heaven?

Honestly, I'd take the escalator and get it over with. Heaven, I figure, is pretty much like a department store bureau de change.

Long and dull dad-rock. I'm not having any of it. I'll stick to sneaking Disco Tits on in the Heathrow Dixons and then turning up the volume and running off.

Long, some, dull, no, dad, yes.

It's noot the only thing in my car ATM though, the 6CD changer also holds some Chris Rea and some Moody Blues

Disco Tits, interesting
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 04 January, 2019, 04:20:41 pm
Büsingen am Hochrhein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCsingen_am_Hochrhein (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCsingen_am_Hochrhein) is an enclave of Germany entirely surrounded by Switzerland.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 08 January, 2019, 07:31:28 pm
A new unit for me - atomic bomb per second  :thumbsup:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/07/global-warming-of-oceans-equivalent-to-an-atomic-bomb-per-second
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 January, 2019, 07:36:04 pm
A new unit for me - atomic bomb per second  :thumbsup:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/07/global-warming-of-oceans-equivalent-to-an-atomic-bomb-per-second

What's that in 1-bar electric fires?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 08 January, 2019, 08:04:41 pm
A new unit for me - atomic bomb per second  :thumbsup:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/07/global-warming-of-oceans-equivalent-to-an-atomic-bomb-per-second

What's that in 1-bar electric fires?

Ooh, at least a several I should think.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 January, 2019, 10:29:30 am
That besides the Flat Earth Society, there is also a Flat Earth International Conference. Splitters!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Greenbank on 10 January, 2019, 10:50:55 am
Courtesy of some browsing prompted by reading Karla's blog (recommended reading, BTW), that Google streetview put cameras on boats over in that there Japan (https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3033684,141.3283125,3a,75y,117.74h,105.63t/data=!3m10!1e1!3m8!1s_3IUC2A_ZN81bSRZvMxuFA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D_3IUC2A_ZN81bSRZvMxuFA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D312.8516%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656!9m2!1b1!2i43)

London too: https://goo.gl/maps/hwm3EwJ9QdH2
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: yorkie on 10 January, 2019, 03:10:06 pm
Courtesy of some browsing prompted by reading Karla's blog (recommended reading, BTW), that Google streetview put cameras on boats over in that there Japan (https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3033684,141.3283125,3a,75y,117.74h,105.63t/data=!3m10!1e1!3m8!1s_3IUC2A_ZN81bSRZvMxuFA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D_3IUC2A_ZN81bSRZvMxuFA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D312.8516%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656!9m2!1b1!2i43)

London too: https://goo.gl/maps/hwm3EwJ9QdH2 (https://goo.gl/maps/hwm3EwJ9QdH2)

Some (mainly) Swiss mountain railways have sent a Street View camera up the line on a flat wagon at the front of a train.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 10 January, 2019, 04:08:08 pm
A new unit for me - atomic bomb per second  :thumbsup:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/07/global-warming-of-oceans-equivalent-to-an-atomic-bomb-per-second

What's that in 1-bar electric fires?
Is that a 240V electric fire or a 110V electric fire?

We need a standard, godammit!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 10 January, 2019, 05:15:56 pm
I assume at 110V they're more of a PVC and carpet fire...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 10 January, 2019, 06:43:10 pm
That my father's half-cousin's sponge bag is in the Imperial War Museum

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30080632
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 11 January, 2019, 03:59:07 pm
That Terry Hall of The Specials had an affair with Jane Wiedlin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 13 January, 2019, 12:14:30 pm
A barn (https://youtu.be/hsEB65Q4kHI?t=897) is a unit of measurement.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2019, 02:02:29 pm
How many kilometres do you ride per barn-megaparsec of sugar?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 January, 2019, 12:39:31 pm
That mosquitoes are considered GBH in Ireland.
Quote
“Section 2 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 sets out the offence of assault and refers to the application of force. Noise is expressly included as being one of the types of force to which section 2 of the Act applies.”

Concerns
The Minister said Garda management has instructed members about the illegality of the devices and directed that any complaints should be “fully investigated with a view to seeking the directions of the Director of Public Prosecutions”.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/anti-teenager-alarms-a-form-of-assault-says-minister-1.3484649
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 January, 2019, 12:45:02 pm
That mosquitoes are considered GBH in Ireland.
Quote
“Section 2 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 sets out the offence of assault and refers to the application of force. Noise is expressly included as being one of the types of force to which section 2 of the Act applies.”

Concerns
The Minister said Garda management has instructed members about the illegality of the devices and directed that any complaints should be “fully investigated with a view to seeking the directions of the Director of Public Prosecutions”.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/anti-teenager-alarms-a-form-of-assault-says-minister-1.3484649


Interesting...

Quote
2.—(1) A person shall be guilty of the offence of assault who, without lawful excuse, intentionally or recklessly—

(a) directly or indirectly applies force to or causes an impact on the body of another, or

(b) causes another to believe on reasonable grounds that he or she is likely immediately to be subjected to any such force or impact,

without the consent of the other.

(2) In subsection (1) (a), “force” includes—

(a) application of heat, light, electric current, noise or any other form of energy, and

(b) application of matter in solid liquid or gaseous form.

(3) No such offence is committed if the force or impact, not being intended or likely to cause injury, is in the circumstances such as is generally acceptable in the ordinary conduct of daily life and the defendant does not know or believe that it is in fact unacceptable to the other person.

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £1,500 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to both.

So it covers Mosquitos, but not, eg. CRT displays with noisy flyback transformers or shitty LED lighting that strobes at 100Hz, because they're not intended to cause injury and the defendant is likely oblivious to their impact.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 January, 2019, 01:14:15 pm
So it covers Mosquitos, but not, eg. CRT displays with noisy flyback transformers or shitty LED lighting that strobes at 100Hz, because they're not intended to cause injury and the defendant is likely oblivious to their impact.
That sounds pretty reasonable as a definition of assault, as opposed to eg health and safety legislation.

More on mosquito devices (in UK) here. (https://www.citymetric.com/fabric/mosquitoes-were-designed-annoy-all-under-25-year-olds-it-s-time-ban-them-4392)
Quote
Baroness Chakrabarti, who directed Liberty for many years, said: “What type of society uses a low-level sonic weapon on its children?”
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 January, 2019, 02:01:30 pm
So it covers Mosquitos, but not, eg. CRT displays with noisy flyback transformers or shitty LED lighting that strobes at 100Hz, because they're not intended to cause injury and the defendant is likely oblivious to their impact.
That sounds pretty reasonable as a definition of assault, as opposed to eg health and safety legislation.

Agreed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 14 January, 2019, 03:19:04 pm
I do wonder if the Irish legislation grew out of the use of "white noise" torture of IRA suspects.

And then there's this...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/11/robbie-williams-blasted-black-sabbath-music-torment-jimmy-page/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 January, 2019, 04:29:56 pm
Well if Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd and Deep Purple are the "arch-rivals" of Led Zeppelin, then presumably any form of music at all should annoy Robbie Williams.  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 14 January, 2019, 05:55:59 pm
hmmm, Floyd vs Zep, i'm not sure they're going for the same audience.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 January, 2019, 07:20:35 pm
That our living room and bathroom lightbulbs (and the unused spare of the same type) start to ripple when the mains voltage drops below about 224V.

Barakta's ability to see what I can only detect with test equipment is uncanny.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 16 January, 2019, 04:25:19 pm
Two things I have learnt today:

1. The effect on productivity of days taken off work sick is measured using the Bradford Factor, which applies the principle that taking one day off many times is more detrimental than a single extended absence. I currently have a Bradford Factor of 0.0.

2. How to use Excel's SUMIF formula. Very satisfying. I knew about COUNTIF already but rather than the number of non-blank cells in one column, I wanted to use that information to add up the related values in a different column.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 16 January, 2019, 04:29:46 pm
I presume it's supposed to catch out people who habitually pull sickies (legitimately or otherwise).

Delight yourself further in Excel with SUMIFS (the same thing with multiple criteria). Only then will you be ready to contemplate SUMPRODUCT arrays.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 16 January, 2019, 04:40:12 pm
I also learned about the Bradford factor fairly recently; it's not entirely uncontroversial, especially as it's often used as a blunt tool against absenteeism. I suppose I've been lucky enough to work in environments where people being absent for the odd day doesn't actually have that much effect (unless loads of people from the same team or project suddenly start dropping at once...)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 16 January, 2019, 04:46:16 pm
Only then will you be ready to contemplate SUMPRODUCT arrays.

Ooh, I'm going giddy at the mere thought of it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 January, 2019, 04:46:58 pm
Two things I have learnt today:

1. The effect on productivity of days taken off work sick is measured using the Bradford Factor, which applies the principle that taking one day off many times is more detrimental than a single extended absence. I currently have a Bradford Factor of 0.0.

Standard HR-centric nonsense that works on the principle that it's better to have a colleague suddenly off work for weeks with, say, stress or a broken pelvis, rather than something really nasty like multi-stage dental treatment.  And that's before you consider the impact on disabled people, which barakta can rant about far more eloquently than I ever could.  (She nearly lost her job over a former boss's fanatical devotion to the Bradford Index, in spite of being one of the most productive members of the team.)

I think HR like it because it measures how much paperwork they have to do...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 16 January, 2019, 04:51:20 pm
Only then will you be ready to contemplate SUMPRODUCT arrays.

Ooh, I'm going giddy at the mere thought of it.

It's the reason I'm posting so much today...

Code: [Select]
Calculating (4 threads): 41...42...43%
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 16 January, 2019, 05:17:31 pm
Two things I have learnt today:

1. The effect on productivity of days taken off work sick is measured using the Bradford Factor, which applies the principle that taking one day off many times is more detrimental than a single extended absence. I currently have a Bradford Factor of 0.0.

Standard HR-centric nonsense that works on the principle that it's better to have a colleague suddenly off work for weeks with, say, stress or a broken pelvis, rather than something really nasty like multi-stage dental treatment.  And that's before you consider the impact on disabled people, which barakta can rant about far more eloquently than I ever could.  (She nearly lost her job over a former boss's fanatical devotion to the Bradford Index, in spite of being one of the most productive members of the team.)

I think HR like it because it measures how much paperwork they have to do...
There’s a long standing adage in statistical circles, you get what you measure. Basically, the very act of measuring a particular aspect will influence those impacted by the measurement to do what they can to reduce that measurement irrspective of the bigger impact or unintended consequences.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 January, 2019, 06:17:47 pm
Two things I have learnt today:

1. The effect on productivity of days taken off work sick is measured using the Bradford Factor, which applies the principle that taking one day off many times is more detrimental than a single extended absence. I currently have a Bradford Factor of 0.0.

Standard HR-centric nonsense that works on the principle that it's better to have a colleague suddenly off work for weeks with, say, stress or a broken pelvis, rather than something really nasty like multi-stage dental treatment.  And that's before you consider the impact on disabled people, which barakta can rant about far more eloquently than I ever could.  (She nearly lost her job over a former boss's fanatical devotion to the Bradford Index, in spite of being one of the most productive members of the team.)

I think HR like it because it measures how much paperwork they have to do...
There’s a long standing adage in statistical circles, you get what you measure. Basically, the very act of measuring a particular aspect will influence those impacted by the measurement to do what they can to reduce that measurement irrspective of the bigger impact or unintended consequences.
That sounds like Quantum HR.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: lou boutin on 19 January, 2019, 11:41:40 am
I have learned that  I hate Canvas.  I deliver online lecturers via webinar.  I usually have an audience of the 12-20 people depending on the topic, time of day etc.  Yesterday's breakfast session had 12 people signed up to attend. Only 1 appeared on the screen and after waiting 5 minutes to see if anyone else appeared, we decided to go ahead with the webinar, I pressed record and on we went.  After the webinar I found 10 emails from people who could not get into the webinar, all stating the same reason - the 'in progress' button was available but there was no sign of the usual 'enter' button.  Everyone said they were would catch up via the recording.  Then a number of emails arrived saying that the recording was not where they usually appear, although two students had found it and were listening to it.  I searched and couldn't find it - neither could the Canvas people.  It looks like there was some sort of technical issues with the platform at the point that I was working that interrupted access and recording.  I know have to run the session again for the students. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 21 January, 2019, 06:08:30 am
Only then will you be ready to contemplate SUMPRODUCT arrays.

Ooh, I'm going giddy at the mere thought of it.

Used it last week for the first time, had a lie down afterwards.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 January, 2019, 08:47:18 am
I searched and couldn't find it - neither could the Canvas people.  It looks like there was some sort of technical issues with the platform at the point that I was working that interrupted access and recording.  I know have to run the session again for the students.

Who pays?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 21 January, 2019, 11:00:06 am
Pays for extra work done by academics? If Lou’s establishment is anything like Dr Beardy (Mrs)’s then someone up the chain says you can do that and any complaint is met with a ‘you’re a professional, and we professionals aren’t so petty as to count the hours we do’.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 January, 2019, 01:18:43 pm
Aye. Back when I was salaried my job status was "assimilé cadre", i.e. a sort of management NCO.  Privileges included not being paid for hours worked over and above. Naturally, once you're self-employed, agitating for fair pay is a good way of avoiding future contracts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: lou boutin on 21 January, 2019, 06:58:50 pm
Basically, I have to fit it in somehow.  I'm not allowing the technical hitch negatively impact on the students.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 21 January, 2019, 09:35:45 pm
Oh yes, now your'e manglement and leading a team you can do your old job, plus the new one, with no training and any hours extra that you need to put in, we'll be very grateful of course.

This recently came up as a discussion in my MothershipTM, and I made the point that if our base model assumes that consultants need to work more than their contracted hours to make the business work, surely we've not quite got things right?

I'm not fired yet :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 21 January, 2019, 09:51:47 pm
Oh yes, now your'e manglement and leading a team you can do your old job, plus the new one, with no training and any hours extra that you need to put in, we'll be very grateful of course.

This recently came up as a discussion in my MothershipTM, and I made the point that if our base model assumes that consultants need to work more than their contracted hours to make the business work, surely we've not quite got things right?

I'm not fired yet :thumbsup:
You have to smarter, not harder. That was always the mantra of our seniors. Although it never seemed to be enough for,them as most of them did 12 hour days as a norm.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 21 January, 2019, 11:27:33 pm
That it's not "you have another thing coming", but it's "you have another think coming". It's a phrase that I've somehow been mishearing for decades.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 January, 2019, 11:36:19 pm
That it's not "you have another thing coming", but it's "you have another think coming". It's a phrase that I've somehow been mishearing for decades.

I don't think it's mishearing so much as the 'thing' version being in common use, and since it makes more sense (and avoids the clunky use of 'think' as a noun), you either don't notice or assume it's a typo when people use 'think'.

I learned this some years ago, but would still use the thing version, because if I use the phrase it's to say "your expectations are unrealistic" not "you're going to have to re-evaluate your ideas".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 22 January, 2019, 07:17:28 am
Isn’t it the second half of the phrase “If that’s what you think,...”?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 January, 2019, 08:37:11 am
Oh yes, now your'e manglement and leading a team you can do your old job, plus the new one, with no training and any hours extra that you need to put in, we'll be very grateful of course.

This recently came up as a discussion in my MothershipTM, and I made the point that if our base model assumes that consultants need to work more than their contracted hours to make the business work, surely we've not quite got things right?

I'm not fired yet :thumbsup:

You have to smarter, not harder. That was always the mantra of our seniors. Although it never seemed to be enough for,them as most of them did 12 hour days as a norm.

Heh. The boss of a department I worked in was very fond of saying "I was here until 9 o'clock last night", especially when we galley slaves were heading for the bar off home at 6.  One day he was unwise enough to say it in front of both us and senior management, and his boss replied "oh, are you that slow?"  That was sweet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 22 January, 2019, 08:44:48 am
That only one country in the world trades on WTO terms only.
(click to show/hide)
Disclaimer: This post may be tinged with a slight amount of POBI.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 January, 2019, 10:15:00 am
That only one country in the world trades on WTO terms only.
(click to show/hide)
Disclaimer: This post may be tinged with a slight amount of POBI.

Not even them any more, if what I read on Farcebok the other week was accurate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 22 January, 2019, 10:47:21 am
Yep, just verified that here (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41859691).  Thanks Mr L.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 22 January, 2019, 07:03:00 pm
That P and O are moving the registration of their fleet to Cyprus.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 January, 2019, 07:51:18 am
MrsT is reading a Jules Verne opus called Hector Servadac, known in English as Off On A Comet.  Before his publisher objected, Verne originally intended all his characters to die, hence the name of his hero: Servadac is cadavres spelt backwards.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: lou boutin on 23 January, 2019, 08:59:49 pm
I have learned that I am a complete idiot.  Rather than saying that if I don't have the equipment to do 'x' as part of my job, I can't do it; I bought the equipment out of my own pocket!!!!  :facepalm:  I know, I am a total barn pot!

On the plus side, I have a nice new camera en route.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 24 January, 2019, 08:49:07 pm
Quote from: Kim
If her impairment can reasonably be expected to last less than 12 months, then she isn't disabled for the purposes of the Equality Act.

Reasonably expected?  Seems a bit unfair.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 January, 2019, 09:57:09 pm
Quote from: Kim
If her impairment can reasonably be expected to last less than 12 months, then she isn't disabled for the purposes of the Equality Act.

Reasonably expected?  Seems a bit unfair.

Yep, so if you break a bone due to a standard bone-breaking injury, you're not disabled, but if you break it due to an underlying chronic condition, you are.  OTOH, if you've had your unexpectedly-failing-to-heal broken bone for a year, you become disabled overnight.

IIRC (?terminal) cancer is a special case in this regard.

The legal definition of disability is very medical model, and the standard first-line defence for Equality Act disability discrimination cases is to try to prove the claimant isn't actually disabled.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 25 January, 2019, 10:41:57 am
I have learned that I am a complete idiot.  Rather than saying that if I don't have the equipment to do 'x' as part of my job, I can't do it; I bought the equipment out of my own pocket!!!!  :facepalm:  I know, I am a total barn pot!

On the plus side, I have a nice new camera en route.

You share your lunacy with virtually every Art teacher in the UK, and probably a lot of other disciplines. It's called caring.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 January, 2019, 02:24:12 pm
Not just art teachers. In 2013 I upgraded my SLR & lenses to full frame, mostly to cover cycling events for the regional FFCT committee I sat on. About a month later I got exceedingly pissed off when they refused to cover the bill for our road captains' grub at our annual Audax tarte flambée evening - 6 blokes at 15€ a nose - and resigned.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 January, 2019, 09:57:18 pm
Remember those T-shirts ravers wore in the early 90s where they took a well known brand logo and altered it in a humorous way, like the Hoover one that said Groover? Well, I've just learnt that you can still get them, brand new. With a modern twist. (https://www.farfetch.com/uk/shopping/women/ashish-american-excess-graphic-sequined-t-shirt-item-13289364.aspx?storeid=9485)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 January, 2019, 03:33:48 pm
Bandcamp has just taught me the phrase "looking for cookies". Means "fishing for compliments" with hints of "by flexing your moral credentials", in case it's as new to you as me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 26 January, 2019, 05:34:22 pm
That I'm allergic to Fairy Non-Bio washing gel.

I've always been sensitive to some detergents, but recently I've been able to move out from my trusted Persil to Supermarket non-bio without any problems. Apparently Fairy must be different.

I'm now in the process of re-washing all the stuff I washed in Fairy, and I've dug out the antihistamines to try and stop the itching/rash :( - Anyone want an almost full bottle of Fairy Non-Bio? ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 26 January, 2019, 07:27:15 pm
That I'm allergic to Fairy Non-Bio washing gel.

I've always been sensitive to some detergents, but recently I've been able to move out from my trusted Persil to Supermarket non-bio without any problems. Apparently Fairy must be different.

I'm now in the process of re-washing all the stuff I washed in Fairy, and I've dug out the antihistamines to try and stop the itching/rash :( - Anyone want an almost full bottle of Fairy Non-Bio? ::-)

Oh that's annoying. That's one that Nye seems to be ok with so far (although they may have changed since last time we had it). He's alright with sainsburys and Coop non bio, but morrisons and waitrose make him itch. All the fancier pod type do as well.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mcshroom on 26 January, 2019, 08:03:31 pm
That I'm allergic to Fairy Non-Bio washing gel.

I've always been sensitive to some detergents, but recently I've been able to move out from my trusted Persil to Supermarket non-bio without any problems. Apparently Fairy must be different.

I'm now in the process of re-washing all the stuff I washed in Fairy, and I've dug out the antihistamines to try and stop the itching/rash :( - Anyone want an almost full bottle of Fairy Non-Bio? ::-)

Oh that's annoying. That's one that Nye seems to be ok with so far (although they may have changed since last time we had it). He's alright with sainsburys and Coop non bio, but morrisons and waitrose make him itch. All the fancier pod type do as well.


It's weird isn't it. Morrisons stuff is fine for me (or was last time I tried), Tesco is fine too. We don't get any Sainsburys or Waitrose out here so no idea on them. I'm also fine with Ariel biological stuff, which is Fairy's sister product.

I've also found that Ecover is fine, but I hate the smell of it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 27 January, 2019, 08:06:14 am
There's Ecover Zero, what don't pong.
https://www.ecover.com/laundry/
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=ecover%20zero&LH_BOPIS=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2045573.m1684
Also Bio-D, similar to what Ecover was before all the stench went in.
https://biodegradable.biz/shop/laundry/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 27 January, 2019, 09:37:52 pm
I like Surcare; it's non-allergenic and has no perfume in it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 January, 2019, 09:42:59 pm
We've been using Bio-D for the last couple of months (the liquid, I think they do a powder as well). It doesn't have any "perfume" and it seems to do a decent job of getting things clean. And it's made in Hull, which seems good! But we're all okay with all the non-bios so can't comment on that score.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 27 January, 2019, 10:16:27 pm
One of the fairy washing powders used to give me this evil creeping rash all over in the 1990s as soon as  I wore anything washing in it, haven't touched any of their brands since as it was so unpleasant and anti histamines didn't touch it. Fortunately we worked out the cause after the 2nd instance.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 January, 2019, 10:42:54 pm
You'd think these problems could be avoided by decent rinsing, but it seems not.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 28 January, 2019, 08:27:36 am
It's pretty well impossible to 'rinse' cloth as it's absorbent. To add to the problem, the 'Delicates' programmes don't do inter-rinse spins so the dilution per 'rinse' is much less than with the 'Cotton' programmes, due to large amount of contamination left behind.
A washing machine doesn't rinse but only dilutes - for most practical purposes a hose pipe and an non-absorbent surface can achieve cleanliness (soap etc. is a contaminant even without any soil that it carries).
What is needed on washing machines is a 'Gentle Cotton' set of programmes - same as 'Delicates' but with inter-rinse spins.

BTW, Bio-D liquid is vegetation-based soap, same as the WU liquid.
In the early '90s I was asked by the Warden of Youlgreave YH to obtain the H&S Data Sheet for Ecover WU liquid. It's a soap based on coconut oil and has an undiluted pH of 5.5. Under 'Ingestion' was, roughly, 'Don't drink too much of it at once'! Fairy Liquid had Bitrex in it - go figure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 28 January, 2019, 09:41:42 am
That chemistry as a science of discovery is more or less done. The figure quoted on the Start the Week programme was 97% of all chemestry is found and understood and chemists now need to turn their attention to applying chemistry with other scientific disciplines.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 28 January, 2019, 09:52:39 am
The joy of the  Excel INDEX and MATCH functions - someone (Ian?) mentioned them a few days ago and it's changed my life bye-bye VLOOKUP :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 28 January, 2019, 10:50:10 am
The joy of the  Excel INDEX and MATCH functions - someone (Ian?) mentioned them a few days ago and it's changed my life bye-bye VLOOKUP :)

It probably was, I preach the gospel of INDEX and MATCH often. It's more flexible, less hassle, easier (you don't have to play guess-the-column-number for a start) and seems a lot faster across big worksheets.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 28 January, 2019, 10:54:57 am
One of the fairy washing powders used to give me this evil creeping rash all over in the 1990s as soon as  I wore anything washing in it, haven't touched any of their brands since as it was so unpleasant and anti histamines didn't touch it. Fortunately we worked out the cause after the 2nd instance.
Radion Micro should have been renamed Agent Orange in that respect.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 28 January, 2019, 10:57:51 am
The joy of the  Excel INDEX and MATCH functions - someone (Ian?) mentioned them a few days ago and it's changed my life bye-bye VLOOKUP :)

It probably was, I preach the gospel of INDEX and MATCH often. It's more flexible, less hassle, easier (you don't have to play guess-the-column-number for a start) and seems a lot faster across big worksheets.

In which case many thanks, I'm trying to match data across two databases on different domains which don't trust each other so Excel is a kludge at best but  is doing the job.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 28 January, 2019, 11:30:07 am
We've been using Bio-D for the last couple of months (the liquid, I think they do a powder as well). It doesn't have any "perfume" and it seems to do a decent job of getting things clean. And it's made in Hull, which seems good! But we're all okay with all the non-bios so can't comment on that score.

Our local "Health Food" shop has started bulk dispensing Bio-D products, so we'll be trialling them as we use up the eCover.  Not that we have any issues with eCover ('tho our washing liquid was bought in bulk 6 months ago, so may predate any perfume changes) but we like to support the business.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: IanN on 28 January, 2019, 03:36:37 pm
(yesterday)
If you are going to hack through a cable lock with some blunt pliers, in broad daylight, without being challenged...  Dress and look like a mamil / CTC member


Sorry cudzo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 28 January, 2019, 09:42:06 pm
The joy of the  Excel INDEX and MATCH functions - someone (Ian?) mentioned them a few days ago and it's changed my life bye-bye VLOOKUP :)

It probably was, I preach the gospel of INDEX and MATCH often. It's more flexible, less hassle, easier (you don't have to play guess-the-column-number for a start) and seems a lot faster across big worksheets.
I was another convert to INDEX(MATCH although I don’t hunk it was your good self that exposed me to it. Another twist lately added my M$ That I started using just before I finished was IFS() A bit like a poor mans Case in a proper language, but a bit limited and not without its quirks.
I quite miss using Excel. I wonder how much I could get for my excel power user skills
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 28 January, 2019, 09:45:08 pm
I do like IFS and SUMIFS etc

Will take a look at MATCH etc, don't think I've tried those yet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 28 January, 2019, 09:54:09 pm
I do like IFS and SUMIFS etc

Will take a look at MATCH etc, don't think I've tried those yet.
INDEX(MATCH is really very powerful and if you are in the habit of using named tables and columns, the resultant formulae are very easy to decode.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 28 January, 2019, 09:59:38 pm
IFS saved me a lot of pain with near-infinitely nested IFs. SUMIFS is a lot easier than SUMPRODUCT, though sometimes you have to dabble in the dark arts of array formulas, it's a kind of masochism. I think, tbh, the only other times I used array formula is with distributions and FREQUENCY.

Most people are frankly amazed by pivot tables. Even people who typically use Excel every day, rarely seem to have had any training, and only know the most basic features. Which makes even a simpleton like me some kind of wizard.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 28 January, 2019, 10:17:31 pm
Array fomulae have got to be one of the biggest cludges in excel, which given the state of it is saying something. I used them mostly for dynamic sorting. Horrid things.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 29 January, 2019, 07:21:12 am
I'm still dealing with people that with a table of about 300 rows by Z columns decide in two places to put rows right across the table with merged cells.  Do these cro-magnons have no idea of what that does to efforts to sort and manipulate data?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 29 January, 2019, 08:13:50 am
People still bring their broken spreadsheets, with a surprising willingness to weather my scouring disdain. It's like they're bringing me a sick puppy. Fix it, medicine man, fix it. People who really ought to know better.

And fucking dates.

Though this might be a thing of the past, I will have developers and data scientists in a couple of weeks. If only I knew what I was doing. It's all sprints and scrums and frankly, I don't know what. I have a project manager, fortunately. Product development sounds very masculine and steroidal, like a sweaty rugger changing room. Somewhere in the mix there ought to be room for a contemplative snooze. If there isn't, I'm using my boss powers to create one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 29 January, 2019, 08:16:32 am
Even though they get it wrong every single year, I do like PAYE. Too long doing taxes in the US, where completing your 1040s is a bureaucratic ritual. I'm not sure if it's got any better, but it was a bit of form-filling nightmare, and you have to do Federal and State taxes. Most Americans are born with an innate knowledge of completing tax forms. Paperwork in general, it's a surprisingly bureaucratic society. Resisting moral turpitude in triplicate.

That said, I used to take my big box of receipts and stuff to the tax company in town, and pay them $75 or whatever.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 29 January, 2019, 10:22:57 am
That barristers work on the "cab rank" system, and if they are available, have to take the client presented to them, but solicitors can refuse to accept clients.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 29 January, 2019, 12:05:22 pm
I confess that I have no idea what the difference between barristers and solicitors is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 29 January, 2019, 12:18:51 pm
Well I know barristers are the be-wigged ones, often "called to the bar", like Julian OTP.

Googling provides the following:

Barristers vs. solicitors
In the UK, those who practice law are divided into barristers, who represent clients in open court and may appear at the bar, and solicitors, who are permitted to conduct litigation in court but not to plead cases in open court. The barrister does not deal directly with clients but does so through a solicitor.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 29 January, 2019, 12:31:21 pm
I don't think I'm any wiser. It's probably better to need neither.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 29 January, 2019, 12:40:28 pm
I don't think I'm any wiser. It's probably better to need neither.
soliciters deal with people who have legal problems, require contracts or need to break the. (Divorce). They send nasty letters to other soliciters clients and write up legal documents. If they can’t resolve the problems between themselves and need to go to court then the solicitor engages the services of a barrister who represents the client in court attempting to present best case using the law and legal president to convince the judge and jury that their client is guilty or innocent. It’s basically an antiquated gravy train for public school boys
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 29 January, 2019, 12:42:01 pm
I don't think I'm any wiser. It's probably better to need neither.
Rumpole is a barrister. Bonny Bernard is a solicitor.

Easy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 29 January, 2019, 12:57:03 pm
...
It’s basically an antiquated gravy train for public school boys

Somehow I thought it would come down to that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 29 January, 2019, 07:23:49 pm
Except this is all muddled cos some solicitors have "audience rights" or something which means they can represent clients in (some?) open courts...

And some barristers will accept direct instructions.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 29 January, 2019, 07:28:01 pm
It's easier in the US. They're all sharks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 29 January, 2019, 07:32:29 pm
Elfyn Llwyd, a former MP, is a solictor and a barrister.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 29 January, 2019, 07:37:58 pm
It's easier in the US. They're all sharks.
Which reminds me ...

Why don't lawyers ever sue sharks ?

Professional ethics dear boy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 29 January, 2019, 08:01:32 pm
I learned today that "normal" body temperature varies with altitude. Around here (1500-1800 m above sea level) normal body temperature is about 0.5 deg C below the usual 37 C.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 30 January, 2019, 08:48:02 am
It's easier in the US. They're all sharks.
In the term "criminal lawyer" the adjective is redundant.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 30 January, 2019, 09:38:41 am
It's easier in the US. They're all sharks.
Which reminds me ...

Why don't lawyers ever sue sharks ?

Professional ethics dear boy.

Interesting consequence of this: barristers are self-employed and are generally paid by the instructing solicitor on behalf of the client. Until fairly recently I believe it wasn't actually possible for barristers to sue for fees in cases of non-payment, and it is still not quite the done thing; last time I was in the pub with my barrister mate he got the first round in, because he'd finally had some 18-month-overdue invoices paid...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 30 January, 2019, 10:01:17 am
These are the days of the blackbird, at least they are according to Italians, who call the 29/30/31 January 'i giorni della merla'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 30 January, 2019, 12:58:44 pm
It's easier in the US. They're all sharks.
last time I was in the pub with my barrister mate he got the first round in, because he'd finally had some 18-month-overdue invoices paid...

What he didn't tell you was the up front fee he got for even looking at the case, and the humongous 'refresher' he got half way through.  The last QC I worked with got a refresher of £0.3M.  On a 5 year civil case that eventually settled out of court for £2m.  My fee as an expert witness was somewhat smaller, and I sorted and analysed all the data that the case hinged on, and briefed the lawyers on why the appellant's claim was a good'un, and just how huge were the porkies the respondent was telling.

Mind you, the QC was frighteningly quick on the uptake of a complex technical case.  It had taken me 30 years to get my head around the issues, it took him a few hours.  He made me wonder what I'd been doing all those years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 30 January, 2019, 01:03:56 pm
Most barristers are not QCs tho... And most don't get paid anything like that, it's usually a few hundred quid here and there.  Many also seem to do a lot of probono work, or hours of work which just aren't billable for various reasons.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 30 January, 2019, 01:28:15 pm
You really dont want to know.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 30 January, 2019, 02:44:49 pm
Most barristers are not QCs tho... And most don't get paid anything like that, it's usually a few hundred quid here and there.  Many also seem to do a lot of probono work, or hours of work which just aren't billable for various reasons.

That is also true.  My next-door neighbour is a criminal barrister, on the local circuit, defending low-lifes, druggies and other ner-do-wells.  I cannot for the life of me understand how he makes a living, although at home he usually looks even scruffier than me, so maybe that tells a story.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 January, 2019, 07:13:08 pm
I learned that the fabled Mercedes-Benz racing car transporter from the 1950s was painted blue!  Only ever seen b/w photos of it before.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 30 January, 2019, 09:03:23 pm
That Rule 34 applies to dungarees.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 30 January, 2019, 09:48:25 pm
The girl that made me eat a slice of vegan pizza in Hackney at the weekend was wearing dungarees.

For the record, this isn't the sort of activity I seek out on the internet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 30 January, 2019, 09:50:17 pm
Barakta once won the Sheffield University LGB committee award for "person most likely to wear dungarees"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 30 January, 2019, 10:04:12 pm
My very rude and very lesbian friend once claimed, after several drinks, to own a pair of 'crotchless dungarees.' For obvious reasons, this claim remains unverified.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 31 January, 2019, 08:32:06 am
I'll confess to have worn crotchless trousers, but they only went that way when I stretched for a awkward shot at billiards.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 31 January, 2019, 08:44:37 am
That Rule 34 applies to dungarees.

What Rule 34 is
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 31 January, 2019, 01:01:30 pm
That Rule 34 applies to dungarees.

What Rule 34 is

Not the one about MTB shoes, this is a Rule of the Internet:

(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/rule_34.png) (https://xkcd.com/305/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 January, 2019, 01:09:35 pm
No homoerotic bees? I thought gay waggledancing had been a thing since forever.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 31 January, 2019, 01:12:55 pm
Spelling bees (native to Leftpondia) are a completely different species, thobut.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 31 January, 2019, 01:25:29 pm
...Though this might be a thing of the past, I will have developers and data scientists in a couple of weeks. If only I knew what I was doing. It's all sprints and scrums and frankly, I don't know what. I have a project manager, fortunately. Product development sounds very masculine and steroidal, like a sweaty rugger changing room. Somewhere in the mix there ought to be room for a contemplative snooze. If there isn't, I'm using my boss powers to create one.

Sounds disturbingly agile.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 31 January, 2019, 05:46:53 pm
...Though this might be a thing of the past, I will have developers and data scientists in a couple of weeks. If only I knew what I was doing. It's all sprints and scrums and frankly, I don't know what. I have a project manager, fortunately. Product development sounds very masculine and steroidal, like a sweaty rugger changing room. Somewhere in the mix there ought to be room for a contemplative snooze. If there isn't, I'm using my boss powers to create one.

Sounds disturbingly agile.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 01 February, 2019, 11:03:33 am
Actually a couple of days ago, when watching Lucy Worsley's latest programme about American historical inaccuracies..

That there is still a legal scheme that allows US companies - which have included Microsoft and Starbucks - to "employ" Federal prisoners for a small fee payable to the US Government. Used to prevent off-shoring of jobs apparently - get your slave labour at home instead.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 01 February, 2019, 11:20:57 am
To be fair, the Americans have always been pretty good at slavery.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 01 February, 2019, 12:17:40 pm
That was the main point. Lincoln desire to destroy slavery in the South was because that would in turn ruin the economy of those states, as opposed to any noble anti-slavery cause. "Slave" states that sided with the union were allowed to keep their slaves.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 February, 2019, 04:25:54 pm
That the Norwegian name Krogsveen is pronounced roughly "Croeswick". Almost as confusing as English.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 02 February, 2019, 09:22:32 pm
That the Black and White Minstrel show still holds the theatre box office records in Australia and New Zealand  :-\
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 03 February, 2019, 01:06:21 pm
That Hong King imports potatoes from France, to make crisps.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 February, 2019, 01:34:53 pm
I hope that we don't then import the bloody things.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 03 February, 2019, 02:40:19 pm
That Hong King imports potatoes from France, to make crisps.

With the odd grenade...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 03 February, 2019, 03:03:35 pm
That Hong King imports potatoes from France, to make crisps.

With the odd grenade...

Somebody at the Beeb must be having a laugh.

Quote
The bombe de terre was safely detonated on site by bomb disposal officers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-47107609
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 03 February, 2019, 05:07:04 pm
That a Mazda 6 washer bottle, once fully frozen, will not defrost even on a 40 mile drive.  I'll have to carry a small squeezy bottle in the car from now on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 03 February, 2019, 08:35:53 pm
That a Mazda 6 washer bottle, once fully frozen, will not defrost even on a 40 mile drive.  I'll have to carry a small squeezy bottle in the car from now on.
Buy some screenwash concentrate from Halfords - about £6 a gallon.  A bottle lasts me all winter, and I live in the sticks/cow country where the farmers are on and off the land all winter and the roads are filthy for months.  It won't freeze then.  Get the green one, not the purple one, unless you want to have the smell of blackberries every time you wash the screen.  I'm not making that mistake again…...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 03 February, 2019, 11:18:28 pm
Same here, and I use it 50:50. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 04 February, 2019, 08:13:09 am
Same here, and I use it 50:50.
I just glug some into the washer tank when I fill it up - but I suspect It'll be about a 30% mix. I tend to go on the colour.  Over this last cold spell (down to -5C here) the washers stayed operational.

It's the best/best value screenwash I've found.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 04 February, 2019, 10:44:32 am
That an odd fact learned years ago from Nektar, who were a fave prog rock band at the time, is an actual fact and not as I had thought an outbreak of silliness on a fairly jolly album, Down to Earth, which had the concept of being a circus. It's an odd line that stuck in my consciousness, popping up from time to time. It appears that elephants really are (https://travelandtrace.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/addo-elephants-and-citrus-fruit/) extraordinarily fond of oranges. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-pcw34mL0c&t=201)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 February, 2019, 08:08:52 am
Sites such as Go Fund Me take 4 or 5% commission on all donations.

Well of course they do, how else are they going to get rich?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 05 February, 2019, 12:47:31 pm
The location of a badger latrine that I had previously been unaware of.  Needless to say the dog found it before I did.  I had to try to get him to walk home downwind of me.  I then had to bath him, of course, in full PPE.

EDIT: I have since learned, from the dog trainer we see each week, that it would have been fox poo, and that fox poo is the WORST.  I was directed to a local supplier of industrial strength dog shampoo, but since he's been out in the rain a few times since his bath the pong has mostly been mitigated.  But the fox-poo shampoo stands in readiness for the next inevitability.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 07 February, 2019, 03:00:44 pm
The photo of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald was taken by Bob Jackson.  This can cause some confusion when trawling teh interwebs for pictures of bikes made by a Leeds based frame builder.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 09 February, 2019, 04:08:20 pm
Tha missing just one gym session makes for an achy next session.

And that Sonos speakers won’t play nicely with power line adaptors.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 February, 2019, 01:12:17 pm
That in addition to releasing a bazillion albums under his own name, blues-rock Elvis Costello lookalike Joe Bonamassa has been part of a band yclept "Black Country Communion" with Glenn Hughes, Jason Bonham and Derek Someone.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Phil W on 10 February, 2019, 01:29:33 pm
That Space Oddity by David Bowie was written as a duet with one of his band mates at the time. The original demo tape is a duet with his band mate doing ground control.  By the time a producer took it on his band mate had left and was working in the north east.  So it became just Bowie.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 10 February, 2019, 01:35:14 pm
That there are products similar to No More Nails called:
Sticks Like Sh*t
The Dogs B*ll*cks (their asterisks, not mine)
I Can't Believe It's Not Nails.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 February, 2019, 03:08:09 pm
Over here it's called Ni Clou Ni Vis.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 10 February, 2019, 05:05:01 pm
That Alexa has what I will call “Mum mode” in that it responds to “Alexa, just be quiet”  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 February, 2019, 05:22:32 pm
When blasting the dust out of a PC with compressed air:

a. open a window, or better yet two windows
b. under the desk where it lives is not the best place to do it
c. wear a dust mask; alternatively, do not breathe
d. taking the side off the casing takes 30 seconds. Putting it back takes 10 minutes and words of power.
e. it's amazing the strange positions the human body can assume in a tight space.
f. it's best to plug the power cable back in before extricating oneself from under the desk
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 10 February, 2019, 05:30:21 pm
How difficult it is to find two deep red seed beads on the floor under my desk.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 10 February, 2019, 09:43:58 pm
That suction cups don’t work in a vacuum.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 10 February, 2019, 11:33:43 pm
When blasting the dust out of a PC with compressed air:

Take it outside.  Close the windows, apart from the minimum gap you can get away with for the power lead to the compressor.  Wear a dust mask and eye protection, and try not to inhale.  Open it up, blast the crud out of it, and wait a minute for the flying fluff to disperse before going back inside.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 11 February, 2019, 02:31:13 am
When blasting the dust out of a PC with compressed air:

Take it outside.  Close the windows, apart from the minimum gap you can get away with for the power lead to the compressor.  Wear a dust mask and eye protection, and try not to inhale.  Open it up, blast the crud out of it, and wait a minute for the flying fluff to disperse before going back inside.
with the power disconnected the whole OS will be shut down so there’s no need to close the windows. HTH

 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 February, 2019, 09:01:44 am
When blasting the dust out of a PC with compressed air:

Take it outside.  Close the windows, apart from the minimum gap you can get away with for the power lead to the compressor.  Wear a dust mask and eye protection, and try not to inhale.  Open it up, blast the crud out of it, and wait a minute for the flying fluff to disperse before going back inside.

What I usually do but it was raining and one of the fans was wheezing. Humming away happily now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 11 February, 2019, 01:00:15 pm
I just learned, right now, while navigating on this thread, by accident that I can scroll on the mousepad if I use two fingers at the same time!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 11 February, 2019, 08:49:48 pm
Campagnolo track nuts are £21 EACH and nothing else will fit.  You'd think someone else in the world would make a 10mm x 26tpi nut, but no.  Even the Germans only have FG 9,5 and FG 10,5 - not FG 10,0 (which would probably be the same).

If I ever have to buy new ones, I'm only using a 6-point spanner on them!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 February, 2019, 08:58:17 pm
Yeahbut they're handcrafted by free-range organic gobellinos of the Veneto out of single-origin artisanal tullium.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 11 February, 2019, 09:06:09 pm
Or stamped out of old supertanker steel in a crap foundry near Shanghai then marked up in price by 10,000%.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 11 February, 2019, 11:38:44 pm
After eleven years doing this job, a day trip to Aberdeen holds nothing more than fatigue. Still, it was nice to catch up with a few folk.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 12 February, 2019, 06:49:31 am
After eleven years doing this job, a day trip to Aberdeen holds nothing more than fatigue. Still, it was nice to catch up with a few folk.
My sister has just returned to Aberdeen after a 17 year stretch in the Middle East. I bet you can’t guess what industry her husband is in.  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 12 February, 2019, 08:59:01 am
Kebab shop proprietor!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 12 February, 2019, 09:41:55 am
Rowie exports?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 12 February, 2019, 10:35:22 am
International flower arranging, now branching out into moss?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 12 February, 2019, 12:36:26 pm
Officially a FIFA Equality chief, but actually employed by MI6? 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 February, 2019, 02:08:56 pm
That Exeter is well known enough to be used in a Polish headline with no explanation (none in the text either).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 12 February, 2019, 09:27:41 pm
That Exeter is well known enough to be used in a Polish headline with no explanation (none in the text either).
I bet those bloody Carlsberg car stickers have made it to Warsaw.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 February, 2019, 03:58:48 pm
"Go west" predates Horace Greely's exhortation of pestiferous youth. It originally referred to travelling some distance west of Newgate, to Tyburn.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 15 February, 2019, 10:58:00 am
That "Alexa" will respond to the name "Alexei" when it is used on the TV.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 15 February, 2019, 08:10:38 pm
That Asda sell large Valentine's garden gnomes.  Get them while you can, they're reduced.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 15 February, 2019, 08:17:07 pm
I am a Valentine's gnome.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 February, 2019, 10:12:14 am
That "Alexa" will respond to the name "Alexei" when it is used on the TV.

After watching an episode of The Americans with bits in Russia, I reckon it would also respond to a Russian saying "Oleg".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Deano on 16 February, 2019, 03:18:34 pm
Farndale was nearly a massive reservoir: https://northyorkmoorsnationalpark.wordpress.com/2018/09/11/what-might-have-been/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 16 February, 2019, 09:55:04 pm
"Cloud cuckoo land" comes from The Birds by Aristophanes.  :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 16 February, 2019, 11:09:31 pm
Farndale was nearly a massive reservoir: https://northyorkmoorsnationalpark.wordpress.com/2018/09/11/what-might-have-been/

I already knew this. Has Mr Smith never discussed it with you, over Beer? He loves this stuff.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 February, 2019, 09:30:42 am
"Cloud cuckoo land" comes from The Birds by Aristophanes.  :o

I like the German version, Wolkenkuckucksheim.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 17 February, 2019, 07:41:48 pm
That the starting salary for a Crossrail train driver is £60k pa. Blimey, I think I’ve been in the wrong job for 40 years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 17 February, 2019, 08:17:32 pm
I just learned, right now, while reading this thread, that I can scroll zoom on the mousepad if I use two fingers at the same time!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Deano on 17 February, 2019, 09:27:18 pm
Farndale was nearly a massive reservoir: https://northyorkmoorsnationalpark.wordpress.com/2018/09/11/what-might-have-been/

I already knew this. Has Mr Smith never discussed it with you, over Beer? He loves this stuff.

Me too! But I guess the subject of abandoned infrastructure projects never came up.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 18 February, 2019, 10:30:17 am
I just learned, right now, while reading this thread, that I can scroll zoom on the mousepad if I use two fingers at the same time!

Me too!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pumpkin on 18 February, 2019, 10:32:00 am
That I am the wrong age to be thrashing up cragg Vale into a headwind and when I catch a group who are moving at a good pace not to sit in the bunch for the last 1km and get some shelter. Also when heading home, the young lady in front is pedalling a single chainring (36?) kinesis poss 9 speed at a good cadence. that same headwind and the slight uphill means I can't really get past her so why have I got 2 chainrings? I could poss. be better having 12-27 and either a 38 or 36 and just spin. Certainly for the terrain around Lancs/W.Yorks I feel that may be the way to go.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 18 February, 2019, 10:50:13 am
There is so much sense in the last post! Truth spoken!

May I suggest an 11-32 in your chosen flavour of cassette and a long(er) cage mech to cope?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 18 February, 2019, 11:26:52 am
That the name of the big furry thing you see on a microphone to cut down the wind noise is a dead cat, the same smaller version for a DSLR  equivalent is a dead kitten.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 February, 2019, 01:05:09 pm
Finistère is being invaded piecemeal by 30 cm Garfield telephones.  Around 200 different bits thereof came ashore in 2018, presumably from a container lost overboard in the 1980s.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 20 February, 2019, 02:54:26 pm
What "scrobbling" is. 

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Scrobble
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 February, 2019, 05:12:22 pm
No relation of nurdling, then.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Butterfly on 20 February, 2019, 06:04:28 pm
No relation of nurdling, then.

 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 21 February, 2019, 09:20:37 pm
That the name of the big furry thing you see on a microphone to cut down the wind noise is a dead cat, the same smaller version for a DSLR  equivalent is a dead kitten.

I thought it was a Dougal.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 February, 2019, 11:25:46 am
That Cholsey, just east of Didcot and possibly known to forumites who've been to Watlington camping, is named for an island (an ey or eye) belonging to King Cole.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 February, 2019, 04:47:24 pm
Kangaroos are left-handed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 February, 2019, 05:17:27 pm
They're in the southern hemisphere so they're laevorotatory. Natural, innit?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 24 February, 2019, 09:10:51 pm
They're in the southern hemisphere so they're laevorotatory. Natural, innit?
Are boxing kangaroos Southpaws?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 February, 2019, 08:42:20 am
Or Ozzies who work for Amazon?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 February, 2019, 03:30:01 am
El Salvador has the world's highest per capita consumption of Worcestershire Sauce.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 26 February, 2019, 10:00:29 am
El Salvador has the world's highest per capita consumption of Worcestershire Sauce.

Some years ago, I asked for a Tomato juice on an internal USA flight.  I asked if they had any Worcestershire sauce (pronounced the correct, British way).  The stewardess, noting the clearly Brit passenger said that she thought she had some in her bag, and went off to get it.  Came back, added the magic ingredient to my TJ, then asked me to repeat my (correct) pronounciation.  Just for fun as it were, and I obliged.  Big grin on her face.

On disembarking, she stopped me at the door and said "Just one more time......?

It must be terrible for the USAnians, can't pronounce Worcestershire, aluminium, nuclear.... I could go on.....

Which reminds me.....  Boarding the shuttle from Heathrow to Edinburgh many years ago, walking down the aisle behind an obviously American gentleman, in his hat and checked trousers, behind his equally striking wife.  She turned to him and in that loud, booming vocal style that they can have said " Gee, Elmer, honeybun, are you sure this is the 'plane to Ee-din-berg?  Smirks all around from those in earshot (so most of the 'plane then).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 26 February, 2019, 10:05:30 am
I may have said this previously, but try asking in vain hope, for HP sauce at Louis Armstrong International.

Then try it in Toronto and be amazed at the hugely different response "gee honey, of course I can get you some"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 26 February, 2019, 07:18:52 pm
That there's such a thing as a Fab lolly, and it is indeed Thunderbirds-based.

(It's a feminine version of a Zoom, apparently.   ::-))
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 26 February, 2019, 07:26:09 pm
52 years old, how did you miss out on that?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 26 February, 2019, 07:28:17 pm
52 years old, how did you miss out on that?

I reckon it's a glitch in the matrix.  Like that point in 1999 or so when suddenly Harry Potter was a thing that existed and everyone had read it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 26 February, 2019, 07:46:01 pm
El Salvador has the world's highest per capita consumption of Worcestershire Sauce.

Some years ago, I asked for a Tomato juice on an internal USA flight.  I asked if they had any Worcestershire sauce (pronounced the correct, British way).  The stewardess, noting the clearly Brit passenger said that she thought she had some in her bag, and went off to get it.  Came back, added the magic ingredient to my TJ, then asked me to repeat my (correct) pronounciation.  Just for fun as it were, and I obliged.  Big grin on her face.

On disembarking, she stopped me at the door and said "Just one more time......?

It must be terrible for the USAnians, can't pronounce Worcestershire, aluminium, nuclear.... I could go on.....

Which reminds me.....  Boarding the shuttle from Heathrow to Edinburgh many years ago, walking down the aisle behind an obviously American gentleman, in his hat and checked trousers, behind his equally striking wife.  She turned to him and in that loud, booming vocal style that they can have said " Gee, Elmer, honeybun, are you sure this is the 'plane to Ee-din-berg?  Smirks all around from those in earshot (so most of the 'plane then).

There is an Edinboro in PA, and there's an Edinboro University there (of course, where else would you put it?). Apparently named after the Scottish capital. That seemed a peculiarly common pronunciation, people often struggled with Edinburgh (the university of which being my alma mater, came up a lot). The others berged it.

Connecticut had some splendid pronunciations of British place names. A perfectly phonetic Norwich made me laugh every time. CO-ven-try. Thames as you'd imagine it ought to pronounced. Greenwich is correct though and older people in Norwich do still seem to say it the British way and elide the w.

Worcester, MA is WOOster though Warwick, RI, is is WAR-wick, though New Englander do like to strangle their Rs like a serial killer in a basement, so it's more of a Wuw-wick. It's very confusing.

On the plus side, (some) American women found the British accent strangely aphrodisiacal, a phenomenon that I, of course, never once exploited.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 26 February, 2019, 08:13:02 pm
That there's such a thing as a Fab lolly, and it is indeed Thunderbirds-based.

(It's a feminine version of a Zoom, apparently.   ::-))

 :o :o :o :o :o :o

Kim doesn't know something  :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 26 February, 2019, 08:21:48 pm
Kim doesn't know something  :P

Kim doesn't know loads of things.  I'm especially rubbish at music, sport and ex-prime-ministers...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 February, 2019, 08:27:15 pm
That tractor developer Harry Ferguson was also an aviation pioneer, the first person in Britain and Ireland to build and fly his own plane (1909).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 26 February, 2019, 10:14:49 pm
That tractor developer Harry Ferguson was also an aviation pioneer, the first person in Britain and Ireland to build and fly his own plane (1909).

I suspect there's some extra qualifications in there; IIRC both Samuel Cody and AV Roe had first flights in 1908
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 27 February, 2019, 05:53:08 am
Samuel Cody = american?
Avro founded 1910 as a company, but that does not preclude earlier flights of course
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 27 February, 2019, 11:59:10 am
That my place of employment has a Kan Ban sytem with every conceivable size and type of screw/bolt from M2 to M8. Perfect for fettling spares  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 27 February, 2019, 01:47:39 pm
Samuel Cody = american?
Avro founded 1910 as a company, but that does not preclude earlier flights of course
Samuel Cody was American - A showman  - Pioneer in man-lifting kites.
Alliott Verdon Roe successfully flew his first aircraft at Brooklands in June 1908.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 February, 2019, 01:51:58 pm
Cody was American but flew at Farnborough. Maybe Ferguson's first was that he built and flew his own plane? Or perhaps he was the first in Ireland.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 27 February, 2019, 02:58:20 pm
52 years old, how did you miss out on that?

I reckon it's a glitch in the matrix.  Like that point in 1999 or so when suddenly Harry Potter was a thing that existed and everyone had read it.

Kim's 52?  :o  :o  :o

Deffo a glitch . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 27 February, 2019, 03:28:56 pm
Suspect the stripy ice lollies are 52, not Kim...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 February, 2019, 03:34:21 pm
It seems Kim was really born in 1984 but has an official birthdate in 1982 for symbolic reasons (it's 70 years after the birth of the founder of the Kim dynasty). Or are we talking about the Kim who doesn't actually want to blow up the world even though she does actually know how?  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 27 February, 2019, 05:11:03 pm
Suspect the stripy ice lollies are 52, not Kim...
Yes, that's what I meant :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 February, 2019, 05:19:10 pm
Yeah, I'm not quite that old, and AFAIK don't have access to unclear weapons.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 27 February, 2019, 05:32:16 pm
We'll all sleep better at nights knowing that...  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 February, 2019, 05:35:23 pm
But if a teenager in Florida can create nuclear fusion in his bedroom (albeit with $500,000 worth of equipment and power), then surely you could molish something pretty deadly out of a ice lolly stick, a rubber band and some easily obtainable from Ebay plutonium-239?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 27 February, 2019, 05:48:52 pm
I thought it was due to an accident with "an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch, and a couple of rubber bands"...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 27 February, 2019, 07:26:37 pm
what do you think I'm trying to do in my shed.  That's glow's not from the twin flourescents
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 February, 2019, 03:42:12 pm
In the early days of WW1, parrots were kept in the Eiffel Tower to give warning of approaching enemy aircraft.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 March, 2019, 10:06:15 pm
Kim doesn't know something  :P

Kim doesn't know loads of things.  I'm especially rubbish at music, sport and ex-prime-ministers...
You're showing a typical word-medallist's disdain for other events.  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 03 March, 2019, 03:22:02 pm
The German online tax submission system is called ELSTER.
Elster is the German word for magpie.
Thanks AH!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 March, 2019, 03:22:59 pm
Not just today but five minutes ago I learned the name Kayihura. Who's that? How do you spell it? The great coincidence turns out that he was sacked as police chief exactly 1 year ago tomorrow!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 03 March, 2019, 06:35:29 pm
The German online tax submission system is called ELSTER.
Elster is the German word for magpie.
Thanks AH!
The name comes from ‘elektronische Steuererklärung’ but of course the Germans love the words to have another meaning too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 03 March, 2019, 08:22:36 pm
The German online tax submission system is called ELSTER.
Elster is the German word for magpie.
Thanks AH!
The name comes from ‘elektronische Steuererklärung’ but of course the Germans love the words to have another meaning too.

I gathered the first two letters were from electronic and didn't much care about the rest but rather liked the idea of a Thieving Magpie.

(The only reason i knew the word is that I had to look it up for an Afrikaner lady visitor, who inquired about a black and white bird on our lawn. The exercise taught me pie, pica, ekster, elster, gazza...)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 March, 2019, 09:39:01 am
Crikey Moses...

https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/molecule-found-in-spider-venom-could-soon-be-used-to-treat-erectile-dysfunction/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 10 March, 2019, 09:49:56 am
Where do they have to bite you for that?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 March, 2019, 10:00:00 am
In the wallet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 March, 2019, 06:56:00 pm
Work on the Clifton Suspension Bridge started in 1831 then halted in 1843 due to lack of money. The bridge finally opened in 1861. This is well known, but what I've learnt today is that during the hiatus, funds were raised by transporting people across the Gorge in baskets suspended from a rope. A honeymooning couple were supposedly stranded midway for over an hour.

Sadly, the bridge soon became the scene of suicides. The other thing I've learnt is that in 1885 a barmaid, 23 year old Sarah Ann Henley, threw herself off it after having been abandoned by her boyfriend. But her fashionably huge petticoats acted as a parachute, slowing her fall enough for her to survive and go on to live to the age of 85.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 15 March, 2019, 09:01:56 pm
Edit. That a potential forbear was attached to the Coutances garrison as a man of war during 1425-1435   1428-1433
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 19 March, 2019, 09:40:19 am
That carpophagous means to feed on fruit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 19 March, 2019, 09:44:04 am
Not "feeds on fish of the Cyprinus family" than.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 March, 2019, 12:08:54 pm
That the biggest consumer day of the year is not Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas or New Year, it's Singles Day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singles%27_Day
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 March, 2019, 05:02:21 pm
That carpophagous means to feed on fruit.

And coprophagy is what politicians expect of us.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 19 March, 2019, 05:16:18 pm
Never trust spoke calculator databases.  Built a wheel but the spokes are too short.  What have I done wrong, I think...I was so careful.

Turns out "Campagnolo - all 120mm large flange hubs" is bollocks.  Record Pista hubs have flanges considerably further apart, 74mm compared to 57mm for road hubs.  And that means the spokes are 2mm too short.  Bastards.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mattc on 20 March, 2019, 12:14:13 pm
The Equilux actually happens 4 days before the Spring Equinox.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pumpkin on 20 March, 2019, 03:07:19 pm
That HoC Speaker John Bercow is regularly highlighted on Dutch/German TV news in a special slot. he is viewed as the sensible person in Brexit and acc to my source the English Parliament with its chambers and ceremony is fascinating to many Europeans.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/17/more-animal-than-ever-europeans-find-joy-in-john-bercow
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 20 March, 2019, 05:37:59 pm
That there's enough daylight out there to get sunburnt.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Formerly Known As on 20 March, 2019, 07:48:27 pm
It's possible to break a CPR dummy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 20 March, 2019, 07:49:38 pm
That there's enough daylight out there to get sunburnt.

Beware Spring sun!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 20 March, 2019, 10:01:19 pm
It's possible to break a CPR dummy.
I saw a whole box of broken ones at work.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 20 March, 2019, 10:04:20 pm
They were people.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 20 March, 2019, 10:07:47 pm
It's possible to break a CPR dummy.

They're the ones with the realistic "you might break a rib but at least they're alive to complain about it" option.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 21 March, 2019, 01:02:02 am
Effective CPR should depress the sternum 5 cm in an adult.

This usually needs a thrust equivalent to a 35kg weight...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 21 March, 2019, 08:04:56 am
That there's enough daylight out there to get sunburnt.

My face is decidedly sore this morning after a couple of hours on the 'bent yesterday morning.  It was definitely too warm at 11 for the 9am cycle clothing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 March, 2019, 08:13:53 am
I reckon I got mostly windburn yesterday.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 March, 2019, 08:41:07 am
I've always thought the Mississippi Delta referred to the delta of the Mississippi River. It doesn't.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 22 March, 2019, 09:15:11 am
I've always thought the Mississippi Delta referred to the delta of the Mississippi River. It doesn't.

That makes two of us.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 22 March, 2019, 09:30:58 am
I knew that, but only because I drove through there, and it says so on the road signs. It makes the Ozarks look affluent. It's apparently the 'southest bit of the south' which may not be an advert. Presumably, it's named because it's the alluvial plain between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 March, 2019, 12:18:06 pm
I've always thought the Mississippi Delta referred to the delta of the Mississippi River. It doesn't.

I also though this until quite recently and wondered what the hell all those bluesmen were doing up in Clarksdale if they were originally from south of New Orleans.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 March, 2019, 12:43:57 pm
I've always thought the Mississippi Delta referred to the delta of the Mississippi River. It doesn't.

That makes two of us.

Three.  Or maybe four.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 22 March, 2019, 12:51:29 pm
I've always thought the Mississippi Delta referred to the delta of the Mississippi River. It doesn't.

I also though this until quite recently and wondered what the hell all those bluesmen were doing up in Clarksdale if they were originally from south of New Orleans.

To be fair, there's not a lot south of New Orleans unless you like salty water, mud, and pollutants.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 March, 2019, 12:55:00 pm
I've always thought the Mississippi Delta referred to the delta of the Mississippi River. It doesn't.

That makes two of us.

Three.  Or maybe four.

Or five.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 22 March, 2019, 01:07:06 pm
I've always thought the Mississippi Delta referred to the delta of the Mississippi River. It doesn't.

That makes two of us.

Three.  Or maybe four.

Or five.
No, it's definitely three. Or maybe four.

Unless you're adding yourself, in which case it's four.

Or maybe five.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 22 March, 2019, 04:46:12 pm
That Brexit is currently costing the UK about £800 million a week.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/22/business/brexit-uk-economic-damage/index.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 March, 2019, 05:37:53 pm
I've always thought the Mississippi Delta referred to the delta of the Mississippi River. It doesn't.

That makes two of us.

Three.  Or maybe four.

Or five.
No, it's definitely three. Or maybe four.

Unless you're adding yourself, in which case it's four.

Or maybe five.

PLus another one, however many that is
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 March, 2019, 05:40:22 pm
I learnt today in an internal training/talking shop session that I know far more than I thought I did about the technicalities of NIMS Allocation Verification, which we are about to start for phase IV of EUETS.  And yes, we still have to do it even if BREXIT  :facepalm:

Roll on no break between here and 31st May
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 March, 2019, 12:05:41 pm
I've always thought the Mississippi Delta referred to the delta of the Mississippi River. It doesn't.

I also though this until quite recently and wondered what the hell all those bluesmen were doing up in Clarksdale if they were originally from south of New Orleans.

To be fair, there's not a lot south of New Orleans unless you like salty water, mud, and pollutants.

Troo dat, as I believe they say in those parts, but there is a road on the map running down the west side of the Mighty Mississippi to the coast.  Fortunately the only time I was in those parts I didn't have time to go down that way and be mightily disappointed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 23 March, 2019, 08:30:15 pm
I have taken a helicopopter from Port Fouchon, then Fens are interesting by comparison
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 23 March, 2019, 11:19:19 pm
The Fens have daffodils. Well they do at this time of year.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pumpkin on 24 March, 2019, 09:32:33 pm
That not all quick links are created equal. A 10 speed sram may be different in pin length to a kmc/shimano one and certainly to a kmc/campagnolo which has shorter pins again (for ultra narrow chains). So luckily I had a 9 speed sram that works fine. The 10 speed sram will work in an 11 speed chain as will the 10 speed campagnolo. Who would have thought that 0.1 or 0.2mm may be the difference between a phone call to get home or a 2 min stop for a quick change. I shall ensure I only carry the right link(s) appropriate to the chain fitted (normally a new one from ebay, make immaterial)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 27 March, 2019, 07:17:24 pm
That the German word for 'sloth' (the creature) is 'Faultier' = lazy animal..
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 27 March, 2019, 08:46:22 pm
I had never heard of breast ironing till yesterday.
The practice and its motivation do not increase my admiration for fellow humans.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 29 March, 2019, 05:54:47 pm
That tensions between India and Pakistan recently took a very surreal turn.

https://metro.co.uk/2018/03/16/india-and-pakistan-have-been-ringing-each-others-doorbells-and-running-away-7391879/

Like the Ministry of Silly Walks-off they have every evening at the Wagah-Attari border ceremony (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagah-Attari_border_ceremony), I suppose it beats lobbing ordnance at each other.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 March, 2019, 06:16:01 pm
That Michael Gove has a dog called Snowy. Which made me realize that he does bear a bit of a resemblance to Tintin. (I learnt this from my son's paper round. He tells me about the contrasting reports of the same news in the Mail, Guardian – about 50% each of his round – the i, Times and Mirror. The one house that takes the Telegraph didn't get a delivery today for some reason. And the local papers report on Bristol City's new club badge.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 29 March, 2019, 06:54:32 pm
That tensions between India and Pakistan recently took a very surreal turn.

https://metro.co.uk/2018/03/16/india-and-pakistan-have-been-ringing-each-others-doorbells-and-running-away-7391879/

Like the Ministry of Silly Walks-off they have every evening at the Wagah-Attari border ceremony (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagah-Attari_border_ceremony), I suppose it beats lobbing ordnance at each other.
Apparently “The nuclear rivals have been conflicting about Kashmir since 1947”

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Formerly Known As on 29 March, 2019, 10:56:39 pm
In German the name Juncker means something akin to nobleman or lord.

The same word is also a Hungarian vernacular term for someone who likes to fiddle with their trouser vegetables for pleasure.  Whilst this was news to me, it was not terribly surprising.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 30 March, 2019, 06:31:00 am
...Whilst this was news to me, it was not terribly surprising.
Not being terribly well up on middle European history is it reasonable to infer that this is from the time of the Austro-Hungarian empire and that high ranking members of the Austrian part of the "alliance"* were not viewed with much esteem by the Hungarian part of the "alliance"?


*Alliance as in the political equivalent of a corporate buy-out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 30 March, 2019, 07:51:16 pm
That Guy Gibson VC DFC and bar and lots of other awards, was actually shot down in the Netherlands by a Lancaster gunner in error, who thought they were being attacked.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Deano on 30 March, 2019, 07:58:33 pm
There's a massive overflow pipe between Kielder and the Tees
 It's only been used twice.

http://www.visitkielder.com/about-us/how-it-all-works
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 30 March, 2019, 09:12:11 pm
There is a UK catfish preservation society:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-47759215

God knows why anyone would want to preserve an introduced invasive species of fish that's butt ugly, can grow to 8 feet long and eats just about anything.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 30 March, 2019, 10:15:09 pm
Including ducks...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 31 March, 2019, 10:13:20 am
The city of Saverne, that I passed through yesterday, is called Zabern in German. The name comes from the Latin tres tabernae: it was apparently a halt on a Roman road that probably went on into the Pfalz - there's a town NE of here called Bad Bergzabern, on the edge of the extension of the Northern Vosges hills into Germany.

Saverne's town hall:

(https://pbase.com/johnewing/image/152169875.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 31 March, 2019, 09:52:27 pm
There's a massive overflow pipe between Kielder and the Tees
 It's only been used twice.

http://www.visitkielder.com/about-us/how-it-all-works

The reason for flooding the North Tyne valley (which was a beautiful landscape) was to supply water to steel works on Teesside.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 01 April, 2019, 09:54:44 am
Dehiscence.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 April, 2019, 10:04:33 am
I know that word!  I've just forgotten what it means, though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 01 April, 2019, 10:10:17 am
I'm researching sesame.

Quintal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintal) would appear to be the most useless and inconsistent measure EVAH.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 April, 2019, 11:13:19 am
It doesn't hold still long enough to hit it. A hundredweight in UK English but 100 kilos in American? :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 April, 2019, 11:15:52 am
Nothing to do with it, but German has the useful expression Quartalsäufer - someone who gets absolutely plastered every so often.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 01 April, 2019, 11:33:50 am
That, according to a R4 program I'm listening to, if you translate " She is a president, he is a nurse" into Turkish (Which does not have gendered pronouns), and then back into English, you get "He is a president, she is a nurse".
I assume they are talking about Google Translate.

Caveat. I haven't tried this myself.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 April, 2019, 11:49:58 am
I'm researching sesame.

Quintal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintal) would appear to be the most useless and inconsistent measure EVAH.
Yes. 50 or 100? Or another number? Pounds or kilograms? Or the equivalent of 50 or 100 pounds expressed in kilograms? Or the equivalent of 50 or 100 kilograms expressed in pounds? Etc
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 April, 2019, 12:14:28 pm
A chap called Lord Rufus Noel-Buxton waded across the estuaries of the Thames, Humber and Severn, using knowledge from helpful locals and a large stick, in order to prove that Roman armies could have crossed major rivers by fording. He walked across the Severn in September 1954, the other two were earlier but I don't know when. He wrote a poem about it:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ford-Rufus-Noel-Buxton/dp/B0006DE7IM
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 01 April, 2019, 12:37:11 pm
That, according to a R4 program I'm listening to, if you translate " She is a president, he is a nurse" into Turkish (Which does not have gendered pronouns), and then back into English, you get "He is a president, she is a nurse".
I assume they are talking about Google Translate.

Caveat. I haven't tried this myself.

For the non-polyglottal amongst you :) "She is a president, he is a nurse" translates to  to "O bir başkan, o bir hemşire".

Putting it back into English Google Transalate gives:
Quote
Translations are gender-specific. LEARN MORE
She is a president, she is a nurse(feminine)
He is a president, he is a nurse(masculine)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 01 April, 2019, 02:35:44 pm
That, according to a R4 program I'm listening to, if you translate " She is a president, he is a nurse" into Turkish (Which does not have gendered pronouns), and then back into English, you get "He is a president, she is a nurse".
I assume they are talking about Google Translate.

Caveat. I haven't tried this myself.

For the non-polyglottal amongst you :) "She is a president, he is a nurse" translates to  to "O bir başkan, o bir hemşire".

Putting it back into English Google Transalate gives:
Quote
Translations are gender-specific. LEARN MORE
She is a president, she is a nurse(feminine)
He is a president, he is a nurse(masculine)

Looks like whoever I was listening to was not being entirely truthful.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 April, 2019, 05:11:48 pm
I was always tickled by the way French soldiers changed sex when they went on sentry-duty.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 01 April, 2019, 05:19:33 pm
I know that word!  I've just forgotten what it means, though.

I won't split on you...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 01 April, 2019, 06:16:36 pm
I was always tickled by the way French soldiers changed sex when they went on sentry-duty.
Explique, s’il vous plait.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 02 April, 2019, 08:32:42 am
I was always tickled by the way French soldiers changed sex when they went on sentry-duty.
Changed sex or changed gender?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 April, 2019, 02:25:17 pm
Ah, but gender was promoted in the 19th century to avoid having to say sex.

Anyway, soldier is le soldat, sentry is la sentinelle.  In one of the first novels I read in French a bloke went on sentry-duty and was then referred to as elle:  I searched the paragraph for five minutes to find where the woman came into it, then noticed the la in front of sentinelle.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 03 April, 2019, 08:46:20 am
le tour - la tour. Gender gone mad!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 03 April, 2019, 09:44:38 am
Ah, but gender was promoted in the 19th century to avoid having to say sex.

Anyway, soldier is le soldat, sentry is la sentinelle.  In one of the first novels I read in French a bloke went on sentry-duty and was then referred to as elle:  I searched the paragraph for five minutes to find where the woman came into it, then noticed the la in front of sentinelle.  :facepalm:
Interesting. Is a woman soldier ‘le’ or ‘la’?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 April, 2019, 10:54:54 am
le tour - la tour. Gender gone mad!

Nope: un tour is a circuit and une tour is a tower. Different roots.  English has its own six-legged camels: to cleave can mean either to split apart or to stick together. Again, different roots.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 April, 2019, 11:00:30 am
Ah, but gender was promoted in the 19th century to avoid having to say sex.

Anyway, soldier is le soldat, sentry is la sentinelle.  In one of the first novels I read in French a bloke went on sentry-duty and was then referred to as elle:  I searched the paragraph for five minutes to find where the woman came into it, then noticed the la in front of sentinelle.  :facepalm:
Interesting. Is a woman soldier ‘le’ or ‘la’?

When that book was written she would have been le until she went on sentry-duty, but PC sticks an -e on soldat as appropriate these days. Similarly, Madame le ministre became Madame la ministre a few years ago.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 April, 2019, 12:31:47 pm
le tour - la tour. Gender gone mad!

Nope: un tour is a circuit and une tour is a tower. Different roots. English has its own six-legged camels: to cleave can mean either to split apart or to stick together. Again, different roots.
Janus words, from the two-headed Roman god. There's a whole list of them, some of which I might remember too late to post here.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 April, 2019, 12:50:01 pm
Linguistic enantiomers, as it were.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 03 April, 2019, 03:23:24 pm
le tour - la tour. Gender gone mad!

My French might be rusty but isn't the masculine noun a tour and the feminine a tower, in English?
Likewise, 'livre' can mean 'book' or 'half-kilogram'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 April, 2019, 08:34:52 am
From Latin liber and libra. Damned foreigners, confusing the issue.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 04 April, 2019, 08:42:40 am
In addition, la tour is often a little phallic in overall outline. ISTR that the very obviously male bovine is la in Froggish. Really, there's no point in having gender - some nouns have four forms for one word (with plurals) - a waste of three words.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 April, 2019, 10:08:46 am
YSTR wrongly.  Re grammatical gender I agree, largely.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_English#Decline_of_grammatical_gender

English also has one other nice feature, i.e. possessive pronouns whose gender agrees with that of the possessor.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 April, 2019, 10:55:27 am
Which reminds me of something I learned a couple of years ago, there is a North American language in which verbs agree with the subject's possessor rather than the subject. "Our horse are fast but Bob's horses is faster." Apparently the only language known where verbs do not agree with their subjects. The only universal rule is that all rules are broken.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 April, 2019, 11:15:26 am
I think it's called US English. ;D

Nah, sorry to be so irreverent (tugs foreskinlock).  I once heard the opinion that grammar is an error-correction mechanism, like parity bits in computers, and it supplements syntax. English being largely positional makes other languages that also use inflection look top-heavy. All the same, when it's mucked about as in your "horses" example, position as an indicator of meaning gets a bit shaky.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 04 April, 2019, 01:51:13 pm
From Latin liber and libra. Damned foreigners, confusing the issue.

 ;D ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 04 April, 2019, 04:17:59 pm
I learned quite a few things over the last three weeks. In no particular order:

- What earth tremors feel like (ans:weird but scary)
- That scorpions can go to sleep in your clothes (plain scary)
- (today, on researching) That while most scorpions, which are arachnids, aren't too poisonous the light coloured ones with thin pincers are. I know what those look like (see above)
- That, at least in the southern part of Mexico nobody talks with a comic book Mexican accent, who knew?
- That Mexico Mayan/Aztecs got seriously screwed over by the Spanish colonialists, as they did not use steel, or the wheel.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 04 April, 2019, 04:21:16 pm
I was advised that scorpions tend to travel in pairs.
We found one in the shower when I lived on Corfu.
Sure enough, a day later there was another one in the bathroom.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 04 April, 2019, 07:28:08 pm
I learned quite a few things over the last three weeks. In no particular order:

- What earth tremors feel like (ans:weird but scary)
- That scorpions can go to sleep in your clothes (plain scary)
- (today, on researching) That while most scorpions, which are arachnids, aren't too poisonous the light coloured ones with thin pincers are. I know what those look like (see above)
- That, at least in the southern part of Mexico nobody talks with a comic book Mexican accent, who knew?
- That Mexico Mayan/Aztecs got seriously screwed over by the Spanish colonialists, as they did not use steel, or the wheel.
If you haven't already (and based on the above I'm guessing you haven't) you should read 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 April, 2019, 08:30:17 am
At one point in Ancient Greece only the 6000 richest people in Athens were liable for tax. Once the sum due was calculated the three richest had to pay all of it then get it back from the 5997 others.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: lou boutin on 07 April, 2019, 07:14:08 pm
I went to see Helen Pankhurst speak about 'Deeds not words'.  During the lecture, she told us that when the Suffragettes attempted to access a cricket match, a certain official said that the only place that women had in a cricket pavilion was in the tea room, serving the tea.  The Suffragettes' response - they came back and burned down the cricket pavilion.  :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 07 April, 2019, 07:23:38 pm
I've  learned to look up the tide tables in future so that I won't repeat today's drive the dog to the beach, only to find no effing beach.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 April, 2019, 09:32:49 am
BTDT, only it I'd first chivvied three or four mates to ride there with me. Oops.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 09 April, 2019, 03:30:42 pm
Asking someone are they using the car tomorrow and getting the reply no.  Doesn't mean that you won't be using the car.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: perpetual dan on 16 April, 2019, 02:34:36 pm
Realised as much as learnt ... that the Strava heatmap gives a pretty good indication of whether a route is bike friendly, for planning.
I was, in particular, looking at a track in Scotland - I'm used to tracks on the OS map often meaning "private farm road", and while I'm aware that rights of way are different there it is reassuring to check that it's been used a bit on a bike.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 April, 2019, 02:41:10 pm
Realised as much as learnt ... that the Strava heatmap gives a pretty good indication of whether a route is bike friendly, for planning.
I was, in particular, looking at a track in Scotland - I'm used to tracks on the OS map often meaning "private farm road", and while I'm aware that rights of way are different there it is reassuring to check that it's been used a bit on a bike.
Yes, the Strava route planner is really handy for this reason.  Obviously you've got to apply a who-logs-rides-on-Strava filter when using it for urban commuter routes, as it'll bias towards the fast people on road bikes preferences.  But that's in itself useful compared to the likes of Cyclestreets which tend to give very traffic-averse Sustransy routing.

It's turned up a couple of useful follow-a-bridleway-across-a-field shortcuts that have been perfectly rideable, but I wouldn't normally consider.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: perpetual dan on 16 April, 2019, 03:17:20 pm
Quote
fast people on road bikes

that's not really me, probably hence my only just joining the dots to this
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 18 April, 2019, 10:17:12 am
That one of my colleagues is the magnificently titled Emelius McHuthcherson.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hbunnet on 18 April, 2019, 09:35:58 pm
Lorry wheel nuts are left hand thread on the left side, for the same reasons as bike pedals.
How I have reached my old age without knowing this is hard to understand, except that I have never driven heavy vehicles. 

But as ever, cars are aberrant.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 18 April, 2019, 10:54:30 pm
Lorry wheel nuts are left hand thread on the left side, for the same reasons as bike pedals.
How I have reached my old age without knowing this is hard to understand, except that I have never driven heavy vehicles. 

But as ever, cars are aberrant.

Thanks.  New to me too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 April, 2019, 08:47:03 am
Geese patrol Sobral prison in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to alert guards to prisoner disturbances.

Someone stayed awake in Latin class.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 19 April, 2019, 01:31:06 pm
Lorry wheel nuts are left hand thread on the left side, for the same reasons as bike pedals.
How I have reached my old age without knowing this is hard to understand, except that I have never driven heavy vehicles. 

But as ever, cars are aberrant.

Chrysler built their cars that way through the late '60s. Of course, the cars in question were about the size of a truck/lorry.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 April, 2019, 03:21:38 pm
Found out something else today: see under Fecking Div.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 19 April, 2019, 04:51:13 pm
That MucOff is also very good at cleaning barbecue grills.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 19 April, 2019, 05:12:21 pm
Lorry wheel nuts are left hand thread on the left side, for the same reasons as bike pedals.
How I have reached my old age without knowing this is hard to understand, except that I have never driven heavy vehicles. 

But as ever, cars are aberrant.

Chrysler built their cars that way through the late '60s. Of course, the cars in question were about the size of a truck/lorry.

So did Rolls-Royce.

Wire wheels for cars were also secured by handed threads.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 19 April, 2019, 08:31:58 pm
That Germans - or at least one of them! - can find great ways of describing their leg length for a Velomobile boom. “Dackelbeinig” = Dachshund-legged...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 19 April, 2019, 10:26:08 pm
That the Microsoft Surface Pro has a micro SD card slot. This comes in handy if one has an Etrex in one hand and a gpx file on ones lapdancer in the other but the cable for connecting the two is many many miles away.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 April, 2019, 07:52:37 am
That Germans - or at least one of them! - can find great ways of describing their leg length for a Velomobile boom. “Dackelbeinig” = Dachshund-legged...

Just don't call them halb Dackel.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 20 April, 2019, 08:19:17 am
...better than half a pfennig!


I'll get me coat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 21 April, 2019, 03:13:42 pm
Some of the history and lyrics for the songs whose tunes are used in our local ice cream van chimes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 24 April, 2019, 04:39:48 pm
Lorry wheel nuts are left hand thread on the left side, for the same reasons as bike pedals.
How I have reached my old age without knowing this is hard to understand, except that I have never driven heavy vehicles. 

But as ever, cars are aberrant.

Chrysler built their cars that way through the late '60s. Of course, the cars in question were about the size of a truck/lorry.

So did Rolls-Royce.

Wire wheels for cars were also secured by handed threads.

So did 105 Series Alfa from 50's (GT Junior, Spider etc)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Exit Stage Left on 24 April, 2019, 04:49:42 pm
Lorry wheel nuts are left hand thread on the left side, for the same reasons as bike pedals.
How I have reached my old age without knowing this is hard to understand, except that I have never driven heavy vehicles. 

But as ever, cars are aberrant.

Double wheeled Transits are the same. I had to teach vehicle maintenance for conservation volunteers once. They were thoroughly confused, and even put the nuts back on with the straight side abutting the wheels.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 27 April, 2019, 08:26:38 am
Having worked at - and sometimes for - Plessey in Towcester for 23 years, I was amazed to find that there still is a Plessey Semiconductors in Plymouth - must have been a buy-out before GEC took over Plessey.
It makes microLEDs, so has a huge potential market as mLEDs take ofer from OLEDs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 April, 2019, 01:24:16 pm
That Gazza and Dobbin, the "Heads" part of the teenage Dave Lister's band Smeg & The Heads, were played by Jeffrey Walker and Bill Steer of Carcass, the metal edition of of Black's Medical Dictionary.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 27 April, 2019, 01:40:04 pm
... Carcass, the metal edition of of Black's Medical Dictionary.

 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 27 April, 2019, 04:59:24 pm
That both 1p and new 5p coins stick to the rare earth magnets gifted to me by Biggsy OTP (sometimes).

Actually, I knew the 1p was magnetic but the 5p was news to me.

(I don't have other small coins to hand right now. This might help sort our cat flap issue.)

ETA my old 5p coin is not magnetic, nor is a 50p I found.

Surprisingly (to me) £1 coins are weakly magnetic.

I do like playing with magnets!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 27 April, 2019, 08:04:55 pm
American wheelbarrows have wooden shafts/handles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 27 April, 2019, 09:31:59 pm
That there is a thing called “match betting” and further, that my daughter practices it, and, indeed, would like to work for a bookies.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 28 April, 2019, 04:27:42 pm
That British Gas is one of the cheaper dual fuel suppliers for us, a good £250 a year less than Robin Hood  :-X
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 28 April, 2019, 06:22:01 pm
I found out today that one of my great-great-great grandfathers (or someone with the same name, same residence and same profession as one of my GGG GFs) received a "sabre cut on the right shoulder" at Peterloo.


Today I learned that there were 2 weavers called James Entwistle living in Manchester at the time of Peterloo and that the one who suffered the sabre cut was the one who wasn't my great-great-great grandfather.

Probably.

However, today I learned that while (as above) my GGG GF was not the one wounded at Peterloo, it may well have been his father (i.e. my great-great-great-great grandfather) who was slashed by a sabre on August 16th 1819 and received £1 relief for 3 weeks disablement.

I now don't feel such a fraud for attending last week's event for descendants of people present at Peterloo.
Title: Re: what I have learnt today.
Post by: T42 on 30 April, 2019, 11:48:23 am
Not so much learnt as realized, that since the small ring of a 2x11 does the work of the two inner rings of a triple it'll wear out twice as fast. The ring I just changed on my 2x11 had 20,000k on it, but the inner rings on my 3x10 have around 36,000k and are just about still OK.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 30 April, 2019, 04:53:32 pm
Not so much learnt as realized, that since the small ring of a 2x11 does the work of the two inner rings of a triple it'll wear out twice as fast. The ring I just changed on my 2x11 had 20,000k on it, but the inner rings on my 3x10 have around 36,000k and are just about still OK.
Wear on a bearing/road is proportional to 4th. power of loading; the bigger the ring and sprockets the lower the force. As an example, a lorry that should be 10 te./axle will do double the damage to the road if laden to 12 te./axle.
In the early '90s(?) an Auk had around 56 to a suitably built block and it did last a long time. Microdrive: gimmick to get more money.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 April, 2019, 05:17:22 pm
Auk?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 April, 2019, 05:39:55 pm
Audax UK rider.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 April, 2019, 08:27:01 pm
That just as there are bike-shaped objects, there are ship-shaped objects. "A ship-shaped, turret-moored FPSO." Looks like a ship to me, but no, FPSO = floating production, storage and offloading unit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 30 April, 2019, 08:45:29 pm
Not to be confused with shipshape objects, presumably.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 30 April, 2019, 09:43:40 pm
Not to be confused with shipshape objects, presumably.
Hopefully the ship-shaped object is shipshape thobut.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 30 April, 2019, 09:49:34 pm
Not to be confused with shipshape objects, presumably.
Hopefully the ship-shaped object is shipshape thobut.
At getting on for a billion, you'd like to think so.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 April, 2019, 11:03:04 pm
$1.5 billion I think this one was.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 01 May, 2019, 08:27:07 am
Not to be confused with shipshape objects, presumably.
Hopefully the ship-shaped object is shipshape thobut.

But is it Bristol-fashion? And if it is, what number on the Bristol Scale?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 01 May, 2019, 08:44:01 am
Not to be confused with shipshape objects, presumably.
Hopefully the ship-shaped object is shipshape thobut.

But is it Bristol-fashion? And if it is, what number on the Bristol Scale?
Ship-shaped, not shit-shaped.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 01 May, 2019, 10:40:30 am
The meanings of "numinous" and "algor". Oh and "liminal" though I already had an idea of that one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 02 May, 2019, 09:49:22 pm
That just as there are bike-shaped objects, there are ship-shaped objects. "A ship-shaped, turret-moored FPSO." Looks like a ship to me, but no, FPSO = floating production, storage and offloading unit.

Ship-shaped, but with no ability to self-propel, they rotate around the turret into the wind/tides. 

As a consequence, in an emergency, the optimum direction of escape may not be aft, where the accomodation is generally located.  On the induction tour always look for the safe refuge at the pointy end
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 02 May, 2019, 09:51:07 pm
$1.5 billion I think this one was.

Shell's new one off Aus - Prelude, is a floating LNG production unit, and is the largest "vessel" in the world at >300m long.  It's f'ing huge
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 03 May, 2019, 07:59:54 am
That Dorset and back from Chester in a day is a bloody long way.  Particularly when you have to sit at Oldbury Viaduct on the M5 for an hour on the way back because some van's broken down in the roadworks.

It'll take me all day to recover.  I bought a couple of beers from the shop when I got home, but only drank 1.  I was that tired.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 May, 2019, 10:39:04 am
Audax UK rider.

Yeah. I suppose it was more block that puzzled me: not having cycled in the UK since the 60s it's not a term I'd heard for a cassette. Back then I had an SA hub.

They'll be calling a crossbar something else next.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 03 May, 2019, 09:11:26 pm
That (strong) leather can be made from fish skin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 May, 2019, 07:42:24 am
That (strong) leather can be made from fish skin.
I think that historically most Inuit clothing was made from fish skin. At any rate there used to be a display of Eskimo clothes and tools in the museum here, which was mostly made from fish skin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: redshift on 04 May, 2019, 08:47:19 am
That (strong) leather can be made from fish skin.

I read that report, and immediately went off to see if any of my preferred suppliers sell it.  Sadly, they don't. The quoted prices compare well with similar weight cow and goat leathers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 04 May, 2019, 02:53:04 pm
That there is pink asparagus.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 04 May, 2019, 07:09:56 pm
That there is pink asparagus.

I grow pacific purple in my garden.  With most of these, teh colour disappears on cooking
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 May, 2019, 10:59:06 am
And they all smell the same down t'other end.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 05 May, 2019, 04:11:31 pm
Laptop battery lost capacity?  Getting warnings from the BIOS that it needs replacing?  Put the battery in the freezer for a day or so, thaw it out in the fridge and you should find it's more or less back to normal.  Freezing breaks up the large crystals that form over time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 05 May, 2019, 10:45:16 pm
Laptop battery lost capacity?  Getting warnings from the BIOS that it needs replacing?  Put the battery in the freezer for a day or so, thaw it out in the fridge and you should find it's more or less back to normal.  Freezing breaks up the large crystals that form over time.
Not for lithium batteries apparently. NiMH or NiCd only.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 06 May, 2019, 06:55:16 am
Laptop battery lost capacity?  Getting warnings from the BIOS that it needs replacing?  Put the battery in the freezer for a day or so, thaw it out in the fridge and you should find it's more or less back to normal.  Freezing breaks up the large crystals that form over time.
Not for lithium batteries apparently. NiMH or NiCd only.
Mine's Li-ion and it worked.  Went from not charging at all to over 2 hours' real-world capacity.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 May, 2019, 08:09:25 pm
This: https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=111871.msg2391189#msg2391189
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 07 May, 2019, 12:53:36 pm
That the S1 trainline out of Hamburg splits in two before it reaches the airport, and that if you haven’t checked the information on the front of the train you can end up feeling slightly foolish.  I had to double back 2 stops & get the correct train.  Luckily I believe in having good safety margins so I’d plenty of time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 07 May, 2019, 01:08:57 pm
Laptop battery lost capacity?  Getting warnings from the BIOS that it needs replacing?  Put the battery in the freezer for a day or so, thaw it out in the fridge and you should find it's more or less back to normal.  Freezing breaks up the large crystals that form over time.
Not for lithium batteries apparently. NiMH or NiCd only.
Mine's Li-ion and it worked.  Went from not charging at all to over 2 hours' real-world capacity.

Having seen my Dell spontaneously combust I wouldn't mess with Li-based batteries. Which reminds me, I have new one for my geriatric Macbook Air. Alas to say, that while the box came with the requisite tools, it was missing any appropriate swears (though if YouTube is to be believed, it's just a case of removing about a million screws and not losing any or having a cat march through the middle of proceedings).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 07 May, 2019, 03:07:50 pm
Speaking of lithium batteries, my flight is currently stuck at Hamburg, while they search the hold luggage for one which some idiot has checked in.  >:(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 07 May, 2019, 03:35:08 pm
Manx Shearwaters are long-lived. One was trapped in Northern Ireland in 2003 which had been ringed in 1953. And it would have had to have been an adult to have been ringed, so was at least 55 years old.

Given their lifespan and migration patterns they could well fly over 5 million miles in a lifetime.

Half the population live on Skomer, which I visited last week, but they only return to their burrows at night, so I didn't see any. (A disappointment more than made up by the puffins).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 07 May, 2019, 06:02:27 pm
That the S1 trainline out of Hamburg splits in two before it reaches the airport, and that if you haven’t checked the information on the front of the train you can end up feeling slightly foolish.  I had to double back 2 stops & get the correct train.  Luckily I believe in having good safety margins so I’d plenty of time.

I almost did the same thing on a late night TGV from Pau to Paris years ago. I was reading the various official notices around the train car out of boredom when it dawned on me that train I was on was going to split, and the half I was on was headed for someplace in Switzerland. Dragging a boxed bicycle and other luggage through 3 or 4 cars of sleeping people did not make me popular.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 07 May, 2019, 09:09:12 pm
Courtesy of the always educational & amazing Charlotte, the Italian for "Big Knickers"..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GYPDB_xVpA&frags=pl%2Cwn
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 07 May, 2019, 10:18:13 pm
That (strong) leather can be made from fish skin.

I read that report, and immediately went off to see if any of my preferred suppliers sell it.  Sadly, they don't. The quoted prices compare well with similar weight cow and goat leathers.

Dictum in Germany used to sell salmon skin leather. It's worth looking at the website to see whether or not it's still available.


I've just checked. There is no salmon skin, but they have stigray skin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 May, 2019, 04:36:22 pm
That Gloucester is in Essex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester,_Massachusetts Some early settlers were mighty confused.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 08 May, 2019, 08:26:11 pm
This.
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=86532.msg2391705#msg2391705

Great geeking, Chris.
And that video. Wow!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 May, 2019, 03:00:57 pm
That Saab built a small number (n<50) of 99s fitted with the 3.0L Triumph V8.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 09 May, 2019, 03:34:31 pm
Interesting. So - in theory - a Rover V8 4.6 litre 99 is a possibility.

fx:maniacal laughter from a suburban shed
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 09 May, 2019, 04:11:08 pm
Like er...um....

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/OT6oXmg4AVrRi_yPWmNlFl20UO7uTFJs2P1F0VgyM61VQJ_2xjzNEFWgbe0F0kwM6B2aHBvVhcvaLhP14TeZcLXAXUbkTwI2k9aEQE91e6tpC5weR2rIvTFatf2I7PN6c-DIqvalWDq-5ad2Qb87KR9LsI6-SVilXPBu8ryAE2YOso0a8zZsD5ysqttqsYu7PNO1tN-w2FxENGqlqSGsZf9s7gWxGHsyMOvjVpXi5oOXZ4AZC1i_B3qdjclrogqpFshOrureQd_gbwhsjKxyix3NigD5ZTvFuZbZ9th-pP9_rIh-TiUkYx5BtR_D8TdJVB5mrF6-mwteOBw2B1wfvpd2rLS_oxdTPjySyKRKHyEg1OwkFQoNdZ3WHV_NCdkTv8fckOGYGy_9WwJ8XwI5JuwUmwCV-Cn2XfNA373FMNRAg0EYFW6vPVDEmEQb1jSMb6S472dWduDs92SCnRha8o4O8VwXGZ_gCjTpmzyz8bWz3eLQtsoPAqVIk5imtHZrGmBbk4vuUikhWLcADuQWaEFrFsnbQ2eczv6Gk0pCYSTsHTXsUtzxDAw4KlxG--tc3BZ7U6idLtduoTjGjN-zIjqKs8rB0bC4eq3keS_8h7nD7yjWSx-KbNSvn3FteewLL4qiDkQhIlrI31ItkHpDKSvSJxOHlIz1dQbInZ73TXxOvAK87amjDHNku12w0dXDLqKabHv3D29-vk102vd60Zrw6A=w1000-h714-no)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 09 May, 2019, 04:55:53 pm
You need help...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 May, 2019, 05:07:18 pm
Your grasp on reality is flakey...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 09 May, 2019, 05:12:20 pm
That Saab built a small number (n<50) of 99s fitted with the 3.0L Triumph V8.
Yes, the Saab B and H engines were developments of the Ricardo engine that was financed by both Saab and BL.

The in-line 4 and V8 were both part of that project so the I4 engine is sometimes referred to as being half the V8. (there was a few iterations and size increases before the 2 litre H engine)

Saab were going to use the V8 but after testing decided on turbo charging the I4 instead.



Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 09 May, 2019, 05:19:14 pm
Interesting. So - in theory - a Rover V8 4.6 litre 99 is a possibility.

fx:maniacal laughter from a suburban shed
No the Rover V8 is a different engine from the Ricardo developed Triumph one, iirc its a development of an American V8 related to but not the legendary Hemi.

The Saab engine bays are so bit though...
Projects I remember seeing are:
900 16v Turbo engine (the 250bhp development of the Riccardo that Saab limited due to the limits of FWD not engine capability) cramped into a 99 engine bay.

Ford Essex V6 fitted to a 96V4, though the Cologne/Taunus V4 is related to a German Ford V6

900 Turbo T16s with waste gates removed, that was erm interesting.

Erm that's it... I've been away from SAABs a while now.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 09 May, 2019, 08:08:48 pm
the rover V8 as used in the P4, P5, P6 B was derived from a Buick engine, hence the designator

not sure if that was also used in the land rover.  a client of mine a few weeks back had a LR deafener V8 that was 4.6 vs the usual 3.5l V8. I didn't get to hear it, just drooled in my own mind
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 09 May, 2019, 08:55:24 pm
Ricardo continue to do extraordinary vehicular stuff in my niece's home town of Shoreham-by-Sea.
ETA  - the Triumph Stag V8 engine was, essentially, a racing engine IIRC - ie: a full rebuild following every event.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 09 May, 2019, 10:54:04 pm
Wasn't the Dolomite 1850 half the Stag V8 ?

IIRC that was designed by BL engineers to a design brief from Saab.

A fellow Mech Eng student ended up working with one of the designers. (Sadly though, he failed to carry out my instruction to throttle him, following too many hours/days/weekends spent trying to mend a Dolly 1850.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 10 May, 2019, 07:27:33 am
wasn't it a case of the Stag V8 being two dollie engines welded together?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 10 May, 2019, 07:30:19 am
wasn't it a case of the Stag V8 being two dollie engines welded together?
Sounds like BL people thinking the opposite way round from Saab people.



Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 10 May, 2019, 07:40:03 am
the rover V8 as used in the P4, P5, P6 B was derived from a Buick engine, hence the designator

not sure if that was also used in the land rover.  a client of mine a few weeks back had a LR deafener V8 that was 4.6 vs the usual 3.5l V8. I didn't get to hear it, just drooled in my own mind
Navigated in a V8 series 1 military Landy on a couple of occasions... One of the few to get back in after the first, I'd forgotten how terrifying it was the second time I said I'd do it.

Can't remember which V8 was in it, edelbrock carbs, lifted wheels for fun...

The door bolt failed mid-test while doing a loop of a cone in the lion enclosure at Lowther safari Park...

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 May, 2019, 07:53:40 am
Stags and dollies? Sounds like a rather rude night out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 May, 2019, 03:21:25 pm
Interesting. So - in theory - a Rover V8 4.6 litre 99 is a possibility.

fx:maniacal laughter from a suburban shed
No the Rover V8 is a different engine from the Ricardo developed Triumph one, iirc its a development of an American V8 related to but not the legendary Hemi.


Though using Rover V8s to revitalise dying Snags was a popular cottage industry.  Doubtless a Man in a Sheds is e'en now plotting the unholy marriage of a TVR-spec 5.0 and a 99 :demon:

A similar cottage industry in USAnia was dropping 5.0 Ford V8s into Volvos.  My chum Bill had one.  Sports car owners do not like being outdragged by Swedish Bricks.

L-R has used the Rover, BMW and Jaguar petrol V8s in Range Rovers and their ilk over the years but AFAIK V8 Defenders all had the Rover one unless it was an aftermarket conversion.  A small-block Chevy fits nicely.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 May, 2019, 03:25:51 pm
Stags and dollies? Sounds like a rather rude night out.
In about 1974?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 10 May, 2019, 04:16:25 pm
is this the ultimate Ovlov?

https://www.volvocars.com/uk/about/our-company/heritage/heritage-models/29-262 (https://www.volvocars.com/uk/about/our-company/heritage/heritage-models/29-262)

Body of a 2-door 240 series, but with a straight 6 in it.  Not long after the Christchurch earthquake I saw a rare RHD one of these lingering at the bottom of an unstable cliff, behind Heras fencing. Looked in good nick and would have been highly saleable back here.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 11 May, 2019, 06:33:36 am
Er... No!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 11 May, 2019, 08:47:56 am
Don't say the T5 touring car estates, please! P1800ES - looks ok, performance middling

I do like the 262C as well, but I'm much more a fan of the classics than the modern.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Torslanda on 11 May, 2019, 11:28:48 am
Real world would be a 240 Turbo, which we never got in the UK.

Ultimate performance would be Volvette (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBu6STlhh8Q)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 11 May, 2019, 11:45:21 am
Real world would be a 240 Turbo, which we never got in the UK.

Ultimate performance would be Volvette (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBu6STlhh8Q)

Whoa!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 May, 2019, 11:52:18 am
Don't say the T5 touring car estates, please! P1800ES - looks ok, performance middling

I do like the 262C as well, but I'm much more a fan of the classics than the modern.

A neighbour in Leytonstone had a 262C.  Only needed a gun turret and you were all set to invade Norway.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 11 May, 2019, 12:04:42 pm
Someone over on LFGSS has a 940 or 960 estate with a silly turbo fitted and other mods; looks stock (if pristine) from the outside, but apparently it will burn off 911s etc. quite happily on the autobahn, and you can get it to wheelspin at motorway speeds if you downshift and let the turbo kick in...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 11 May, 2019, 12:29:40 pm
Someone over on LFGSS has a 940 or 960 estate with a silly turbo fitted and other mods; looks stock (if pristine) from the outside, but apparently it will burn off 911s etc. quite happily on the autobahn, and you can get it to wheelspin at motorway speeds if you downshift and let the turbo kick in...
Neil. He lives just up the road from me. He also has either a Carrera or 911 - I forget which.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 11 May, 2019, 02:11:02 pm
Someone over on LFGSS has a 940 or 960 estate with a silly turbo fitted and other mods; looks stock (if pristine) from the outside, but apparently it will burn off 911s etc. quite happily on the autobahn, and you can get it to wheelspin at motorway speeds if you downshift and let the turbo kick in...
Neil. He lives just up the road from me. He also has either a Carrera or 911 - I forget which.

Yeah; I think he sold the Volvo to another forumite, but is now working on silly mods for his 1990s 911 cabrio.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 May, 2019, 03:48:45 pm
Vroom is that way --------------------------------------------------->
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 14 May, 2019, 02:08:17 pm
That Formica was originally created as a replacement for mica in switches and the like.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 May, 2019, 04:41:11 pm
I'd always assumed the name referred to ants in some way!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 14 May, 2019, 07:33:54 pm
Probably uses either formaldehyde or formic acid in some part of the process. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 14 May, 2019, 08:02:25 pm
Apparently not, it’s a contraction of “For Mica”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 May, 2019, 10:51:07 am
Two things I learned yesterday:
That kestrels and probably some other raptors can see infrared.
That streaming a full length movie uses as much electricity as boiling 10 kettles (almost all in the datacentre rather than your home comp).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 May, 2019, 12:36:28 pm
That streaming a full length movie uses as much electricity as boiling 10 kettles (almost all in the datacentre rather than your home comp).

BRITISH kettles or inferior leftpondian kettles?   ;D

AIUI that energy to stream a movie figure still wins over watching it on DVD[1], because of the physical transportation, and the embedded costs of making a dedicated video-playing device that sits around doing nothing when you aren't watching movies.

Presumably there's a break-even point for physical media that's easily achieved when your smalls watch Frozen[2] for the eleventy-zillionth time.


[1] Other disc-shaped optical media are available.
[2] Other annoying Disney films are available.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 May, 2019, 01:24:35 pm
That kestrels and probably some other raptors can see infrared.

And some women have not just red, blue & green cones in their retinae but another set that can see further into the red end of the spectrum and possibly into the near-IR range.

In raptors it's a means of finding prey... ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: caerau on 16 May, 2019, 01:41:27 pm
Two things I learned yesterday:
That kestrels and probably some other raptors can see infrared.



Some spiders can see in the Ultraviolet also.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 May, 2019, 01:45:49 pm
That streaming a full length movie uses as much electricity as boiling 10 kettles (almost all in the datacentre rather than your home comp).

BRITISH kettles or inferior leftpondian kettles?   ;D

AIUI that energy to stream a movie figure still wins over watching it on DVD[1], because of the physical transportation, and the embedded costs of making a dedicated video-playing device that sits around doing nothing when you aren't watching movies.

Presumably there's a break-even point for physical media that's easily achieved when your smalls watch Frozen[2] for the eleventy-zillionth time.


[1] Other disc-shaped optical media are available.
[2] Other annoying Disney films are available.

AIUI that calculation had previously concentrated on the energy used at the viewer's end for streaming and is now reckoned to have vastly underestimated the energy used at the datacentre. Though presumably at least some of that is used anyway just keeping the place going. I don't know where the balance is, but all copies of Frozen should be destroyed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 May, 2019, 01:46:06 pm
That kestrels and probably some other raptors can see infrared.

And some women have not just red, blue & green cones in their retinae but another set that can see further into the red end of the spectrum and possibly into the near-IR range.

In raptors it's a means of finding prey... ;D
???
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 May, 2019, 01:54:29 pm
AIUI that calculation had previously concentrated on the energy used at the viewer's end for streaming and is now reckoned to have vastly underestimated the energy used at the datacentre. Though presumably at least some of that is used anyway just keeping the place going.

The energy used at the viewer's end's going to be a small fraction of the total, regardless.

And yes, the datacentre will use about the same amount of power if the service is idle.  Except that these things average out, and more racks of blinkenlights get installed as demand increases, so it's not unreasonable to argue that if you weren't streaming that movie, the datacentre would be proportionally smaller.

It also occurs to me that it's easier to power telecoms infrastructure with renewable energy than it is to power global transport infrastructure with it...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 May, 2019, 01:58:53 pm
I wonder how it compares to going to watching at the cinema. Or television. Presumably a lot of variables: cinema – film stock or digital projection? TV – screen size, LED/plasma/CRT? I dare say all the cinema, TV, DVD and streaming watching globally uses less energy than the production of those movies and shows.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 May, 2019, 02:07:37 pm
I wonder how it compares to going to watching at the cinema. Or television. Presumably a lot of variables: cinema – film stock or digital projection? TV – screen size, LED/plasma/CRT? I dare say all the cinema, TV, DVD and streaming watching globally uses less energy than the production of those movies and shows.

I expect the cinema uses more energy because you're heating/cooling a building which people then travel to, with the actual projecting of the film being a small part of that total.

You're probably right about production, especially when cast and crew are getting flown all over the place to do it.  I wonder how animation/VFX compares to filming actual stuff?  Less energy building things and moving people/stuff around, but instead you've got armies of people slaving away at computers for long periods.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 May, 2019, 02:10:49 pm
Not to forget that a lot of animation is actual stuff. Both models (animatronics, claymation, etc) and real drawings and paintings on paper, card or transparent plastic. And there must be other types as well.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 16 May, 2019, 02:50:28 pm
That kestrels and probably some other raptors can see infrared.

And some women have not just red, blue & green cones in their retinae but another set that can see further into the red end of the spectrum and possibly into the near-IR range.

In raptors it's a means of finding prey... ;D

Ah, does this mean Rudyard Kipling was onto something?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: caerau on 16 May, 2019, 03:11:02 pm
.... but all copies of Frozen should be destroyed.


Can't you just let this one go?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 May, 2019, 04:02:35 pm
That kestrels and probably some other raptors can see infrared.

And some women have not just red, blue & green cones in their retinae but another set that can see further into the red end of the spectrum and possibly into the near-IR range.

In raptors it's a means of finding prey... ;D

Ah, does this mean Rudyard Kipling was onto something?

I couldn't possibly comment.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 16 May, 2019, 08:15:58 pm
Mental note: when going out for an evening's entertainment and setting the oven to automagically cook you a great chicky dinner for your return, make sure the clock is set to the correct version of BST vs GMT. #hangry
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: caerau on 16 May, 2019, 08:51:09 pm
Well I learned today that cookers that can do that actually still exist. I haven’t seen one that can since the 1970s. A strange regression in technology whilst everything else advanced.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 16 May, 2019, 08:59:00 pm
Why is it a regression in technology?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 May, 2019, 09:43:57 pm
Because it is (was thought to be) no longer available?

I think ours has that function, but if it does I've never used it. Mind you, I think it only turns itself on, not off. Hmm, that sounds too silly, must have got that wrong. Perhaps I'll read the (rather large) manual.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 16 May, 2019, 10:00:30 pm
I've never used that function, even though it exists on our oven.  I assume it is for rewarming stuff rather than actual cooking, as mostly cooking involves a pre heated oven rather than a slow warming.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 May, 2019, 10:01:01 pm
Ours can definitely do it.  I know this because every power interruption and daylight saving change results in a digression into cancelling the timer I accidentally set while working out what cryptic invocation of the buttons sets the clock.

Thanks to the combined efforts of various Western Power Distribution engineers, I've finally worked out how to do it properly.  I predict those neurons will be recycled some time in the middle of October.

I've never actually used it, thobut.  Seems redundant when you have  a) a microwave  and  b) a slow cooker, and a fire hazard if you're not actually at home.  Maybe for getting the sprouts going at audax o'clock on Christmas morning?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 16 May, 2019, 10:42:26 pm
Our oven doesn't recommend pre-heating, weirdly, not that I care when it's just baked taters. We don't have a microwave or a slow cooker. It's a function I've only used 2 or 3 times in 4 years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: redshift on 16 May, 2019, 10:54:02 pm
That kestrels and probably some other raptors can see infrared.

And some women have not just red, blue & green cones in their retinae but another set that can see further into the red end of the spectrum and possibly into the near-IR range.

In raptors it's a means of finding prey... ;D

Boring technical note: The cones aren't for red, blue and green, but for Long, Medium and Short wavelengths.  There are significant overlaps such that colour matching cameras to human sensitivities cannot be done by simple additive RGB colour mixing, but has to include mathematical matrix functions to create negative values of light.  Complicated stuff, this vision malarkey.  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 16 May, 2019, 11:57:23 pm
Our oven doesn't recommend pre-heating, weirdly, not that I care when it's just baked taters. We don't have a microwave or a slow cooker. It's a function I've only used 2 or 3 times in 4 years.

I only preheat my oven when baking CAEK as I don't think I'm very safe with hot ovens.

I don't think our food has suffered.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 May, 2019, 12:00:54 am
Our oven doesn't recommend pre-heating, weirdly, not that I care when it's just baked taters. We don't have a microwave or a slow cooker. It's a function I've only used 2 or 3 times in 4 years.

I only preheat my oven when baking CAEK as I don't think I'm very safe with hot ovens.

I don't think our food has suffered.

Indeed.  Pre-heating likely makes for more consistent cooking time between different ovens, so makes sense when writing recipes and instructions, but most oveny things can be cooked from cold if you apply an appropriate fudge factor to the cooking time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 17 May, 2019, 01:05:35 am
Fudge factor is negligible for roast meats and can be conveniently ignored IME.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 17 May, 2019, 07:18:06 am
I'd beg to differ when it comes to rare roasts, but each to their own. There are a few foods that need pre-heating: pastry, souffle, cake for eg, some that benefit from pre-heating, eg roasts other than chicken where the heat seals it. But the weird thing on my oven is that it has a fast heat up option. "Well, I can get hot quickly but only if you tickle my ear and ask me nicely" Under what circumstances would you not want an oven to get to temperature as quickly as possible?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 May, 2019, 07:50:25 am
That kestrels and probably some other raptors can see infrared.

And some women have not just red, blue & green cones in their retinae but another set that can see further into the red end of the spectrum and possibly into the near-IR range.

In raptors it's a means of finding prey... ;D

Boring technical note: The cones aren't for red, blue and green, but for Long, Medium and Short wavelengths.  There are significant overlaps such that colour matching cameras to human sensitivities cannot be done by simple additive RGB colour mixing, but has to include mathematical matrix functions to create negative values of light.  Complicated stuff, this vision malarkey.  :)

So what we call, e.g., red is not just the output of the longwave cone but the result of an arcane form of proportional representation.  Figures. Also explains the colours of that dress.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 17 May, 2019, 08:06:53 am
I'd beg to differ when it comes to rare roasts, but each to their own. There are a few foods that need pre-heating: pastry, souffle, cake for eg, some that benefit from pre-heating, eg roasts other than chicken where the heat seals it. But the weird thing on my oven is that it has a fast heat up option. "Well, I can get hot quickly but only if you tickle my ear and ask me nicely" Under what circumstances would you not want an oven to get to temperature as quickly as possible?

Yes, mine has a boost setting too, which has always puzzled me. I can't think of a reason I'd want it to warm more slowly. To be honest, it doesn't seem to make much difference compared to the main fan oven setting. There are loads of settings on the dial whose main function seems to be to either fail to cook my food by blowing fart-temperature air over it or burn it death by randomly invoking the grill.

Never understood the schedule setting, it seems to be the function only activated when you fudge-finger the timer and then have to send a further five minutes pressing random unmemorable combinations of buttons while muttering 'oh for fuck's sake' under your breath until the cursed icon disappears.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: redshift on 17 May, 2019, 08:53:11 am
That kestrels and probably some other raptors can see infrared.

And some women have not just red, blue & green cones in their retinae but another set that can see further into the red end of the spectrum and possibly into the near-IR range.

In raptors it's a means of finding prey... ;D

Boring technical note: The cones aren't for red, blue and green, but for Long, Medium and Short wavelengths.  There are significant overlaps such that colour matching cameras to human sensitivities cannot be done by simple additive RGB colour mixing, but has to include mathematical matrix functions to create negative values of light.  Complicated stuff, this vision malarkey.  :)

So what we call, e.g., red is not just the output of the longwave cone but the result of an arcane form of proportional representation.  Figures. Also explains the colours of that dress.

It's worse than you think though, because most of it's made up by your braIn, which lies to you all the time.  The CIE have some nice charts to codify it all, but TV camera colorimetry is adjusted all the time by the vision supervisor, (or colour graded after editing) otherwise we lose the illusion of it being 'real.'
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 17 May, 2019, 08:59:53 am
because most of it's made up by your braIn, which lies to you all the time. 
It's the same with hearing - but try telling a musician (or hi-fi buff) that. Most of them seem to think that what they're hearing is objective truth. Old, sorry, 'vintage' instruments always sound better, for instance.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 17 May, 2019, 09:52:56 am
That there's yet another variation to size/shape that I need to resolve when building my latest bicycle - this time saddle rail size and shape vs seatpost clamp. Bah, I though I had everything sorted after finding the "Shimano Hollow Flanged Bolt 9mm" that is used to connect hydraulic hose to 8070 shifters (as opposed to the straight 8mm connector that's used on 8050's and other shifters.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 May, 2019, 11:42:38 am
because most of it's made up by your braIn, which lies to you all the time. 
It's the same with hearing - but try telling a musician (or hi-fi buff) that. Most of them seem to think that what they're hearing is objective truth. Old, sorry, 'vintage' instruments always sound better, for instance.

I believe a Mr K Richards of Dartford noted that if you give him a guitar he'll have it sounding just like all his other guitars inside half an hour.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 17 May, 2019, 12:32:16 pm
because most of it's made up by your braIn, which lies to you all the time. 
It's the same with hearing - but try telling a musician (or hi-fi buff) that. Most of them seem to think that what they're hearing is objective truth. Old, sorry, 'vintage' instruments always sound better, for instance.

Oh yes, and those who insist that a "high quality" mains plug makes all the difference.

http://www.evoaudio.uk/index.htm#MSHDPUK13ARh
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 17 May, 2019, 12:45:31 pm
because most of it's made up by your braIn, which lies to you all the time. 
It's the same with hearing - but try telling a musician (or hi-fi buff) that. Most of them seem to think that what they're hearing is objective truth. Old, sorry, 'vintage' instruments always sound better, for instance.

I believe a Mr K Richards of Dartford noted that if you give him a guitar he'll have it sounding just like all his other guitars inside half an hour.
Aye. Sax players who want to sound like Charlie Parker (why?) obsess about his gear, forgetting that he often played on whatever he could scrounge, having hocked his last sax for drugs. He always sounded like himself.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 17 May, 2019, 12:52:50 pm
because most of it's made up by your braIn, which lies to you all the time. 
It's the same with hearing - but try telling a musician (or hi-fi buff) that. Most of them seem to think that what they're hearing is objective truth. Old, sorry, 'vintage' instruments always sound better, for instance.

Oh yes, and those who insist that a "high quality" mains plug makes all the difference.

http://www.evoaudio.uk/index.htm#MSHDPUK13ARh

I see that the £66 plugs are compliant with "all relevant safety standards, including BS". I think BS has two possible meanings here. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 17 May, 2019, 02:44:58 pm
That kestrels and probably some other raptors can see infrared.

And some women have not just red, blue & green cones in their retinae but another set that can see further into the red end of the spectrum and possibly into the near-IR range.

In raptors it's a means of finding prey... ;D

Boring technical note: The cones aren't for red, blue and green, but for Long, Medium and Short wavelengths.  There are significant overlaps such that colour matching cameras to human sensitivities cannot be done by simple additive RGB colour mixing, but has to include mathematical matrix functions to create negative values of light.  Complicated stuff, this vision malarkey.  :)

So what we call, e.g., red is not just the output of the longwave cone but the result of an arcane form of proportional representation.  Figures. Also explains the colours of that dress.

It's worse than you think though, because most of it's made up by your braIn, which lies to you all the time.  The CIE have some nice charts to codify it all, but TV camera colorimetry is adjusted all the time by the vision supervisor, (or colour graded after editing) otherwise we lose the illusion of it being 'real.'

It's even worserer, everything you see is just a model in your brain. There's no way we can process the amount of visual information, so our eyes sample it and our brains make up the rest. That and, of course, by the time we've assimilated and modelled the data, several microseconds or more have passed, so you're seeing a world that has already gone by.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 May, 2019, 02:52:33 pm
Which means we're all living in the past. The present does not exist. But I think we knew that already.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: caerau on 17 May, 2019, 02:53:32 pm
(https://i.gifer.com/IxO9.gif)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 May, 2019, 02:55:38 pm
I believe a Mr K Richards of Dartford noted that if you give him a guitar he'll have it sounding just like all his other guitars inside half an hour.

I seem to go through a broadly similar process with bicycles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 17 May, 2019, 03:56:21 pm
I believe a Mr K Richards of Dartford noted that if you give him a guitar he'll have it sounding just like all his other guitars inside half an hour.

I seem to go through a broadly similar process with bicycles.
You tune your bicycles so they all sound the same?? 😁
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 May, 2019, 04:07:56 pm
I believe a Mr K Richards of Dartford noted that if you give him a guitar he'll have it sounding just like all his other guitars inside half an hour.

I seem to go through a broadly similar process with bicycles.
You tune your bicycles so they all sound the same?? 😁

Nobut I do know when they are each going out of tune.  Got my M5 sounding just right now.

My eyes seem to be telling me it's still black as well, so bonus there.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 May, 2019, 05:39:32 pm
I believe a Mr K Richards of Dartford noted that if you give him a guitar he'll have it sounding just like all his other guitars inside half an hour.

I seem to go through a broadly similar process with bicycles.
You tune your bicycles so they all sound the same?? 😁

It's more that if you don't exercise deliberate self-control, all bicycles eventually get customised into a touring bike.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rower40 on 17 May, 2019, 05:52:25 pm

Presumably there's a break-even point for physical media that's easily achieved when your smalls watch Frozen[2] for the eleventy-zillionth time.



[2] Other annoying Disney films are available.

I don't know where the balance is, but all copies of Frozen should be destroyed.

Writing as parent of smalls...
Let it go.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 May, 2019, 06:02:50 pm
I have learned that there is a song from Frozen called Let it Go.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 May, 2019, 06:54:30 pm
I have learned that there is a song from Frozen called Let it Go.  ;D

Can you sing it for me?  I don't think I've heard it  :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 May, 2019, 07:00:40 pm
the BBC can't count.  On the 7 question quiz of the week I got 5 right and ended up with a score of 4/6

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 17 May, 2019, 07:50:04 pm

Presumably there's a break-even point for physical media that's easily achieved when your smalls watch Frozen[2] for the eleventy-zillionth time.



[2] Other annoying Disney films are available.

I don't know where the balance is, but all copies of Frozen should be destroyed.

Writing as parent of smalls...
Let it go.
Bzzt (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=11510.msg2394008#msg2394008)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 17 May, 2019, 07:56:57 pm

Presumably there's a break-even point for physical media that's easily achieved when your smalls watch Frozen[2] for the eleventy-zillionth time.



[2] Other annoying Disney films are available.

I don't know where the balance is, but all copies of Frozen should be destroyed.

Writing as parent of smalls...
Let it go.
Bzzt (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=11510.msg2394008#msg2394008)
What? ? ? You think it is only sung once ?? ?? ??

I wish
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 17 May, 2019, 08:28:35 pm
the BBC can't count.  On the 7 question quiz of the week I got 5 right and ended up with a score of 4/6

I got 2/7 first time and 7/7 second time - I always repeat the quiz to check my short-term memory.

Maybe they didn't count the question about the Marianas Trench (on your browser - mine got to 7) as all three options were correct.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 May, 2019, 02:14:25 pm
6174 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6174_(number))  :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 19 May, 2019, 02:55:22 pm
6174 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6174_(number))  :o
Aha! I knew that one cos there's a band with the same name.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 May, 2019, 05:11:28 pm
Every time you Google something it comes up with a band or a brand that's usurped something real.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 19 May, 2019, 07:36:02 pm
just ran thast one past my daughter "tha's weird, how did he discover that?"

meanwhile, today i was relearning binomial theory as i taught it to her
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 19 May, 2019, 11:15:42 pm
That fascism isn’t in fact extreme racism with added nuts. Further reading suggests that in academic circles what exactly does constitute fascism is somewhat contentious and subject to much debate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 May, 2019, 08:17:04 am
And while others talk the fascists get on with it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 20 May, 2019, 09:49:44 am
That some people think Farage tells the truth.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 May, 2019, 01:39:27 pm
Honey bees go "whoops" when they bump into each other.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 22 May, 2019, 09:37:07 pm
Mrs E has just informed me that the Welsh for jellyfish is pysgodyn wibli wobli.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: caerau on 22 May, 2019, 09:46:11 pm
Ha, that came from a comedy panel show t’other day - I saw that  :thumbsup:


A microwave oven is called popedi ping (sic)  8) [size=78%] [/size]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 22 May, 2019, 09:57:51 pm
Ha, that came from a comedy panel show t’other day - I saw that  :thumbsup:


A microwave oven is called popedi ping (sic)  8) [size=78%] [/size]

I've just learnt that they are just "slang" terms and that
A Jellyfish is a pysgod mor.
and a Microwave is a meicrodon

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 22 May, 2019, 10:11:08 pm
Ha, that came from a comedy panel show t’other day - I saw that  :thumbsup:


A microwave oven is called popedi ping (sic)  8) [size=78%] [/size]

I've just learnt that they are just "slang" terms and that
A Jellyfish is a pysgod mor.
and a Microwave is a meicrodon

Yes, but popty ping is a lot funner than a straight translation of microwave.
When I first learned Welsh, meicrodon was the name used in Gwynedd and popty ping was confined to Ynys Môn.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 May, 2019, 10:32:28 pm
Ha, that came from a comedy panel show t’other day - I saw that  :thumbsup:


A microwave oven is called popedi ping (sic)  8) [size=78%] [/size]

I've just learnt that they are just "slang" terms and that
A Jellyfish is a pysgod mor.
and a Microwave is a meicrodon

Someone on the wireless, possibly Sandi Toksvig, said that meicrodon sounded like a tiny Mafia boss.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: caerau on 22 May, 2019, 10:34:00 pm
Comedy potential every time. And enjoy the arch-welsh getting all annoyed :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 May, 2019, 03:28:26 pm
That in Poland you can be fined 150 zloty for cycling with a passenger who has more than 0.02% blood alcohol. Specifically, a passenger in a sidecar!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 May, 2019, 01:52:44 pm
That inhalers can be recycled:

https://www.dontwasteabreath.com/view/recycling_your_inhaler
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 27 May, 2019, 08:38:45 pm
not sure if they still are, but inhalers were one of the few things to escape the CFC elimination
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 May, 2019, 08:46:47 pm
not sure if they still are, but inhalers were one of the few things to escape the CFC elimination

Most of them changed, but I think CFC-based ones are still manufactured in small quantities for when needed, and get an unusual colour plastic part to denote that.

When beclometasone switched to HFA-134a (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,1,1,2-Tetrafluoroethane) propellant I found that I couldn't take two puffs on consecutive breaths without coughing (unless using a spacer).  Suspect that was a change in the ethanol content rather than an effect of the propellant itself.

*checks*  Yeah, the Salbutamol's using the same stuff.


The one that really pissed me off was Beconase (nasal spray) going from a CFC based aerosol to an aequeous spray.  I never used to get nosebleeds as a side-effect with the aerosol one.  (I'm using fluticasone these days.  Still get nosebleeds after prolonged use, but it's much more effective.  As such, it's best if the tree and grass pollen peaks overlap as much as possible.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 27 May, 2019, 09:31:19 pm
That inhalers can be recycled:

https://www.dontwasteabreath.com/view/recycling_your_inhaler

I always put mine in the household recycling, but it's no harm to take them to the local pharmacy - I have to go there anyway to collect the replacements.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 06 June, 2019, 12:31:03 pm
As a result of some early HBO-Chernobyl follow-up reading I have discovered that Craig Mazin, the creator/writer/executive producer
a) also wrote the screenplay for The Hangover 2 and The Hangover 3
b) was the room-mate of Ted Cruz in their first year at Princeton (I'd heard this before, but didn't know it was Mazin),and has tweeted frequently about how much he dislikes him, and how hypocritical he is: ( eg  'Ted Cruz thinks people don't have a right to "stimulate their genitals." I was his college roommate. This would be a new belief of his)'
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 June, 2019, 12:38:26 pm
That inhalers can be recycled:

https://www.dontwasteabreath.com/view/recycling_your_inhaler

I always put mine in the household recycling, but it's no harm to take them to the local pharmacy - I have to go there anyway to collect the replacements.

My understanding is that by treating them specially they can recover the propellant, which is a potent greenhouse gas, rather than just recycling the plastic and aluminium.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 June, 2019, 12:39:30 pm
Yesterday I learned about the redacted bits of Anne Frank's diary, which I somehow missed in spite of being a card-carrying bisexual.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 06 June, 2019, 01:00:19 pm
There was an updated version released in the 1990s that added her more personal notations, I presume there's other bits, there's always been a quandary since they come from her private diary that was intended to be just that and her father, as I understand, tried to preserve that.

Anyway, despite the grim situation, it mostly seems like she was most teenagers in trying to figuring out what her life would be like. Which makes it all the more extraordinarily sad when you know that none of it will happen.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 June, 2019, 01:28:49 pm
There was an updated version released in the 1990s that added her more personal notations, I presume there's other bits, there's always been a quandary since they come from her private diary that was intended to be just that and her father, as I understand, tried to preserve that.

Yes, and he was of his time.  It's easy to look down on the Nazis for their treatment of LGBT people, while forgetting that their persecution was continued by the allies after the camps were liberated. 


Quote
Anyway, despite the grim situation, it mostly seems like she was most teenagers in trying to figuring out what her life would be like. Which makes it all the more extraordinarily sad when you know that none of it will happen.

Indeed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 June, 2019, 04:57:52 pm
That the national anthem of Vanuatu is entitled Yumi, Yumi, Yumi, which is not nearly as funny in Bislama as it is in English.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 June, 2019, 07:23:51 am
The next line is I've got trumps in my dummy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 June, 2019, 12:25:08 pm
The next line is I've got trumps in my dummy.

Yumi, yumi, yumi i glat long talem se
Yumi, yumi, yumi ol man blong Vanuatu

Clicky for more than you could possibly want to know unless you plan to emigrate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yumi,_Yumi,_Yumi).

Of all the languages I might unprofitably learn to speak, Bislama is top of the list purely because the word "blong" is a delight in itself.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 June, 2019, 12:56:13 pm
Doesn't seem to be much French influence in their pidgin. But the best thing on that page is
Quote
Not to be confused with Yummy Yummy Yummy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 June, 2019, 08:25:19 pm
That in the 60s and 70s, they experimented with making electricity distribution cables out of metallic sodium (https://www.osti.gov/biblio/5949513).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 June, 2019, 08:56:33 am
That MrsT has had a Garmin Oregon 600 lying around unused for the last two years.  "Too much bother for what I do".

Yrs Trly doesn't mind bother.  O:-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 June, 2019, 02:50:32 pm
Also discovered that long-term metformin use doubles the risk of cognitive decline/dementia. Oh goody, now I've got an excuse to watch Ant Man.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 June, 2019, 01:03:35 pm
That to qualify as an island in the Thousand Islands of the St Lawrence River, a piece of land must have an area of at least 1 square foot and support at leat two living trees.  Visions of running amok with a chainsaw ensued.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 June, 2019, 01:04:53 pm
That to qualify as an island in the Thousand Islands of the St Lawrence River, a piece of land must have an area of at least 1 square foot and support at leat two living trees.  Visions of running amok with a chainsaw ensued.

Or a Hugh Grant movie about planting saplings.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 13 June, 2019, 05:05:54 pm
That the German phrase 'jemandem unter die Arme greifen'  (literally to grasp someone under the arms) means 'to help'.


There's a lovely Scots word for the literal meaning, or rather, to carry or drag somebody in that fashion - to oxtercog
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 15 June, 2019, 07:06:44 pm
That the Welsh for July, Gorffennaf, means End of Summer.  Bugger me.  When's it going to actually start?   :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 June, 2019, 08:14:58 pm
That given sufficiently ludicrous amounts of rain, parts of the new A38 cycleway would make a pretty good waterslide.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 June, 2019, 08:57:44 pm
Out in your swimmers tomorrow then?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 June, 2019, 09:15:43 pm
What I have learned today is that the Louisiana Purchase was made possible – necessary, from France's point of view – by the success of the Haitian Rebellion.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 15 June, 2019, 09:34:19 pm
What I have learned today is that the Louisiana Purchase was made possible – necessary, from France's point of view – by the success of the Haitian Rebellion.

France needed the money to supress the rebellion?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 15 June, 2019, 09:40:51 pm
What I have learned today is that the Louisiana Purchase was made possible – necessary, from France's point of view – by the success of the Haitian Rebellion.

France needed the money to supress the rebellion?

No, the Haitian Revolution persuaded the French that trying retain or build an empire in the New World wasn't a viable proposition any more.

(edited)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 June, 2019, 09:52:20 pm
And they needed money to replace the lost income from "the pearl of the Antilles" as it then was.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 15 June, 2019, 10:06:52 pm
But they kept French Guiana - as per Papillon etc
Saint Pierre et Micquelon
Various Pacific islands  - are they old world, along with the African colonies

As an aside, one of the strangest feelings was having flown into an ex- French Foreign Legion airstrip in Algeria, watching the plane bugger off again and dissapear. You know you're really in the middle of nowhere
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 15 June, 2019, 10:19:44 pm
That the German phrase 'jemandem unter die Arme greifen'  (literally to grasp someone under the arms) means 'to help'.


There's a lovely Scots word for the literal meaning, or rather, to carry or drag somebody in that fashion - to oxtercog

I learned today that I've forgotten something which I learned over ten years ago.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: bludger on 15 June, 2019, 10:40:37 pm
I learned today that fixed gear cogs can be removed on the bike without a chain whip by 'rotafixing' and using a lockring tool.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: essexian on 16 June, 2019, 06:57:17 am
Early this morning I discovered it is possible to sleep with a gout affected foot in a bowl of cold water.   :facepalm:

Helped the pain but four hours later the foot is still icy cold!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 June, 2019, 07:56:06 am
That the German phrase 'jemandem unter die Arme greifen'  (literally to grasp someone under the arms) means 'to help'.


There's a lovely Scots word for the literal meaning, or rather, to carry or drag somebody in that fashion - to oxtercog

I learned today that I've forgotten something which I learned over ten years ago.

Having a Killinchy oxter in Ireland means your arm's round a girl.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 June, 2019, 08:42:39 pm
Dexter Holland of The Offspring has a PhD in molecular biology.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 16 June, 2019, 09:03:11 pm
That the German phrase 'jemandem unter die Arme greifen'  (literally to grasp someone under the arms) means 'to help'.


There's a lovely Scots word for the literal meaning, or rather, to carry or drag somebody in that fashion - to oxtercog


I learned today that I've forgotten something which I learned over ten years ago.

Having a Killinchy oxter in Ireland means your arm's round a girl.

Oxter is the term for armpit I'd expect all kinds of derivatives.

Is there one such for 'crutch palsy' the wrist drop caused by pressure in the oxter?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 June, 2019, 09:07:42 pm
That the German phrase 'jemandem unter die Arme greifen'  (literally to grasp someone under the arms) means 'to help'.


There's a lovely Scots word for the literal meaning, or rather, to carry or drag somebody in that fashion - to oxtercog

I learned today that I've forgotten something which I learned over ten years ago.

Having a Killinchy oxter in Ireland means your arm's round a girl.
I wonder if that's a pun on it sounding a bit like clinch?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 June, 2019, 08:35:40 am
That the German phrase 'jemandem unter die Arme greifen'  (literally to grasp someone under the arms) means 'to help'.


There's a lovely Scots word for the literal meaning, or rather, to carry or drag somebody in that fashion - to oxtercog

I learned today that I've forgotten something which I learned over ten years ago.

Having a Killinchy oxter in Ireland means your arm's round a girl.
I wonder if that's a pun on it sounding a bit like clinch?

Killinchy is a village in Norn Iron, but more than that I don't know. I originally heard the term from my Latin master, in an end-of-term quiz. I don't think I've heard it since.

---o0o---

And I have learnt that for all it's touchy-screened and shiny, the Garmin Oregon doesn't include BPM & °C records in its exported GPX files. Have to go through Basecamp or similar. Soddem, I'll stick to my eTrex 30x.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 18 June, 2019, 11:21:05 am
That the German phrase 'jemandem unter die Arme greifen'  (literally to grasp someone under the arms) means 'to help'.


There's a lovely Scots word for the literal meaning, or rather, to carry or drag somebody in that fashion - to oxtercog


I learned today that I've forgotten something which I learned over ten years ago.

Having a Killinchy oxter in Ireland means your arm's round a girl.

Oxter is the term for armpit I'd expect all kinds of derivatives.

Is there one such for 'crutch palsy' the wrist drop caused by pressure in the oxter?


I ve never heard of one, but I know (now) that a crutch is sometimes called an oxterstick, and crutch palsy is also known as homeymoon palsy or Saturday night palsy.


There more deriviations of oxter on this blog (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2016/06/04/up-to-your-oxters-in-gaelic-expressions/&ved=2ahUKEwjvoeTH4fLiAhXGVRUIHWrPC6MQFjAPegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw2zyjgeetiWwzg5UT_--CK-), which reminded me of the Seamus Heaney verse:


In the deep pool at Portstewart, I waded in
Up to the chest, then stood there half-suspended
Like Vitruvian man, both legs wide apart,
Both arms out buoyant to the fingertips,
Oxter-cogged on water.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 24 June, 2019, 12:30:26 pm
If you drop a container load of trainers into the sea off the east coast of the southern USA, when they've crossed the Atlantic and start washing up on the coasts of Europe the left and right trainers tend to wash up separately on different beaches, sometimes in different countries.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 24 June, 2019, 12:52:10 pm
That the German phrase 'jemandem unter die Arme greifen'  (literally to grasp someone under the arms) means 'to help'.


There's a lovely Scots word for the literal meaning, or rather, to carry or drag somebody in that fashion - to oxtercog


I learned today that I've forgotten something which I learned over ten years ago.

Having a Killinchy oxter in Ireland means your arm's round a girl.

Oxter is the term for armpit I'd expect all kinds of derivatives.

Is there one such for 'crutch palsy' the wrist drop caused by pressure in the oxter?


I ve never heard of one, but I know (now) that a crutch is sometimes called an oxterstick, and crutch palsy is also known as homeymoon palsy or Saturday night palsy.


There more deriviations of oxter on this blog (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2016/06/04/up-to-your-oxters-in-gaelic-expressions/&ved=2ahUKEwjvoeTH4fLiAhXGVRUIHWrPC6MQFjAPegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw2zyjgeetiWwzg5UT_--CK-), which reminded me of the Seamus Heaney verse:


In the deep pool at Portstewart, I waded in
Up to the chest, then stood there half-suspended
Like Vitruvian man, both legs wide apart,
Both arms out buoyant to the fingertips,
Oxter-cogged on water.

Oddly when I search Oxter is given as scots/northern English and Uxter as Irish.
Yet i'd definitley call them Uxters

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 24 June, 2019, 05:19:41 pm
I'd never heard of 'champ' until I looked at the menu for the restaurant in the hotel I've booked for David in Armagh.

It's creamy potato mash and spring onions.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 June, 2019, 06:25:47 pm
I'd never heard of 'champ' until I looked at the menu for the restaurant in the hotel I've booked for David in Armagh.

It's creamy potato mash and spring onions.

You can, or could, buy it in Mr Sainsbury's House Of Toothy Comestibles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 24 June, 2019, 06:44:58 pm
I try to avoid too much pre-cooked food and it's usually well below anything for which I scroll down online.

David didn't know what it was when I asked him, but said he had eaten it on his trips to Ireland. He's been to Ireland several times though I have never been there. David has a cousin in Tralee and went to Kerry with some astronomer friends earlier this year.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 24 June, 2019, 06:53:13 pm
I thought champ could also include wilted shredded cabbage, or is that an inauthentic variant?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 24 June, 2019, 07:01:34 pm
I've heard that called colcannon, but they may be one and the same thing for all I know.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 24 June, 2019, 07:12:38 pm
My online search suggested there was a difference but I can't remember what...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 24 June, 2019, 07:16:24 pm
Anyway, it's probably a sort of onomatopoeic word for mash so any local variant will do. My late Flemish grandmother used to make 'stamp', which was a carrot and potato mash.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 24 June, 2019, 08:42:29 pm
Champ is mash with spring onions, Colcannon is mash with kale/cabbage (bubble and squeak when fried but that’s English, not Irish).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 24 June, 2019, 09:05:01 pm
bubble and squeak is any old left over veg, formed into patties and shallow fried - roast spuds, carrots,cabbage, sprouts...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 June, 2019, 02:14:51 pm
Champ is also a game that consists, IIRC, of throwing a ball at people to get them out when they're off base. Or something similar. But that's different. Anyway...

On Sunday I learned that when it opened, which I think was about 1875*, the Sharpness Canal was the deepest and broadest in the world.

Yesterday I learned that it's no longer possible to top up a phone from an ATM. Which is a nuisance.

*1827 in fact.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 25 June, 2019, 03:46:39 pm
That you're supposed to collect discharge paperwork when you leave A&E. 

My wife found this out when visiting the practice nurse this morning to get a cut (that which necessitated the original visit to A&E) re-dressed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 25 June, 2019, 05:17:24 pm

Yesterday I learned that it's no longer possible to top up a phone from an ATM. Which is a nuisance.


Really?  I thought it was some sort of temporary problem with my provider or bank.
Assumed all would be well if I just waited a few days.
Bugger.
So I suppose I'll have to do it online with yet more bleeding passwords.   >:(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 25 June, 2019, 05:25:13 pm

Yesterday I learned that it's no longer possible to top up a phone from an ATM. Which is a nuisance.


Really?  I thought it was some sort of temporary problem with my provider or bank.
Assumed all would be well if I just waited a few days.
Bugger.
So I suppose I'll have to do it online with yet more bleeding passwords.   >:(

I top mine up by phoning and using a card.
I think I had to register the card.

It's all automated and I don't speak to humans or need passwords.

I'm with EE.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 25 June, 2019, 05:34:24 pm
I'm with ee. I've occasionally had a card that they'd swipe in the local convenience store, but it always stopped working after a couple of months.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 25 June, 2019, 05:38:55 pm
I meant standard credit/debit card.

Dial 150 and take it from there.

Lines are closed overnight.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 June, 2019, 05:40:39 pm
It's nothing to do with the provider, cos they don't know that till you select(ed) it. I tried four different ATMS (Barclays, Lloyds, Sainsburys, Natwest) and all were the same – it's just not an option anymore. Perhaps it's temporary but that seems unlikely. I don't fancy registering a bank card with the phone, seems too much hassle and too much potential shit to go wrong if I should ever lose the phone or it got stolen. So I went into a shop and got a voucher. I assume the point is to push everyone onto accounts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 June, 2019, 05:43:34 pm
I meant standard credit/debit card.

Dial 150 and take it from there.

Lines are closed overnight.
Really? That's incredible! It means the only convenience over a voucher is if you're somewhere without shops (but with a signal) and it's daytime. I'm pretty sure you can use a voucher at night.

Do you have any clue as to why the lines are closed overnight?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 25 June, 2019, 06:44:00 pm
I dial 150 quite often to check my balance and have learned to do this  before too late. I don't know what time they shut up shop.

I think some options eventually lead to a Real HumanTM and it's cheaper not to employ these overnight when demand is low and overtime is high.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 25 June, 2019, 07:53:48 pm
I text 'bal' to 150 to check my balance.   Without the inverted commas obs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 25 June, 2019, 08:45:49 pm
I had a horrid moment on Sunday when I EE texted me that there was a problem with my bill and could I log into my account. In the meantime they were cutting me off (and I've not paid for data for a good five years now).

Except they haven't. And I don't have an EE account and they've discontinued their T-Mobile web presence so I have no way to access my old account (and it was never migrated to EE).

Oh well.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 June, 2019, 09:10:46 am
A Babbage-Engine rang me up the other day to tell me there was a problem with my BT Broadbean connection, of which I have none.  I was tempted to press "1" to tell the scammers to begone in person, but CBA.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 01 July, 2019, 01:04:27 pm
That my Echo Dot pulses yellow to advise it has "notifications" for me, such as my package being delivered today.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 01 July, 2019, 01:08:49 pm
That my Echo Dot pulses yellow to advise it has "notifications" for me, such as my package being delivered today.

I didn't know that, but ours hides behind a plant in the bedroom.

My addiction to Sonos gadgets means for laughs if I stand at the top of stairs and shout Alexa, I get loads of bongs as they wake up.

Yes, I'm having a dull day in the remote command centre.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: telstarbox on 03 July, 2019, 11:37:27 am
I've passed this sign in Surrey Quays many times and thought that maybe "Malibu" and "Laurel Canyon" were the exotic names of Southwark council estates, but it turns out it's a joke sign  :o

https://www.fixmystreet.com/report/312917
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 03 July, 2019, 11:36:24 pm
Makes me smile every time I pass it, that one - and I'm always astonished it has lasted so long.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 04 July, 2019, 12:23:23 pm
That my Echo Dot pulses yellow to advise it has "notifications" for me, such as my package being delivered today.

I didn't know that, but ours hides behind a plant in the bedroom.

My addiction to Sonos gadgets means for laughs if I stand at the top of stairs and shout Alexa, I get loads of bongs as they wake up.

Yes, I'm having a dull day in the remote command centre.

And now you can add google assistant too!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 04 July, 2019, 12:51:26 pm
Ooo, I wonder if they fight.

I note that Sonos are discontinuing the 'play from my iDevice' feature which is a tad annoying as that's what I usually did*, in favour of Airplay. Airplay is one of those things that, when it works, works really well. But when it doesn't work, and it often doesn't, requires an entire festival of switching things on and off.

*I have three Sonos Ones, and two of the older Plays which don't have Airplay**, so to use Airplay you have to send the signal to a One and then use the Sonos app to group the dumber Play.

**which I didn't realise when I bought them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 July, 2019, 01:12:40 pm
+1 to Airplay.  Ironically, using Airplay to a Denon amplifier is 100% reliable while using it to a FruitCo Airport is, er, not.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 04 July, 2019, 02:27:44 pm
Airplay, in my experience thus far, is fine till you try to switch to another device. Then the festival of vexation begins.

The trick seems to be just to connect to one Sonos (and don't change it) and use the Sonos app to group and play as necessary. A bit more faff than just playing it from the device through the Sonos app (admittedly, this didn't work from the bathroom owing to not enough wiffle rays, whereas Airplay does, and I need tunes in the bath).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 09 July, 2019, 08:47:50 pm
That there are things called Key Locked Thread Inserts. They do the same job as Helicoil inserts (repair banjaxed threads) but are installed using regular drills and taps.

Abom79, one of the cake decorating machinist YouTube channels I watch shows the installation.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 10 July, 2019, 08:16:35 am
That there are things called Key Locked Thread Inserts. They do the same job as Helicoil inserts (repair banjaxed threads) but are installed using regular drills and taps.

Abom79, one of the cake decorating machinist YouTube channels I watch shows the installation.
Yup, and I've got 2 or 3 1/4 UNF threads to do this winter on a 1973 Triumph Tiger 750 cylinder head.  Contemplating whether or not I have a go, or give it to a professional.  Abom makes it look so easy, but then he's got all the toys to get himself out of trouble if anything goes wrong. I mean, what could possibly go wrong on a semi-irreplaceable aluminium casting?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 10 July, 2019, 11:27:11 am
That there are things called Key Locked Thread Inserts. They do the same job as Helicoil inserts (repair banjaxed threads) but are installed using regular drills and taps.

Abom79, one of the cake decorating machinist YouTube channels I watch shows the installation.
Yup, and I've got 2 or 3 1/4 UNF threads to do this winter on a 1973 Triumph Tiger 750 cylinder head.  Contemplating whether or not I have a go, or give it to a professional.  Abom makes it look so easy, but then he's got all the toys to get himself out of trouble if anything goes wrong. I mean, what could possibly go wrong on a semi-irreplaceable aluminium casting?

"Hi Guys, welcome back to the shop. Here we've got a little project all the way from England where a guy attempted to install a Key Locked Thread insert, after I made it look so easy."

He did a serious bit of measuring before he went drilling.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 10 July, 2019, 01:25:55 pm
That there are things called Key Locked Thread Inserts. They do the same job as Helicoil inserts (repair banjaxed threads) but are installed using regular drills and taps.

Abom79, one of the cake decorating machinist YouTube channels I watch shows the installation.
Yup, and I've got 2 or 3 1/4 UNF threads to do this winter on a 1973 Triumph Tiger 750 cylinder head.  Contemplating whether or not I have a go, or give it to a professional.  Abom makes it look so easy, but then he's got all the toys to get himself out of trouble if anything goes wrong. I mean, what could possibly go wrong on a semi-irreplaceable aluminium casting?

"Hi Guys, welcome back to the shop. Here we've got a little project all the way from England where a guy attempted to install a Key Locked Thread insert, after I made it look so easy."
;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 July, 2019, 06:47:14 pm
That the wave in the famous Hokusai print is actually a "plunging breaker" not a tsunami.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 10 July, 2019, 08:16:20 pm
That the wave in the famous Hokusai print is actually a "plunging breaker" not a tsunami.

And the picture should be read from left to right.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 10 July, 2019, 08:27:23 pm
Right to left, surely?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 11 July, 2019, 04:46:38 pm
Ooops  :-[  Yes, of course! (My wife still asks if I mean "real right" when giving directions....)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 11 July, 2019, 04:55:00 pm
Finally (after about 50 years of Very Careful Measuring) I worked out how to easily hang something with concealed double keyhole slots on the back. Cardboard is your friend.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 July, 2019, 05:05:49 pm
Finally (after about 50 years of Very Careful Measuring) I worked out how to easily hang something with concealed double keyhole slots on the back. Cardboard is your friend.

We've got a pile of friends in that case.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 11 July, 2019, 08:22:07 pm
Ooops  :-[  Yes, of course! (My wife still asks if I mean "real right" when giving directions....)

As any fool knows, metric right is imperial left, and imperial right is metric left. It is not the fault of the instructee if the instructor doesn't specify whether imperial or metric directions are being given.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 July, 2019, 08:33:24 pm
I always give directions in the Réaumur scale.  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 11 July, 2019, 09:29:22 pm
Yesterday I learned a new word: otiose (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/otiose).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 11 July, 2019, 10:08:22 pm
Yesterday I learned a new word: otiose (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/otiose).
I learned that word yesterday as well. I suspect we learned it from the same tweetee.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 11 July, 2019, 10:42:32 pm
Hmm, I used that word in an email on Monday.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 11 July, 2019, 10:50:18 pm
Hmm, I used that word in an email on Monday.
You are our original sauce AICMFP 😛
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 11 July, 2019, 11:01:24 pm
I do wonder if I imagined the entire internet.

This happened with bears. One night as I dozed off I thought up an animal, kind of like a big dog that really liked going to the loo in the woods, and would do anything for honey. The next day I was reading the paper, and there it was, a story about an animal called a bear. So basically I invented bears. I'm not even asking for a royalty.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 July, 2019, 11:02:07 pm
I do wonder if I imagined the entire internet.

I think that was Al Gore.  You may have imagined him.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 11 July, 2019, 11:09:38 pm
It's quite possible. A lot of things pass through my mind as I fall asleep, who knows which ones get actioned.

We've just hired a Jess at work. As you might remember, Jess is my favourite vampire ex-librarian and occasional saver of the world. That's an entirely different Jess though. My brain however confuses them. This is eventually going to result in a more generalized confusion and possible logical decoherence. I am wondering now if the undead Jess would actually like a job in a corporate mothership. Things can only get better*.

*Oh boy, now that song is in my head. Awesome.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 11 July, 2019, 11:48:13 pm
Now this is getting surreal because Dr Beardy (Mrs) has a colleague called Jess who has just quit to take up another role at a different institution.
I’m now going to go to bed before any more weird shit happens.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 July, 2019, 08:01:23 am
My Inlaw Maw was called Jessie.  De mortuis nil nisi bonum so nuff said.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jaded on 12 July, 2019, 08:15:05 am
Jess stop it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 July, 2019, 09:13:18 am
Yesterday I learned a new word: otiose (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/otiose).
I didn't know it had meanings 2 and 3. Not sure I've ever used it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 12 July, 2019, 09:45:43 am
I have learned (well, yesterday) that:

1) I am an utter and thoroughgoing div. Well, not learned, just reinforced
2) The steel that bottom bearings are made from means that it is not practical, faced with a seized drive side bearing, to grind off the face and then hacksaw through to remove. Trying to do so leaves a conundrum that will need a chunk of metal welded on to the stub of the bearing, and has potentially trashed the frame. See item (1). I may try a diamond blade on a reciprocating saw, hacksaw just slides over.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 12 July, 2019, 01:55:01 pm
Thought the standard technique for a siezed fixed cup was to put the largest nut and bolt that will fit through the bearing and then tighten it with the biggest spanner you can find.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 July, 2019, 03:40:54 pm
Yesterday I learned a new word: otiose (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/otiose).
I didn't know it had meanings 2 and 3. Not sure I've ever used it.

Did you notice the 2nd US pronunciation? "Odious".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vince on 13 July, 2019, 12:20:23 pm
That there are things called Key Locked Thread Inserts. They do the same job as Helicoil inserts (repair banjaxed threads) but are installed using regular drills and taps.

Abom79, one of the cake decorating machinist YouTube channels I watch shows the installation.
Big Brother is watching us! This very video has just popped up in my feed, and it is a contributor I have not watched before, although I have watched the output of other cake decorators machinists.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 13 July, 2019, 12:36:17 pm
I discovered that some people with spinal injuries are unable to sweat and to properly maintain body temperature in cold weather.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 13 July, 2019, 01:04:17 pm
That there are things called Key Locked Thread Inserts. They do the same job as Helicoil inserts (repair banjaxed threads) but are installed using regular drills and taps.

Abom79, one of the cake decorating machinist YouTube channels I watch shows the installation.
I am liking these very much.
I have always considered Helicoil inserts to be off the scale on the bodge-o-meter.
Who thought that replacing a thread in a solid material with a spring was a good idea?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: matthew on 14 July, 2019, 07:18:15 am
That there are things called Key Locked Thread Inserts. They do the same job as Helicoil inserts (repair banjaxed threads) but are installed using regular drills and taps.

Abom79, one of the cake decorating machinist YouTube channels I watch shows the installation.
Big Brother is watching us! This very video has just popped up in my feed, and it is a contributor I have not watched before, although I have watched the output of other cake decorators machinists.

The same thing happened to me. I suspect it is an overlap with the followers of project binky.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 14 July, 2019, 12:04:43 pm
I discovered that some people with spinal injuries are unable to sweat and to properly maintain body temperature in cold weather.

I damaged some nerves on my scalp so when I so much as sniff vinegar, water pours off my scalp in a Niagaran cascade. It's my party trick (admittedly my bookings as a children's entertainer are down). On the downside, I can only eat buffalo wings alone and with the towel. Which, now I've written it, sounds very wrong. But I love buffalo wings, so.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 14 July, 2019, 03:13:32 pm
I discovered that some people with spinal injuries are unable to sweat and to properly maintain body temperature in cold weather.

I damaged some nerves on my scalp so when I so much as sniff vinegar, water pours off my scalp in a Niagaran cascade. It's my party trick (admittedly my bookings as a children's entertainer are down). On the downside, I can only eat buffalo wings alone and with the towel. Which, now I've written it, sounds very wrong. But I love buffalo wings, so.

Of all you've written, it's only this that seems very wrong?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 15 July, 2019, 09:34:12 am
I neglected to mention the swimming trunks. No sense soaking a clean shirt. Plus the sauce gets everywhere.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 July, 2019, 06:33:05 pm
That vaping is illegal in Australia. Or might technically be legal but only if it contains zero nicotine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 July, 2019, 07:19:26 pm
But you can buy cigarettes in packs of up to 50.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 17 July, 2019, 10:12:17 pm
The right way to pronounce ukulele is  "OO-koo-LEH-leh"

Demonstrated here by Taimane Gardner the Hawaiian ukulele virtuoso:

https://youtu.be/FDQwz3IZYbM
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 July, 2019, 07:55:32 am
Sure, but then you have to pronounce virtuoso as VIRT-OO-OH-SO, it being just as furrin as ukulele.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 18 July, 2019, 11:42:48 am
Sure, but then you have to pronounce virtuoso as VIRT-OO-OH-SO, it being just as furrin as ukulele.

True and I aren't going to start pronouncing it the Hawaiian way I just thought it was interesting.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 July, 2019, 01:21:20 pm
You'd get funny lyooks if you did.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 19 July, 2019, 07:25:20 pm
You'd get funny lyooks if you did.

Unless I happened to br in Hawaii.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 July, 2019, 08:20:59 am
Come to think of it, that pretty well applies to anywhere they don't speak English.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 July, 2019, 04:17:00 pm
That an SO24 is nothing at all to with an S24O.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 July, 2019, 06:41:23 pm
is that related to H2SO4?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 22 July, 2019, 06:54:18 pm
I think that Cudzo's referring to Standing Order 24, under which emergency debates can be held in the House of Commons.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmstords/1154/body.htm#24

ETA - See the news regarding Sir Alan Duncan's resignation

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49069880
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1153306900638916609
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 July, 2019, 08:20:01 pm
yes, saw that news, rats, sinking ships etc
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 July, 2019, 08:21:24 pm
Yes, that. And S24O = sub 24 hour overnight, or microadventure, as I expect you know.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 22 July, 2019, 08:36:37 pm
Well I do now. ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 July, 2019, 09:05:59 pm
that makes 2 of us
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 23 July, 2019, 02:56:22 pm
Tottenham Court Road, a one way street running Northbound since roughly forever, is now a two way street. I learned this today by stepping from the kerb after having looked to the south, where I'd expect the mighty roar of London's traffic to come from. Fortunately I also had a peek in the other direction in case of errant Bloody Cyclists.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 July, 2019, 03:08:54 pm
I cycled along Tottenham Court Road recently, and was intrigued to discover that  a) prostitutes are still advertising in phone boxes  and  b) there are still phone boxes.  Presumably the boxes, and quite possibly the adverts within, have some sort of protected heritage status.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 July, 2019, 04:43:50 pm
In rural areas these are usually swap boxes, where villagers swap unwanted books and bric a brac with each other. London, of course, has a more cash-oriented economy...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 23 July, 2019, 06:51:56 pm
Not necessarily the red ones, but many public phones are being installed new, as a loophole in the law means that they can be used as advertising space without planning (allegedly)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 July, 2019, 07:24:27 pm
Not necessarily the red ones, but many public phones are being installed new, as a loophole in the law means that they can be used as advertising space without planning (allegedly)
I cycled along Tottenham Court Road recently, and was intrigued to discover that  a) prostitutes are still advertising in phone boxes  and  b) there are still phone boxes.  Presumably the boxes, and quite possibly the adverts within, have some sort of protected heritage status.
Yes, I do know that's not what you meant!

And I'm pretty sure some of the old-style multi-pane red boxes do have conservation status. Just the boxes, not the equipment. Nor the cards, though maybe if there were one with an 0171 number?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 23 July, 2019, 07:32:44 pm
One of my mates hasa phone box (at least one, maybe two or three), that are on rheir original sites.

He usses them for community art intsallations.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 23 July, 2019, 07:37:43 pm
That  people who live wher I live are called Calis, aftuer our address, which is Tai California.

There are eight of us...

It's better* than being a Cardi, or a Cofi, or a Hwntw.there are thousands of them!

*
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 24 July, 2019, 02:38:46 pm
I learned today that skiving home at midday, on a day such as today, means that your cycling clothes have not had time to dry.

[ed: ewwwww]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 24 July, 2019, 02:47:34 pm
I learned today that skiving home at midday, on a day such as today, means that your cycling clothes have not had time to dry.

[ed: ewwwww]
Not really an issue Ona day like today because 26½ seconds into your ride they’ll be saturated in any case.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 July, 2019, 03:42:17 pm
That the English equivalent of the French term GAFA is FAANG. Roughly speaking.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 24 July, 2019, 03:55:46 pm
That ironing on a day like today is counter productive. If I drip any more I’m going to have to wash the clothes again. I’ll try again this evening.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 24 July, 2019, 06:38:24 pm
What is this 'ironing' of which you post?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 July, 2019, 06:42:15 pm
One of the good things about living in India was the ironing men (and women) on every other corner. Your clothes ironed and folded for 3 rupees a garment by a Telugite (usually, for some reason) with a massive cast iron contraption filled with hot charcoal.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 24 July, 2019, 08:29:07 pm
What is this 'ironing' of which you post?
Dr Beardy (Mrs) likes her frocks and blouses crease free for work. Normally this is a task that she undertakes herself, but she’s been very busy at work recently and the ironing has built up. As the kept man, I’ve had to step up to the plate as it were.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 28 July, 2019, 07:20:11 pm
Don’t leave tools at your semi senile parents house, unless you want to turn the place upside down trying to find where they’ve been tidied away.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 28 July, 2019, 07:31:43 pm
Don’t leave tools at your semi senile parents house, unless you want to turn the place upside down trying to find where they’ve been tidied away.

Better than attempts at using them, I suppose...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 28 July, 2019, 08:34:27 pm
That there is such a thing as the Hornet mimicking Hoverfly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 07 August, 2019, 12:34:18 pm
That Scotland still has £1 notes
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 07 August, 2019, 03:29:42 pm
That Scotland still has £1 notes

It's been a looooooooong time since I've seen one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 07 August, 2019, 04:12:51 pm
That Scotland still has £1 notes

It's been a looooooooong time since I've seen one.

Coffee shop/small supermarket in Bruichladdich, the lady was telling me that there is a customer around there who draws her weekly shopping money in pound notes, insists on it, so the area is saturated.  I should have kept it really, but I'd been given it by mistake instead of a fiver.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 08 August, 2019, 07:15:10 am
That Scotland still has £1 notes

So does Jersey. I have three from my trip a couple of weeks ago.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 08 August, 2019, 06:25:07 pm
That the DVLA couldn't find its collective arse with both hands, a map and a searchlight.

Five or six weeks ago a note from DVLA confirming that I am no longer the owner/keeper of {cranky old grid}.
A week or so after that a, very small, refund on unused tax.
Today....  wait for it, wait for it ....

.... a reminder to tax {cranky old grid}.

Pathetic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 08 August, 2019, 07:32:33 pm
I cycled along Tottenham Court Road recently, and was intrigued to discover that  a) prostitutes are still advertising in phone boxes  and  b) there are still phone boxes.  Presumably the boxes, and quite possibly the adverts within, have some sort of protected heritage status.


Tart cards, part of the history.  With 01 or 07 numbers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 August, 2019, 10:06:30 pm
More than I ever wanted to know about TNC connectors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNC_connector), and their mirrorverse evil twins, reverse-polarity TNC connectors.  I'll save some time and post my rant from IRC:

<kim> apparently this was a connector so stupid it would have faded into obscurity, if manufacturers of pro wifi kit hadn't jumped on it as a deliberate source of incompatibility to circumvent a regulatory hurdle
* kim thinks . o O ( SITUATION: There are now 15 competing standards (https://xkcd.com/927/) )
<kim> oh, and it's entirely possible to mate a male TNC with a female RP-TNC
<kim> in that the connector screws on
<kim> but the inner cores are both female, and just sit there playing lesbian sheep while the signal fails to jump the gap
[...]
<kim> i also note that i got the connectors wrong in the above example.  it's male RP-TNC and female TNC that mate ineffectually
<kim> told you this was confusing
[...]
<kim> i've just invented the left-hand-threaded TNC connector
* kim runs to the patent office
<kim> oh, rule 34 bastards: https://www.air802.com/TNC-Reverse-Thread-Left-Hand-Plug-Male-Crimp-Coax-Connector-RG8-AIR802-CA400-LMR400-Belden-9913-Cable.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 August, 2019, 08:00:10 am
I cycled along Tottenham Court Road recently, and was intrigued to discover that  a) prostitutes are still advertising in phone boxes  and  b) there are still phone boxes.  Presumably the boxes, and quite possibly the adverts within, have some sort of protected heritage status.


Tart cards, part of the history.  With 01 or 07 numbers.

I used to know someone who could tell fortunes from Tarot ca... oh.  ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 August, 2019, 12:36:48 pm
I cycled along Tottenham Court Road recently, and was intrigued to discover that  a) prostitutes are still advertising in phone boxes  and  b) there are still phone boxes.  Presumably the boxes, and quite possibly the adverts within, have some sort of protected heritage status.


Tart cards, part of the history.  With 01 or 07 numbers.

I used to know someone who could tell fortunes from Tarot ca... oh.  ::-)

I see a bottle-blonde stranger...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 August, 2019, 09:40:04 am
Peroxide ad astra.

NEway, today I haz lurnt that forgetting is actually an important brain function, which means that my brain is working better and better these daze.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: perpetual dan on 16 August, 2019, 04:43:11 pm
Reading my travel insurance I learnt that Ostrich riding and racing are a thing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 August, 2019, 05:07:33 pm
That in Ireland, handball is not a sort of upper-limb football but something akin to squash. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_handball
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: bludger on 16 August, 2019, 05:11:41 pm
Sounds like a more developed form of the august sport of south london schoolkids, patball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patball
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 August, 2019, 05:41:46 pm
There must be hundreds of similar but not identical games, with more being developed all the time as kids (and adults) start playing each game a little bit differently. It would be fascinating/frustrating/pointless to trace the "genealogy" of them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 August, 2019, 05:45:42 pm
Surely Calvinball's good enough for anyone?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 16 August, 2019, 06:01:01 pm
Reading my travel insurance I learnt that Ostrich riding and racing are a thing.

As in, if you bork yourself doing it, the in-sewer ants won't pay out?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 16 August, 2019, 08:29:52 pm
Surely Calvinball's good enough for anyeveryone?
FTFY  :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ashaman42 on 16 August, 2019, 09:29:49 pm
Surely Calvinball's good enough for anyone?
Except on reverse day
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: perpetual dan on 16 August, 2019, 09:53:35 pm
Reading my travel insurance I learnt that Ostrich riding and racing are a thing.

As in, if you bork yourself doing it, the in-sewer ants won't pay out?
Yes, unless i pay them more than i already have.

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 August, 2019, 12:24:59 pm
My first example is sports related.  (Sorry)

I read today that JPR Williams never, ever lost to England.  He won 12 times!

JPR Williams 12 – England 0

Gosh.  I remember from my youth that he was great, but I never knew he was that great.

What did you learn today?
Another thing about 12s. The chance of 12 girls being born in a row is exactly the same as the chance of having 6 boys followed by 6 girls. Well of course, seems obvious when you put it like that. Apparently this is part of the "blade of grass paradox".
Quote
This is all part of what eminent mathematician (and magician) Persi Diaconis calls “the blade of grass paradox”. Suppose you walk into a field and pluck one blade of grass out of the ground. There were millions of blades which you could have picked, and no matter which one you picked the odds of you getting that particular one were one in several million. Every possible outcome is extremely unlikely, but one of them has to happen.
Quote
If we go back to the Polish babies, the exact sequence GGBBGBGBBGBB (G for girl and B for boy) also has a 1/4096 chance of happening. That’s because it is achieved by 12 consecutive random events, each with a probability of ½, just the same as the sequence GGGGGGGGGGGG. But if this had happened over the past decade in Miejsce Odrzanskie, then nobody would have paid the slightest bit of attention because it seems more “normal”.
https://theconversation.com/polish-village-hasnt-seen-a-boy-born-in-nearly-10-years-heres-how-that-computes-122176
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 24 August, 2019, 06:18:38 pm
I learned a new way to deal with a snapped gear cable from another rider on PBP.

Carry a short length of gear cable (nipple end) and a short length of outer.

Remove snapped cable and outer loop from mech.
Thread short length of cable through the short lenght of outer till the nipple bottoms out on the outer and cant be pulled through any more.

Insert this into the mech, apply some pre tension on the mech and clamp the cable.

You then have a range of adjustment using the barrel adjuster. No messing with limit screws etc.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 24 August, 2019, 06:43:19 pm
Or carry a whole cable ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 August, 2019, 07:44:53 pm
It's a good bodge if your snapped cable hasn't gone at the nipple end, tho.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 24 August, 2019, 07:48:11 pm
It's a good bodge if your snapped cable hasn't gone at the nipple end, tho.
Now that is neat.

Though I've never had a gear cable snap anywhere else other than at the nipple end.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 August, 2019, 07:51:45 pm
It's a good bodge if your snapped cable hasn't gone at the nipple end, tho.
Now that is neat.

Though I've never had a gear cable snap anywhere else other than at the nipple end.

I've had them go at the clamp point on the front mech.  Might be a recumbent thing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 24 August, 2019, 11:03:00 pm
Unless I'm missing something it's a single-speed 'get you to the next control' bodge, right? One advantage of using DT shifters is that replacing a snapped gear cable is nearly as quick as any other temp fix.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 25 August, 2019, 08:25:24 am
That there's enough Al RF shielding inside a dead laptop power brick to make a good number of trim tabs and other v. thin sheet parts for model aeroplanes. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 27 August, 2019, 10:06:31 am
That “Wagamama” means something like  “wilful and self centred” and that the restaurant chain of the same name prefer “naughty child” as a translation.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 27 August, 2019, 12:28:14 pm
That there's enough Al RF shielding inside a dead laptop power brick to make a good number of trim tabs and other v. thin sheet parts for model aeroplanes.
Hmmmm.........<goes off to find and break open some old electronics.....>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 August, 2019, 12:55:48 pm
That “Wagamama” means something like  “wilful and self centred” and that the restaurant chain of the same name prefer “naughty child” as a translation.
So now I'm wondering if "waga" is a proper Japanese word or if it's a borrowed word like "mama". And also wondering how widely recognised the word would be in Japan. And as for learning things, I've learned (presumably from the same source) that it's a British chain: I tend to assume (overly cynically? or insufficiently cynically?) that all these chains are USA in origin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 27 August, 2019, 02:36:13 pm
It was a Japanese colleague who recognised the word when we were discussing “Japanese” restaurants in th UK.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 August, 2019, 02:40:01 pm
Okay! I googled something like "what does wagamama mean?" and the first hit was Wikipedia, with a sentence almost identical to yours. Which is where I learnt it's a British chain. I've never been to one so it doesn't really matter!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 27 August, 2019, 08:27:30 pm
That there's enough Al RF shielding inside a dead laptop power brick to make a good number of trim tabs and other v. thin sheet parts for model aeroplanes.
Hmmmm.........<goes off to find and break open some old electronics.....>
If it's power bricks you'll need a hacksaw blade to crack the casing and don't cut too deep or you'll ruin that lovely thin* sheet. :)

Dead electronic bits, esp Mice, are a surprisingly good source of v. tiny screws which are likewise jolly handy in the building of small model aeroplanes.

*Haven't taken the calipers to it yet, but first order approximation says 10 thou.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 August, 2019, 09:18:52 pm
If it's power bricks you'll need a hacksaw blade to crack the casing and don't cut too deep or you'll ruin that lovely thin* sheet. :)

I believe the saying is "With a Dremel and flat-head screwdriver, *everything* contains user-serviceable parts", though whoever came up with that left putting the case back together as an exercise for the reader.

A spudger (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/iSesamo-spudger-repair-opening-pry-tool-for-iPhone-and-iPad/163830824749) is useful for cracking into consumer electronics things, though mains power supplies tend to be glued or ultrasonically welded shut to stop the electrons falling out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 August, 2019, 08:18:51 am
Thought it was "a sliding spanner and a four-pound hammer" myself, or was that basic bike maintenance?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 28 August, 2019, 05:59:30 pm
Most of my really, really small fasteners have come from dead mice and hard drives.  Well, anything smaller than 1/4 Whit anyway.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 29 August, 2019, 02:50:58 am
That a company called Burtles produces the "Aircraft" blouson. This has twin fans in the kidney area that can run for 12 hours, keeping the wearer ventilated and somewhat cooler and fresher than the 34C / 93% humidity environment that is Yokohama today.
https://global.rakuten.com/en/store/worktk/item/bt-ac1001-l-b/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Chris S on 29 August, 2019, 10:32:26 am
That there is a music genre called "shoegaze". So named because performers of such music appear to be staring at their feet as they operate foot pedals!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 07 September, 2019, 04:34:45 pm
1. There is such a thing as a spudger.

2. The reason our front garden wall appears to be subsiding. Who the hell puts a DPC in a garden wall? It has been slowly sliding off its footings since it was built.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 September, 2019, 04:55:27 pm
When I was 15 I spent most of my summer holidays hacking the bottom 18" of plaster off the ground-floor walls of our house, applying bitumen and replastering.  The wretched builder had put a DPC under the flooring and a DPC in the walls, but hadn't joined the two so that the plaster wicked up the moisture, softened and bulged out under the wallpaper, which also looked a bit sad.

No compensation from the builder, either: he had started a firm to build & sell the houses then pocketed the money and closed down. You could do that easily in the 1950s.  He was 12 years gone by the time my dad decided to tackle the walls himself, and I pitched in as well. As it happened I did 90% of it - horrible job.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 08 September, 2019, 02:52:48 pm
That the term “Jizz” means “the overall impression or appearance of a bird garnered from such features as shape, posture, flying style or other habitual movements....”. Furthermore “experienced birders can often make reliable identifications.... by using jizz”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 08 September, 2019, 03:11:59 pm
1. There is such a thing as a spudger.

2. The reason our front garden wall appears to be subsiding. Who the hell puts a DPC in a garden wall? It has been slowly sliding off its footings since it was built.

There is also such a thing as a podger.
I have a 17mm, two-way ratcheting one.
It used to be very useful for undoing the nut on the eccentric rear axle on my Honda 650.
Mostly, scaffolders/riggers use podgers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 08 September, 2019, 04:33:19 pm
The pointy end is used to align bolt holes, by inserting and levering.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 08 September, 2019, 04:43:54 pm
That the term “Jizz” means “the overall impression or appearance of a bird garnered from such features as shape, posture, flying style or other habitual movements....”. Furthermore “experienced birders can often make reliable identifications.... by using jizz”.

You've some spunk, posting that...  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 08 September, 2019, 07:47:14 pm
Quote from: Jurek
There is also such a thing as a Podger.
And a damn fine fiddle player she is too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 08 September, 2019, 08:05:54 pm
The pointy end is used to align bolt holes, by inserting and levering.
Indeed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 September, 2019, 08:11:42 pm
1. There is such a thing as a spudger.

Yeah, anyone who's had the misfortune to attempt to repair modern consumer electronics (and particularly the products of the Mega-Global Fruit Corporation of Cupertino, USAnia) knows all about them.  Best operated in combination with misplaced optimism and harsh language.

If you're in the market of a spudger, the iSesamo ones are good.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 08 September, 2019, 08:16:24 pm
1. There is such a thing as a spudger.

Yeah, anyone who's had the misfortune to attempt to repair modern consumer electronics (and particularly the products of the Mega-Global Fruit Corporation of Cupertino, USAnia) knows all about them.  Best operated in combination with misplaced optimism and harsh language.

If you're in the market of a spudger, the iSesamo ones are good.
Noted.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 08 September, 2019, 09:37:48 pm
That the term “Jizz” means “the overall impression or appearance of a bird garnered from such features as shape, posture, flying style or other habitual movements....”. Furthermore “experienced birders can often make reliable identifications.... by using jizz”.
Guardian weekend quiz?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 08 September, 2019, 10:33:06 pm
The derivation of riff raff from the original french verbs which also explains rifling through garments and the rifling of gun barrels. Known to go back at least to the 14th century apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 September, 2019, 08:47:25 am
1. There is such a thing as a spudger.

Yeah, anyone who's had the misfortune to attempt to repair modern consumer electronics (and particularly the products of the Mega-Global Fruit Corporation of Cupertino, USAnia) knows all about them.  Best operated in combination with misplaced optimism and harsh language.

If you're in the market of a spudger, the iSesamo ones are good.

Guitar picks make a decent substitute for popping devices open. Better than fingernails anyway.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuaran on 12 September, 2019, 12:28:45 am
Berlin is further north than London.
(useful facts learned from random Sporcle quizzes)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 September, 2019, 12:36:50 am
Berlin is further north than London.
(useful facts learned from random Sporcle quizzes)
Sounds reasonable. That Berlin is further north than London, I mean, not learning facts from Sporcle. Students in Poland often asked why Britain didn't have much snow when "you're so far north," to which I pointed out a) maritime effect b) southern England is same latitude as southern Poland and Warsaw is north of London. But mostly a, of course.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 September, 2019, 03:20:18 pm
Peel-dirty barcode labels can be removed with a hair dryer or heat gun on a low setting.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 13 September, 2019, 05:40:24 am
1. There is such a thing as a spudger.

2. The reason our front garden wall appears to be subsiding. Who the hell puts a DPC in a garden wall? It has been slowly sliding off its footings since it was built.

There is also such a thing as a podger.
I have a 17mm, two-way ratcheting one.
It used to be very useful for undoing the nut on the eccentric rear axle on my Honda 650.
Mostly, scaffolders/riggers use podgers.

Also known as a carrot due to its shape
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 13 September, 2019, 09:09:28 am
That the term “Jizz” means “the overall impression or appearance of a bird garnered from such features as shape, posture, flying style or other habitual movements....”. Furthermore “experienced birders can often make reliable identifications.... by using jizz”.
That the term Jizz can mean something completely different to what I know it to mean.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 September, 2019, 01:14:29 pm
Peel-dirty barcode labels can be removed with a hair dryer or heat gun on a low setting.

That once you've done this you still have to get the glue out of the wood.  It's oak, too - €€€ :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 13 September, 2019, 04:46:20 pm
Peel-dirty barcode labels can be removed with a hair dryer or heat gun on a low setting.

That once you've done this you still have to get the glue out of the wood.  It's oak, too - €€€ :(
IPA?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 September, 2019, 05:16:17 pm
India Pale Ale?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 13 September, 2019, 05:31:34 pm
India Pale Ale?

Isopropyl alcohol, aka rubbing alcohol/surgical spirit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 September, 2019, 05:42:22 pm
India Pale Ale?

Isopropyl alcohol, aka rubbing alcohol/surgical spirit.

AIUI surgical spirit's only IPA for leftpondians.  BRITISH surgical spirit is the standard meths mixture of ethanol and methanol, with methyl salicylate for grazed knee flashbacks instead of the bitter purple stuff.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 13 September, 2019, 09:53:31 pm
India Pale Ale?

Isopropyl alcohol, aka rubbing alcohol/surgical spirit.

AIUI surgical spirit's only IPA for leftpondians.  BRITISH surgical spirit is the standard meths mixture of ethanol and methanol, with methyl salicylate for grazed knee flashbacks instead of the bitter purple stuff.
The purple stuff is only bitter to prevent one from ingesting it.
The bitterness works.
DNAHIKT.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 September, 2019, 08:28:29 am
Always thought the surgical spirit was "if in doubt, cut it out".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: essexian on 14 September, 2019, 08:34:53 am
What a light pink/blue and white flag means  :thumbsup:

I was at both Worcester train stations on Thursday and noticed they were both decked out with the normal Pride flag. Not sure why but its nice to see. However, at Foregate Street I noted a pink/blue and white flag I'd not seen before so I have just looked it up. Have a thumbs up too!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 14 September, 2019, 10:50:13 am
I think the point is, you're now supposed to tell us as well
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 September, 2019, 11:28:29 am
What a light pink/blue and white flag means  :thumbsup:

Tonight's homework:  Magenta/purple/blue flag.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: essexian on 14 September, 2019, 12:25:09 pm
I think the point is, you're now supposed to tell us as well

Sorry, didn't think to do so.

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

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 September, 2019, 04:28:03 pm
Dartmouth Vexillology 101: "We tried to fly Nelson's Signal and all these lovely people turned up!"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 14 September, 2019, 05:27:47 pm
What a light pink/blue and white flag means  :thumbsup:

Tonight's homework:  Magenta/purple/blue flag.
I'm going to guess it's a bisexuality indicator/pride flag.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andyoxon on 14 September, 2019, 11:18:59 pm
Multitools are pretty hopeless if one needs to adjust H & L limit screws on the FD...  mrsao needed a new FD gear cable mid ride, but had to continue without the big ring...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 15 September, 2019, 09:33:18 am
I think the point is, you're now supposed to tell us as well

Sorry, didn't think to do so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_flags
This seems apt for it:
"It was flown from the large public flagpole in San Francisco's Castro District ..." - although 'Castra' would be better.
MK has a fixed-site Pride Festival this weekend - I thought about going there and then realised that MK could be a bit crowded for some other reason.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 September, 2019, 09:55:59 am
Talking of Pride, I was in Gloucester yesterday and saw the revellers of Gloucester Pride. It made me wonder, again, why different places hold <Place> Pride on different dates, and more so it reinforced my observation that Pride events are mostly an excuse for straight people to get pissed in public while wearing bright colours. Which isn't necessarily an entirely bad thing but can need some containment.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 September, 2019, 12:00:58 pm
Talking of Pride, I was in Gloucester yesterday and saw the revellers of Gloucester Pride. It made me wonder, again, why different places hold <Place> Pride on different dates

So the dedicated QUILTBAGs, particularly those of regional or national organisations, can go to more than one of them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 15 September, 2019, 12:12:39 pm
Talking of flags, did anyone see the last night of the proms?  The American singer brought out a rainbow flag and waved it vigorously during her rendition of Rool Britannia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 15 September, 2019, 12:20:43 pm
The singer's dress/cloak was also in bi flag colours.

It's a shame it was during one of the ongoing bastions of colonialism which caused a lot of anti-same-sex laws in various parts of the world... So both 'yay' and what they call pinkwashing....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 September, 2019, 12:28:56 pm
Talking of Pride, I was in Gloucester yesterday and saw the revellers of Gloucester Pride. It made me wonder, again, why different places hold <Place> Pride on different dates

So the dedicated QUILTBAGs, particularly those of regional or national organisations, can go to more than one of them.
A remarkably sensible reason.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 September, 2019, 01:38:40 pm
Talking of Pride, I was in Gloucester yesterday and saw the revellers of Gloucester Pride. It made me wonder, again, why different places hold <Place> Pride on different dates

So the dedicated QUILTBAGs, particularly those of regional or national organisations, can go to more than one of them.
A remarkably sensible reason.

And a great marketing opportunity for the railways.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 September, 2019, 01:48:45 pm
The railways have their own pride events and rainbow staff badges etc.
https://www.gwr.com/destinations-and-events/festivals-and-events/pride-with-gwr
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 15 September, 2019, 02:03:06 pm
The singer's dress/cloak was also in bi flag colours.

It's a shame it was during one of the ongoing bastions of colonialism which caused a lot of anti-same-sex laws in various parts of the world... So both 'yay' and what they call pinkwashing....

The singer is Jamie Barton. Reading her bio on the interwebs, I don't think she had the rainbow flag and bi flag colours especially for the Last Night of the proms.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 15 September, 2019, 05:26:30 pm
The singer's dress/cloak was also in bi flag colours.

It's a shame it was during one of the ongoing bastions of colonialism which caused a lot of anti-same-sex laws in various parts of the world... So both 'yay' and what they call pinkwashing....

The singer is Jamie Barton. Reading her bio on the interwebs, I don't think she had the rainbow flag and bi flag colours especially for the Last Night of the proms.
The interview while they were rearranging the orchestra just before her performance also made that clear. Cracking voice!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 15 September, 2019, 08:30:20 pm
I have learned to ride a bike with only a coaster rear brake. Scary at first, thankfully it's all rather quiet at the moment
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 16 September, 2019, 08:22:36 pm
I've learned more today, including how scary it can get in traffic when all your reflexes are geared around brakes. I've not learned how the dutch do the stopping thing despite watching, coz mostly they don't. I've learned that if you do wear lycra and a helmet over here you have to make like it's a TT. I'm trying to learn how to get used to bikes having priority over cars, eg on exit from local roundabouts. It's almost worth riding around and around for the experience.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 16 September, 2019, 08:33:04 pm
I've learned more today, including how scary it can get in traffic when all your reflexes are geared around brakes. I've not learned how the dutch do the stopping thing despite watching, coz mostly they don't. I've learned that if you do wear lycra and a helmet over here you have to make like it's a TT. I'm trying to learn how to get used to bikes having priority over cars, eg on exit from local roundabouts. It's almost worth riding around and around for the experience.

The bit I find difficult about cycling in NL/BE is that quite a lot of motorists will give way to you at the junctions or bike crossings where they don't have to, but you can't rely on everyone doing that.
I did learn that buses never give way.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 September, 2019, 09:37:26 pm
The bit I find difficult about cycling in NL/BE is that quite a lot of motorists will give way to you at the junctions or bike crossings where they don't have to, but you can't rely on everyone doing that.

They've recently installed some segregated routes with cyclist priority (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=113153.0) at junctions in Middle Earth, with hilarious consequences.  Drivers give way to cyclists, but you can't rely on everyone doing it, so you have to cultivate a air of either "steamroller on a TT" or "completely oblivious" while secretly preparing to stop.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 16 September, 2019, 09:44:58 pm
Yes, that!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 18 September, 2019, 03:43:44 pm
Given my lack of fluidity and dodgy reflexes on the omafiets, I'm quite happy slowing to stop where it isn't clear who has priority, having first glanced behind to see if I'm going to have my jacksie rearranged by someone that doesn't know I'm forrin. I confess to occasionally  taking the long way around roundabouts, though just for the lols, eg (https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.6982576,5.3411169,3a,75y,113.62h,52.13t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s-7FHQwAqO_0leXHaaJLXIA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: telstarbox on 18 September, 2019, 04:38:28 pm
The chevrons on OS maps point *down* the hills and not up as I'd assumed...  :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 September, 2019, 04:42:49 pm
The chevrons on OS maps point *down* the hills and not up as I'd assumed...  :facepalm:

That's a mistake you only make once...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 18 September, 2019, 04:47:26 pm
That Essex have won the County Cricket Championship 7 times, and that could well be 8 in a week's time.

That means that only Lancashire, Middlesex, Surrey and Yorkshire have won the title more times than Essex, which is pretty remarkable given that Essex's first championship win was in 1979. The only county to have won their first championship more recently than Essex is Durham and they have only taken part in the even since 1992. I'm quite surprised that Essex has won the title more often than Kent. That actually makes Essex the most successful county at real cricket over the past 40 years.

Three counties have never won the title: Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire and Somerset. If Essex don't win their 8th title next week, Somerset will have won their 1st.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 September, 2019, 05:45:07 pm
I think the point is, you're now supposed to tell us as well

Sorry, didn't think to do so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_flags
This seems apt for it:
"It was flown from the large public flagpole in San Francisco's Castro District ..." - although 'Castra' would be better.
MK has a fixed-site Pride Festival this weekend - I thought about going there and then realised that MK could be a bit crowded for some other reason.
And I've just learnt there's a nonbinary pride flag, seen in the photo at the top of this article: https://www.bristol247.com/opinion/your-say/bristol-is-a-loving-city-for-non-binary-people-and-those-in-the-wider-lgbtq-community/
the black, purple, white, yellow one
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 September, 2019, 08:32:45 pm
Here, have the Wikipedia spotters' guide:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_flag#Gallery
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 18 September, 2019, 08:40:42 pm
Here, have the Wikipedia spotters' guide:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_flag#Gallery

Thanks Kim. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 18 September, 2019, 09:27:18 pm
That Essex have won the County Cricket Championship 7 times, and that could well be 8 in a week's time.

That means that only Lancashire, Middlesex, Surrey and Yorkshire have won the title more times than Essex, which is pretty remarkable given that Essex's first championship win was in 1979. The only county to have won their first championship more recently than Essex is Durham and they have only taken part in the even since 1992. I'm quite surprised that Essex has won the title more often than Kent. That actually makes Essex the most successful county at real cricket over the past 40 years.

Three counties have never won the title: Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire and Somerset. If Essex don't win their 8th title next week, Somerset will have won their 1st.

Having been at uni in Bath for 4 years and lived for a year in Taunton, and been born in Wiltshire I'm a west country lad by heart.  My money is on zummerzet
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 September, 2019, 10:49:58 am
Here, have the Wikipedia spotters' guide:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_flag#Gallery
Seems to be an amount of splittism (such as agender, genderfluid, gender queer, non-binary – but nothing for demigender). You'd think that someone would tire of horizontal stripes eventually. Also, interesting lesbian-fascist overlap.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 19 September, 2019, 12:31:32 pm
Here, have the Wikipedia spotters' guide:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_flag#Gallery
Seems to be an amount of splittism (such as agender, genderfluid, gender queer, non-binary – but nothing for demigender).

I think it's more accumulation.  Many of these terms were coined in relative isolation, or have fallen by the wayside as others gained more traction.  (Eg. The current generational divide[1], where young people reject 'bisexual' in favour of 'pansexual', on the usually naive and frequently erroneous assumption that bisexual implies a gender binary[2].)  Flag designs are especially bad for this, as people have invented their own when needed, without always being aware of what other people (particularly more marginalised groups) are using - particularly in the days before the mainstream graphical Web.  I've lost count of the number of times I've seen bi+, poly and trans groups using the same clever combinations of Venus and Mars symbols to mean entirely different things...



[1] What really makes me feel old are the teenagers on InstaTube ranting about 'queer' being a slur, having completely missed the reclamation of the term.
[2] FWIW I, like most 1990s bisexuals, use the "attraction to more than one gender" definition.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 September, 2019, 12:49:14 pm
Obviously we can't expect small enthusiastic groups to be vexillologists and even if they were... just look at the flags of Romania and Chad, Monaco and Indonesia, Moldova and Andorra or best of all Poland and Czechoslovakia immediately after WW1...

I'm now waiting for the orange, white and black stripes on my mudflap to get me identified as a member of some obscure group I've never heard of (it's meant to be the colours of Audax Club Bristol)!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 19 September, 2019, 12:56:08 pm
HOW many nations would have flags included in a 'red, white and blue Brexit'?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 September, 2019, 01:06:44 pm
HOW many nations would have flags included in a 'red, white and blue Brexit'?
Do you mean how many nations have red, white and blue flags? Or are you pointing out that while the Union flag is red, white and blue, the flags of each of it four constituents include at least two of those colours but never all three together?

It will be curious to see how, if at all, the UJ is altered post any possible independence of N.Ireland and/or Scotland. I'm tending towards not at all.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 September, 2019, 01:17:14 pm
Interesting. Subtract St. Patrick's cross and the red overlay disappears from St. Andrew's saltire.  Add St. David's cross (yellow on a black field) and St. George's cross either gets a yellow & black border or a yellow & black overlay in the middle.  Somewhat puky.

I suppose that St. David isn't there to start with because the King of Arms responsible considered Wales, as a principality, to be part of England.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 19 September, 2019, 01:20:31 pm
I blame the imperialists as detailed by Eddie Izzard*. Folks rushed to get a flag to stop the expanding imperial nations from including them.

* no fleg, no country. https://youtu.be/hYeFcSq7Mxg (https://youtu.be/hYeFcSq7Mxg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 September, 2019, 01:21:49 pm
I think back then they were probably also applying the heraldic design rules of not having colour on colour or metal (argent/or, silver/gold, white/yellow) on metal. I've never seen a St David's cross, I wonder how widely recognised it is even in Wales?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 19 September, 2019, 02:42:05 pm
I think back then they were probably also applying the heraldic design rules of not having colour on colour or metal (argent/or, silver/gold, white/yellow) on metal. I've never seen a St David's cross, I wonder how widely recognised it is even in Wales?

It's actually quite common.  Very often to be seen flying on churches, who don't seem to like Y Ddraig Goch.  Equally common is the flag (banner?) of Owain Glyndŵr, but that seems to be a seasonal thing.  There are more around than normal at the moment.  I think he has a 'day' or something.   You will see them at other times of the year, but not as many.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 September, 2019, 03:18:51 pm
What T42 is speaking about is something like this, I guess:
(https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2014/02/Alternative-designs-proposed-for-the-union-jack-flag-without-Scotland-_dezeen_7.jpg)
Glary! Horrible. However, I quite like the first one in the series:
(https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2014/02/Alternative-designs-proposed-for-the-union-jack-flag-without-Scotland-_dezeen_1sq.jpg)
https://www.dezeen.com/2014/02/27/alternative-designs-proposed-for-a-union-jack-without-scotland/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 September, 2019, 03:21:11 pm
Aha! From the end of that thread:
Quote
The Scottish public will vote on the issue of independence on 18 September 2014, however the College of Arms, which oversees matters relating to flags and heraldry and acts under Crown Authority, told British broadcaster ITV that there are no plans to change the Union Flag if Scotland becomes an independent state.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 19 September, 2019, 03:49:11 pm
HOW many nations would have flags included in a 'red, white and blue Brexit'?

The Netherlands for one
Norway
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 19 September, 2019, 05:17:34 pm
France
USA, NZ, Australia (not EU)
More with two of three colours eg Greece, Denmark, Switzerland Canada

Meaningless statement....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 September, 2019, 05:29:50 pm
Here you go https://www.sporcle.com/games/g/redwhiteblueflags?sc=flags
You can "learn" with Sporcle
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 21 September, 2019, 08:58:08 pm
I learnt this one earlier in the week.

The building I've been calling The Trellick Tower, yacf's favourite bit of brutalist architecture, is in fact Balfron Tower.

Trellick Tower is in Kensal Green. The one on the A12 is Balfron Tower.

(Fascinating facts,we gottem)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 21 September, 2019, 09:08:11 pm
The green light from a railway semaphore signal showing "clear" at night is really, really dim compared to the red light for "danger".  I noticed this yesterday when the Severn Valley Railway was running night trains.  I suppose it's logical; the light source is a yellowish paraffin wick lamp and green is obtained by moving a blue spectacle plate in front of it.  Filter all the yellow out of a yellow-white light source, and you're not left with much.  There's plenty of red light, though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 21 September, 2019, 09:20:24 pm
I learnt this one earlier in the week.

The building I've been calling The Trellick Tower, yacf's favourite bit of brutalist architecture, is in fact Balfron Tower.

Trellick Tower is in Kensal Green. The one on the A12 is Balfron Tower.

(Fascinating facts,we gottem)

There's a similar edifice in the area yclept Docklands.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 22 September, 2019, 02:24:41 am
I learnt this one earlier in the week.

The building I've been calling The Trellick Tower, yacf's favourite bit of brutalist architecture, is in fact Balfron Tower.

Trellick Tower is in Kensal Green. The one on the A12 is Balfron Tower.

(Fascinating facts,we gottem)

There's a similar edifice in the area yclept Docklands.

That's the Balfron Tower - close to the northern end of the Blackwall Tunnel, no?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 22 September, 2019, 11:46:07 am
Commercial radio stations are now taking the N-word out of "Oliver's Army".  They must have struggled with the context for four decades.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 September, 2019, 11:56:59 am
Commercial radio stations are now taking the N-word out of "Oliver's Army".  They must have struggled with the context for four decades.
I've been wondering about that one ever since it became unacceptable for white people to sing N in songs originally by black people, where the original was "-a" not "-er". But what if the original was by a white person and the meaning was neither of those? What about the Commitments? What about Hanif Kureishi being told by his Pakistani cousins, "You might be a famous writer but we are Pakistanis whereas you will only ever be a Paki" (ie both in UK and Pakistan)? Etc. And we haven't even got around to, say, "traila".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 22 September, 2019, 04:56:32 pm
I think there are always going to be words a marginalised group can reclaim which non-members should not use...

Internalised oppression e.g. the Hanif Kureshi example is complicated, and I'd say was an issue for people within that group and again not for white people to get involved with. We still can't use the P word.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 22 September, 2019, 09:35:54 pm
The American equivalent of the P-word is "Jap" which is fairly neutral in the UK and sometimes admiring - the biggest modified Japanese car festival is "Japfest", for instance.  You wouldn't refer to a Japanese person as a Jap, though; it's only the adjective that's acceptable.  It was the same 30 years ago - Only Fools And Horses would refer to a "Paki shop" but even then would have balked at using it to describe a person. Especially if they were Indian, which is incredibly offensive.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 September, 2019, 10:07:07 pm
Every time I hear the words Paki, or Chinky I just cringe.

It was less than twenty years ago I had someone explaining why the white man should be in charge. Being married to someone of Indian descent I find views like that particularly offensive. I'm waiting until climate change denial attracts the same level of opprobrium as casual racism
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 September, 2019, 09:49:31 am
A large part of Hanif Kureshi's point, or his cousins' point, was not the word itself but the foreignness it expresses; that he's Pakistani in Britain and British in Pakistan. Quite a lot of countries have a similar split, sometimes even a formal term such as NRI and OCI used for government purposes (Non-Resident Indian and Overseas Citizen of India).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Chris S on 23 September, 2019, 10:16:55 am
New washing machines run much better once you've removed the Transit Bolts. Apologies to anyone in Co Durham who owns a seismograph, for any false positives you may have just received.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 23 September, 2019, 11:18:18 am
That the self-checkouts at Tesco have a flap by the coin slot that you can lift up to drop coins in considerably quicker.  I got rid of a couple of quid of coppers on Saturday...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 September, 2019, 09:04:54 pm
I learnt this one earlier in the week.

The building I've been calling The Trellick Tower, yacf's favourite bit of brutalist architecture, is in fact Balfron Tower.

Trellick Tower is in Kensal Green. The one on the A12 is Balfron Tower.

(Fascinating facts,we gottem)

Any fule kno Trellick Tower is in W London coz Mick Jones' gran lived in it.  The one out of The Clash, obv, not him from FOREIGNer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JonBuoy on 23 September, 2019, 10:33:05 pm
Figs have wasps in them (https://gardencollage.com/inspire/wild-earth/true-dead-wasps-inside-figs/) :sick:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 23 September, 2019, 10:55:31 pm
I learnt this one earlier in the week.

The building I've been calling The Trellick Tower, yacf's favourite bit of brutalist architecture, is in fact Balfron Tower.

Trellick Tower is in Kensal Green. The one on the A12 is Balfron Tower.

(Fascinating facts,we gottem)

Any fule kno Trellick Tower is in W London coz Mick Jones' gran lived in it.  The one out of The Clash, obv, not him from FOREIGNer.
This is a public service announcement. With guitars.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 September, 2019, 01:37:00 pm
Figs have wasps in them (https://gardencollage.com/inspire/wild-earth/true-dead-wasps-inside-figs/) :sick:

Adds to the texture.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 September, 2019, 02:10:02 pm
NEway, today MrsT read out at the table (Thomas Pakenham's The Boer War) that throughout the war the British War Office were so much at war with themselves that they couldn't develop an overall strategy for the war in S. Africa.

Plus ça change...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JonJo on 24 September, 2019, 02:31:04 pm
I learnt this one earlier in the week.

The building I've been calling The Trellick Tower, yacf's favourite bit of brutalist architecture, is in fact Balfron Tower.

Trellick Tower is in Kensal Green. The one on the A12 is Balfron Tower.

(Fascinating facts,we gottem)

Any fule kno Trellick Tower is in W London coz Mick Jones' gran lived in it.  The one out of The Clash, obv, not him from FOREIGNer.

Or him from Leeds Utd. https://www.onemickjones.com/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 25 September, 2019, 01:55:44 pm
That there is an (archaic) expression in English "Short commons" meaning a shortage of food.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 25 September, 2019, 02:51:54 pm
That there is an (archaic) expression in English "Short commons" meaning a shortage of food.
Me too, in yesterday’s Guardian quick crossword. It was a bit of a stinker.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 25 September, 2019, 07:10:15 pm
That’s the one, although my wife guessed it, having presumably heard it during her Yorkshire upbringing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 25 September, 2019, 07:58:30 pm
That there is an (archaic) expression in English "Short commons" meaning a shortage of food.
I didn't think it was that archaic, or perhaps I just read the "wrong" sort of novels?

Anyway, the reason I'm here.  Wing Cdr. Guy Gibson VC DSO DFC was a guest on Desert Island Discs in 1944.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009xzj9
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 September, 2019, 01:20:25 pm
Today's word is ventripotent. 'All the paunch-beguiling meals which delighted the ventripotent pashas of the city!'
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 September, 2019, 11:19:59 am
That there is such a thing as a ratcheting cable cutter:

https://youtu.be/-rphMwxTr54
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 01 October, 2019, 11:35:07 am
That argon fluorohydride (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argon_fluorohydride) is, briefly and in particularly unlikely circumstances, a thing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 01 October, 2019, 12:03:38 pm
New washing machines run much better once you've removed the Transit Bolts. Apologies to anyone in Co Durham who owns a seismograph, for any false positives you may have just received.  :facepalm:

My SiL was moaning when we visited them about how her new washing machine vibrated like mad and sounded like it was about to explode. Queue me asking my BiL "You did remove the transit bolts didn't you?", embarrassment ensued as we found his socket set and removed them. I think they had had it about three months at that stage.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 01 October, 2019, 01:13:47 pm
Jeffing is a thing that can be discussed in mixed company. Apparently it’s a name used for interval training, eg run for 5 minutes, walk for 3 minutes, repeat. It is named for Jeff Galloway who apparently founded* the technique.

* I would have said formalised the technique. I used to tall it lamp posting, in that I’d run to the next lamppost then walk to the next one, but this was when I was a yoof.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 02 October, 2019, 12:33:25 am
Jeffing is a thing that can be discussed in mixed company. Apparently it’s a name used for interval training, eg run for 5 minutes, walk for 3 minutes, repeat. It is named for Jeff Galloway who apparently founded* the technique.

* I would have said formalised the technique. I used to tall it lamp posting, in that I’d run to the next lamppost then walk to the next one, but this was when I was a yoof.

Isn't that basically what Baden-Powell called scout's pace, though his intervals were different (60 paces running, 60 paces walking IIRC)?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 06 October, 2019, 07:46:30 pm
I've learned two things today.

(1) how to exfoliate with a kitchen knife, it helps if they are seriously sharp

(2) What a flucky looks like, coz now I got one
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 06 October, 2019, 08:26:18 pm
Jeffing is a thing that can be discussed in mixed company. Apparently it’s a name used for interval training, eg run for 5 minutes, walk for 3 minutes, repeat. It is named for Jeff Galloway who apparently founded* the technique.

* I would have said formalised the technique. I used to tall it lamp posting, in that I’d run to the next lamppost then walk to the next one, but this was when I was a yoof.

look up fartlek training
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 07 October, 2019, 04:34:08 pm
Jeffing is a thing that can be discussed in mixed company. Apparently it’s a name used for interval training, eg run for 5 minutes, walk for 3 minutes, repeat. It is named for Jeff Galloway who apparently founded* the technique.

* I would have said formalised the technique. I used to tall it lamp posting, in that I’d run to the next lamppost then walk to the next one, but this was when I was a yoof.

look up fartlek training
fartlek is more than that. It is mixed pace, so jog, sprint, walk, jog for medium distance, run hard medium distance, sprint, jog, walk. Generally over mixed terrain.
Does for runners what riding yorkshire hills does for cyclists, alternately forcing you into anaerobic intensity, then recovering while in aerobic zone.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 07 October, 2019, 04:38:14 pm
That the US embassy has racked up over 89 000 unpaid congested charges, totally over £10 000 000 in fines.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 07 October, 2019, 04:38:21 pm
Alexandre Dumas, him what wrote that count of Monte cristo was a person of colour
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 07 October, 2019, 05:13:14 pm
That the US embassy has racked up over 89 000 unpaid congested charges, totally over £10 000 000 in fines.

I saw that Guardian piece too. I'm a little more disturbed by the US diplomat's wife hopping a plane home after killing a motorcyclist with her car, and by the apparent refusal of US authorities to waive diplomatic immunity than I am by a bunch of unpaid congestion charges.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 07 October, 2019, 05:29:20 pm
They claim, somewhat disingenuously, that it's a tax and thus under the various treaties that cover diplomatic presence on foreign soil they don't have to pay it.

The diplomat's wife killing someone, invoking diplomatic immunity and hopping on the next jet to the US is horrible and I don't really know how someone can really live with themselves, but it's not like the US don't have form for that kind of behaviour.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 08 October, 2019, 09:07:00 am
Jeffing is a thing that can be discussed in mixed company. Apparently it’s a name used for interval training, eg run for 5 minutes, walk for 3 minutes, repeat. It is named for Jeff Galloway who apparently founded* the technique.

* I would have said formalised the technique. I used to tall it lamp posting, in that I’d run to the next lamppost then walk to the next one, but this was when I was a yoof.

look up fartlek training
fartlek is more than that. It is mixed pace, so jog, sprint, walk, jog for medium distance, run hard medium distance, sprint, jog, walk. Generally over mixed terrain.
Does for runners what riding yorkshire hills does for cyclists, alternately forcing you into anaerobic intensity, then recovering while in aerobic zone.

Yes, I know what fartlek is, just suggesting it to Beardy as a point of interest.  It can be a very useful tool.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 08 October, 2019, 11:58:17 am
They claim, somewhat disingenuously, that it's a tax and thus under the various treaties that cover diplomatic presence on foreign soil they don't have to pay it.

The diplomat's wife killing someone, invoking diplomatic immunity and hopping on the next jet to the US is horrible and I don't really know how someone can really live with themselves, but it's not like the US don't have form for that kind of behaviour.

What's worse is the diplomat's wife told the police she had no plans to leave the country... And then did.

Not sure how I feel about diplomatic immunity in general. I think it's problematic if abused and no one seems to care.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 October, 2019, 01:10:07 pm
Bloody Stupid Johnson wibbling on about The Case of the Spook's Missus makes me want to pin him against a wall and bellow "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe" into his face >:(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 08 October, 2019, 03:05:02 pm
Yep, definitely playing the distraction game there, given he knows full well the US won't waive Mrs Diplomat's immunity and the UK probably supports our own dodgy diplomats.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 October, 2019, 07:34:24 pm
That there are toe straps 120cm long. https://www.bikemonger.co.uk/surly-junk-strap-1721-p.asp?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7ayWrqGN5QIVS7DtCh06uQ3oEAYYASABEgLmUvD_BwE
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 October, 2019, 12:58:00 pm
The word 'spoopy'

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/spoopy
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 09 October, 2019, 02:34:48 pm
The Romans had a goddess of hinges.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 October, 2019, 03:17:09 pm
The Romans had a goddess of hinges.
Wobbly John needs to know this.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 10 October, 2019, 03:32:38 pm
The internet said this, so it might not be true, however...

...car fuses that are red are always live, and those that are yellow are ignition switched. Allegedly.

I shall have to check.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 10 October, 2019, 03:39:01 pm
The colours are the current rating, AFAIK...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuse_(automotive)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 10 October, 2019, 03:43:15 pm
That's my understanding too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 10 October, 2019, 03:44:49 pm
That's a colour code in some manufacturer's *wiring*, thobut.


ETA: Colour-coding in automotive wiring is, frequently, a trap.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 10 October, 2019, 03:53:47 pm
The internet said this, so it might not be true, however...

...car fuses that are red are always live, and those that are yellow are ignition switched. Allegedly.

I shall have to check.
I had a this year's model golf. To change the 12v accessory socket from ignition switched to always live I moved the yellow fuse from position A to position B. It stayed yellow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 10 October, 2019, 07:56:31 pm
How MPLS actually works. I kind of new in a hazy way form a using MPLS services from a service provider way but now I need to build an actual MPLS network as a corporate core to transport L3VPNs so needed to get it straight in my head exactly how the guts of the thing worked.  If anyones interested its all about the loopback IPs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 October, 2019, 08:02:30 pm
That's a colour code in some manufacturer's *wiring*, thobut.


ETA: Colour-coding in automotive wiring is, frequently, a trap.

Unless the car is Italian, when it's inevitably a trap.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 10 October, 2019, 10:23:01 pm
That's a colour code in some manufacturer's *wiring*, thobut.


ETA: Colour-coding in automotive wiring is, frequently, a trap.

Unless the car is Italian, when it's inevitably a trap.

*recalls the Fiat Of The Apocalypse's wiggly-waggly fuel gauge that told you you were turning left, and the little green arrow that denoted going round a roundabout too quickly*

I'd agree with that assessment.

Can we add "stupid interchangeable card-edge-connectors" to that list of things that automotive wiring diagrams don't warn you about?
Title: Re: what I have lea
Post by: Beardy on 11 October, 2019, 08:37:15 am
Jeffing is a thing that can be discussed in mixed company. Apparently it’s a name used for interval training, eg run for 5 minutes, walk for 3 minutes, repeat. It is named for Jeff Galloway who apparently founded* the technique.

* I would have said formalised the technique. I used to tall it lamp posting, in that I’d run to the next lamppost then walk to the next one, but this was when I was a yoof.

look up fartlek training
fartlek is more than that. It is mixed pace, so jog, sprint, walk, jog for medium distance, run hard medium distance, sprint, jog, walk. Generally over mixed terrain.
Does for runners what riding yorkshire hills does for cyclists, alternately forcing you into anaerobic intensity, then recovering while in aerobic zone.

Yes, I know what fartlek is, just suggesting it to Beardy as a point of interest.  It can be a very useful tool.
And it’s something I’m very interested in having read about it. Once I get my fitness to a reasonable level again, I’m going to head off the paved roads and into the ‘wilderness’. This sort of mixed intensity running will be a natural fit for trail and wild running me thinks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 11 October, 2019, 07:53:47 pm
That the tallest rugby posts in the world are at Wednesbury RUFC at over 125 feet.
Seems a tad excessive.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 October, 2019, 02:47:54 pm
UK overseas pensions are paid via a US bank.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 17 October, 2019, 04:38:26 pm
That pwll bach is Welsh for puddle.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 October, 2019, 04:49:58 pm
And pwll is the source of the English place name Pill (I learnt that a few days ago).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 17 October, 2019, 05:52:51 pm
Note to self: When in conversation with leftpondian colleagues, reconsidering the use of the phrase "fag packet" may lead to greater understanding and less hilarity.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 17 October, 2019, 06:29:54 pm
Note to self: When in conversation with leftpondian colleagues, reconsidering the use of the phrase "fag packet" may lead to greater understanding and less hilarity.
An aeromodelling forum - hosted in Canuckistan I believe, but it may be Transpondia - I frequent automatically translates "fag" to "cheerful guy" as I found out a few weeks ago when I used the phrase, "back of a fag packet" in a post.  Stupid or what?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 October, 2019, 07:34:13 pm
Note to self: When in conversation with leftpondian colleagues, reconsidering the use of the phrase "fag packet" may lead to greater understanding and less hilarity.

BTDTGTTS
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 October, 2019, 08:21:32 am
Fruit flies are denser than tea.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 October, 2019, 08:46:39 am
The public omnibus was invented by Blaise Pascal (yes, that one) in 1662.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 01 November, 2019, 06:07:09 pm
Grant Shapps is a cousin of Mick Jones, oc The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite fame.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 November, 2019, 09:04:56 am
That waterproof jacket of mine isn't.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 02 November, 2019, 09:45:04 am
That wateproof jacket of mine isn't.
Possible outcomes of this sentence:
A. You are lovely and dry due the marvellous waterproof properties of a jacket that belongs to someone else.
B. You are piss wet through as your jacket is as impermeable as a tea bag.

I'm going with B.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 November, 2019, 01:30:58 pm
Not piss wet but not dry. It can't be more than 10 years old, either. I want a refund.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 November, 2019, 01:33:17 pm
To be fair, it can sometimes be tricky to work out whether you're sopping wet because your waterproof jacket doesn't work, or because it does.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 November, 2019, 02:03:38 pm
Well, it only got kinda cool after it rained.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 02 November, 2019, 04:12:03 pm
I learned that there is no escaping destiny. Measure twice cut once? Pah.

I was making a door for the pallet shed under construction (I'll dig out a photo in a bit). I spent forever calculating the position and size of the diagonal brace, and its exact angle. Pythagoras came out of his box, Corel draw scale drawing in wire frame mode to validate the calculations. Cut the pieces with m millimetric precision, having taken account of the saw blade width.

Everything fitted together perfectly, and square ( possibly an issue with a pallet shed). Only, the top rail was 150 mm lower than it should have been.

Just can't win.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 02 November, 2019, 07:16:41 pm
That there things that an old person will never learn or retain, no matter how many zillion times you tell them.
My landline rang tonight.  This will be one of two things. A call centre trying to get me to have a smart meter, or my mum.
It wasn't the call centre.

My mum was very concerned as she'd been trying to contact my son all week re. his impending visit. She'd left several messages but he'd not got back.
A brief moment of concern by me. But only brief.

"Mum, are you calling his landline? "
"Yes, of course.  I get free calls"
"Mum, we keep telling you that there is no phone connected to his landline.  You have to call his mobile. "
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 November, 2019, 07:18:29 pm
That's compounded by years of Hollywood telecoms having taught people that a line with no phone on it gives some sort of error tone.  It doesn't.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2019, 05:37:50 pm
That Husqvarna, manufacturers of motocrossers and chainsaws, also make sewing machines. In fact, I'm going to find out what else they make; perhaps they are the Swedish versian of what Nokia used to be?  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2019, 05:45:04 pm
All sorts of industrial power tools seems to be the answer. Can't find any sewing machines on their website but that's cos they've shoved them off to a separate site, Husqvarna Viking. Still same family. Motorbikes sold off in the late 80s, as I vaguely knew, and now owned by KTM (who used to be tiny and obscure, a motorised equivalent of Puch, sort of).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 04 November, 2019, 05:52:35 pm
All sorts of industrial power tools seems to be the answer. Can't find any sewing machines on their website but that's cos they've shoved them off to a separate site, Husqvarna Viking. Still same family. Motorbikes sold off in the late 80s, as I vaguely knew, and now owned by KTM (who used to be tiny and obscure, a motorised equivalent of Puch, sort of).
Lawnmowers is where I first discovered them, at the same time as discovering the Briggs and Stratton engine on Dad's one had a really rubbish starter cord as I broke it... Twice
Although that may have been my technique as I struggle to start my motorhomes generator too.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 November, 2019, 07:07:31 pm
That some e-cigarettes, including from Big Tobacco, contain zero nicotine. Which is slightly bizarre.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 November, 2019, 07:25:45 pm
That some e-cigarettes, including from Big Tobacco, contain zero nicotine. Which is slightly bizarre.

Easier to wean yourself off nicotine than it is to wean yourself off smoking.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 November, 2019, 07:41:39 pm
Though the original idea of vaping was the opposite – to get the nicotine without smoking.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 05 November, 2019, 07:55:43 pm
It probably was, but additionally it's then easier to reduce the nicotine content to nil and then presumably all you have to give up is the act itself.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 November, 2019, 09:10:04 pm
Good point. And once you've reduced the nicotine to zero, and no tobacco, why give up? Or cynically, it's a way to habituate children to vaping without breaking the law (assuming there are some places which allow nicotine-free vapes to be sold to children; not UK, but somewhere).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Moleman76 on 07 November, 2019, 01:55:58 am
The word "homeowner" has "meow" in it. 

good luck getting that out of your mind the next time you say it
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 November, 2019, 08:36:25 am
;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 07 November, 2019, 11:31:41 am
Imodium only works if you have something solid for it work on.  :hand:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 November, 2019, 01:05:25 pm
"Do epic shit" rides again.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 08 November, 2019, 10:39:23 am
The meaning of "empennage"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 08 November, 2019, 03:19:21 pm
The meaning of "empennage"
You've been reading the "Flights of Fancy" thread haven't you? :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 08 November, 2019, 07:06:38 pm
The meaning of "empennage"

Is it to make empanadas?
:P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Phil W on 08 November, 2019, 07:27:52 pm
What pegging is (well earlier this week but anyway..)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 November, 2019, 03:43:43 pm
A few months ago, someone posted about discovering that London phone boxes still contain prostitutes' cards. Today, I discovered that sex chat phone lines still exist.
(I went to have my hair cut. While waiting, there were the Sun, Mirror and Star to peruse flick through. The sex lines were advertised in the Star, though I might just not have noticed them in the other two.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 November, 2019, 06:26:42 pm
I've probably told the story before of how I discovered that people who aren't sniggery 12 year olds actually call them, but just in case:

When I was a PSO, I came home to discover $housemate on the phone, describing the minor leak from his radiator.  Naturally I assumed he was nagging the landlord about the state of the central heating (we were at that point heating the room with a hairdryer), but became suspicious as the conversation failed to reach any kind of plumber-related consensus, briefly went off on some other tangent, and was abruptly halted by the other party.  Without missing a beat, he pressed a couple of keys and went into several iterations of "Hello, my name's [REDACTED], I'm about 6' tall, blond hair, blue eyes, if you want to chat, get back to me.".

Clarity came in a conversation with $other_housemate, who'd been in negotiations with our-favourite-telco over why they kept cutting us off.  Turns out that between the student with family in ABROAD, the computer geeks[1], and the 0898[1] enthusiast, our account kept exceeding some SEEKRIT credit limit.


[1] Teenagers: Ask your parents.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 13 November, 2019, 07:02:54 pm
The meaning of "empennage"
You've been reading the "Flights of Fancy" thread haven't you? :)

Actually an air accident report  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 13 November, 2019, 07:34:46 pm
I've probably told the story before of how I discovered that people who aren't sniggery 12 year olds actually call them, but just in case:

[1] Teenagers: Ask your parents.


These are still a thing ?  :-D


Way back  in the late 80's one of my responsibilities at everyones favourite telco was to weekly access a locked room full of racked cassette players linked to phone lines , and make a note of how many calls had been logged against each one that week, then zero the counters.  These figures were used to work out how much money we had to pay the smut pedlars, and how much we kept ourselves. 


Another colleague had the job of listening to each new cassette as it was submitted to us, and make sure it wasn't too racy......
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: perpetual dan on 13 November, 2019, 08:16:13 pm
I remember doing upgrades for various telcos offering cut-price international calls in the 90s. A key feature of the timing was people coming back from pubs / clubs and calling overseas sex lines (and loved ones, maybe). We needed to wait for that traffic to die down to avoid cutting anyone off - or worse, loosing the billing data.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 November, 2019, 08:20:40 pm
Another colleague had the job of listening to each new cassette as it was submitted to us, and make sure it wasn't too racy......

Presumably the rejects got edited into a Christmas tape?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 13 November, 2019, 08:32:53 pm
Another colleague had the job of listening to each new cassette as it was submitted to us, and make sure it wasn't too racy......

Presumably the rejects got edited into a Christmas tape?


Poor Brian who had that job was the meekest, shyest, most respectable chap you could imagine...  I think he must have been a very effective censor.  Certainly the few tapes I listened to in the line of duty would have had me asking for a refund..


I'm trying to remember the mechanics of how I did this job.  I remember I had to remove a big digital (?) master cassette / tape drive & replace it, and also remember having to blank this on regular occasions using a special mains powered magnetic gadget
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 14 November, 2019, 12:03:57 pm
That in the winter of 1836/37 my great-great-great grandfather's horses produced dung which was "pale, clay-like, and fetid".

ETA: he operated a coach service between Glasgow and Edinburgh (4 1/2 hours journey time, fare 5s outside, 10s inside), so kept horses. In that winter there was a shortage of hay, so he used wheat straw, with the resulting change in dung. For more details see Stable Economy: A treatise on the management of horses, in relation to stabling, grooming,feeding, watering, and grooming by Professor John Stewart, published 1845.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 November, 2019, 12:43:58 pm
Another colleague had the job of listening to each new cassette as it was submitted to us, and make sure it wasn't too racy......

Presumably the rejects got edited into a Christmas tape?


Poor Brian who had that job was the meekest, shyest, most respectable chap you could imagine...  I think he must have been a very effective censor.  Certainly the few tapes I listened to in the line of duty would have had me asking for a refund..


I'm trying to remember the mechanics of how I did this job.  I remember I had to remove a big digital (?) master cassette / tape drive & replace it, and also remember having to blank this on regular occasions using a special mains powered magnetic gadget
Phwoar!!!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 15 November, 2019, 06:52:50 pm
That a Dyson DC14 Animal has a post motor filter.
That wasn't mentioned in my instruction manual.
Ours has been in there for a verrrry long time.

<wonders if the suction will improve when I get a new filter>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 15 November, 2019, 10:05:19 pm
That Henry Williamson, author of "Tarka The Otter" was a  fascist  >:(


Checks bookshelves, not there. Must have gone to Oxfam in the last cull.


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


https://www.edp24.co.uk/business/farming/unseen-1930s-photos-illustrate-the-story-of-henry-williamson-the-norfolk-farmer-who-flirted-with-fascism-1-5026352



Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 November, 2019, 09:16:02 am
IIRC the locals accused Williamson of ploughing his fields such that the furrows pointed to London's famous London, as a guide for the Luftwaffe.

NFN.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 16 November, 2019, 07:40:32 pm
That "mankind" is actually a gender neutral word as is "man" and all constructions thereof, or at least they were originally.
In the original Indo-European that English (and Latin, French, German etc) derive from "man" meant "person of unidentified gender" there was a separate word for male person and female person. This survived into Old English as "were" for male adult and and "wifa" for female adult. It was only later that "man" came to refer more and more to a male adult. Were only survives in words like "werewolf" and "were-geld". "Wifa" became wife though originally it didst mean married just adult female.

I'm currently listening to a very long podcast series on the origins and development of English.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 17 November, 2019, 03:46:23 pm
I've known these for some time, but they are relevant to pcolbeck's post;

"Midwife" originally meant "with the woman", a person asstisting with a birt.

and,

"Mistress" (Mrs) was the title applied to all adult women, not just those who were married.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2019, 04:45:25 pm
That the pope has a twitter account: https://twitter.com/pontifex
Amusingly, the "you may also like" bar suggests Donald Trump, Barack Obama, the New York Times, Hillary Clinton and Papa Francisco (the pope's tweets in Spanish), none of which I feel inclined to look at.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 November, 2019, 05:09:14 pm
The sidebar varies from punter to punter, thobut.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2019, 05:17:57 pm
I very rarely look at anything on twitter and don't have an account. If I refresh it, I get CNN, the White House, United Nations, Katy Perry and the Pope in Italian. So at least it's consistent. Mostly (isn't Katy Perry some sort of reality-type TV sleb?).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 17 November, 2019, 05:32:10 pm
I've known these for some time, but they are relevant to pcolbeck's post;

"Midwife" originally meant "with the woman", a person asstisting with a birt.

Presumably originally something like "Mitt Wifa" which would be Germanic for "with a woman".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2019, 06:15:25 pm
I very rarely look at anything on twitter and don't have an account. If I refresh it, I get CNN, the White House, United Nations, Katy Perry and the Pope in Italian. So at least it's consistent. Mostly (isn't Katy Perry some sort of reality-type TV sleb?).
Okay, it seems Katy Perry is a pop star and I was probably melding her into one with Katie Price. At least I didn't confuse either of them with Katy Hopkins. And I predict that in 30 years time, Katy will the Gen Z equivalent of Karen for whatever the by-then gen will be.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 17 November, 2019, 09:35:12 pm
I've known these for some time, but they are relevant to pcolbeck's post;

"Midwife" originally meant "with the woman", a person asstisting with a birt.

Presumably originally something like "Mitt Wifa" which would be Germanic for "with a woman".

Exactly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 18 November, 2019, 07:57:52 pm
That Sooty was / is yellow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 November, 2019, 05:17:03 pm
That there is such a thing as a metric British Thermal Unit. With the complication that MBTU can be either Metric BTU or Million BTUs. It's the gas industry...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 19 November, 2019, 05:53:41 pm
That there is such a thing as a metric British Thermal Unit. With the complication that MBTU can be either Metric BTU or Million BTUs. It's the gas industry...

"Oh for fuck's sake" said Kim, the words coming easily through force of habit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 19 November, 2019, 06:14:22 pm
In my line of work M can interchangeably mean either thousand or million (in which case thousand is k or million MM).
Which can be problematic.
Confused? You will be.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 November, 2019, 06:23:39 pm
In the absence of other visible targets, I'll blame the Americans. Even when used in a Dutch firm.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 19 November, 2019, 06:24:59 pm
I spend half my life asking "can you please confirm that unit for me"

Then you get into scf, mmscf etc.  Which version of standard do you mean?  Oil industry metric, oil industry USAnian, IUPAC?

FFS, just give me everything in tonnes (metric, not USAnian 2000lb tons)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 19 November, 2019, 06:27:16 pm
Yes, Mscf, mmscf, kscf are my pet hates.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 19 November, 2019, 06:43:01 pm
That whilst making 1,000 of his UK staff redundant, Jamie Oliver paid himself £5.2 million in dividends last year.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 19 November, 2019, 07:37:30 pm
That whilst making 1,000 of his UK staff redundant, Jamie Oliver paid himself £5.2 million in dividends last year.

Having already invested some £4 million of his money earlier in the year trying to save the restaurants.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 19 November, 2019, 07:59:07 pm
That Sooty was / is yellow.
One wonders how young rafletcher is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 19 November, 2019, 08:00:32 pm
That Sooty was / is yellow.
One wonders how young rafletcher is.

I had a similar revelation regarding Big Bird.  In about 1986.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 19 November, 2019, 08:26:19 pm
That whilst making 1,000 of his UK staff redundant, Jamie Oliver paid himself £5.2 million in dividends last year.

Having already invested some £4 million of his money earlier in the year trying to save the restaurants.
I would be much more impressed if it was less than £4m.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 19 November, 2019, 08:43:47 pm

I'm currently listening to a very long podcast series on the origins and development of English.

I'd be interested in this.  Where do I find it?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 19 November, 2019, 09:13:23 pm
That whilst making 1,000 of his UK staff redundant, Jamie Oliver paid himself £5.2 million in dividends last year.

To be fair, he didn't 'pay himself.'

I don't get the Jamie Oliver hate tbh, he seems a reasonable bloke who tries to do the right thing. His restaurant business (and not really his, he was just the name) failed along with lots of others. That is unfortunate but hardly I think Jamie Oliver's fault.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 19 November, 2019, 09:17:28 pm
I don't hate him at all, he is a really nice guy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 19 November, 2019, 09:19:26 pm
Not you, more the generic stick he seems to get.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 19 November, 2019, 09:22:27 pm
Classic B-Ark material.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 20 November, 2019, 07:57:08 am
I have learned, ok 'twas yesterday, that your ( fcvo "you" obv) lower hanging testicle is normally on the side opposite to your handed-ness, eg left for a right hander.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 20 November, 2019, 09:37:52 am

I'm currently listening to a very long podcast series on the origins and development of English.

I'd be interested in this.  Where do I find it?

I don't know what pcolbeck is listening to, but I have a box set of CDs titled "Journeys in English" by Bill Bryson, about the origins and evolution of the English language,which was broadcast on R4 back in the 90s.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Journeys-English-Bill-Bryson/dp/0563496266 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Journeys-English-Bill-Bryson/dp/0563496266)

It is very Reithian in that it's both informative and entertaining.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 November, 2019, 01:44:11 pm
The gas in a champagne bottle's pop breaks the sound barrier.  Photographed at 12,000 frames/min it shows Mach discs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 21 November, 2019, 05:28:49 pm

I'm currently listening to a very long podcast series on the origins and development of English.

I'd be interested in this.  Where do I find it?

http://historyofenglishpodcast.com (http://historyofenglishpodcast.com)

130 episodes sò far!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 21 November, 2019, 05:44:38 pm
I have a vague recollection of an OU broadcast sometime in the early '80s relating Glaswegian dialect to old english. When I in turn, reported this to a Scottish colleague from Greenock, he was not amused.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 November, 2019, 09:22:50 pm
That the windscreen wiper blade thingy at the bottom of glass shower screens slides out and replacements can be obtained by the metre.

I was completely un-shocked to discover that The Great Thing About Standards applies...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 21 November, 2019, 11:26:02 pm
Ed Farrimond, close friend* of Ed Grundy off of The Archers, has a knot hitch named after him.


* On UMRA , a newsgroup for the sort of people who might listen to The Archers, this translates as "the actor who plays".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 22 November, 2019, 10:58:16 pm
How the Minimoa got its name.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 22 November, 2019, 11:12:10 pm
I learned something today which I found quite startling.

But I've already forgotten what it was.

I'll be back when I'ver remembered.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 22 November, 2019, 11:14:46 pm
Oh, I know what! And it was yesterday ad not today.

According to my younger daughter, who lives in Melbourne, more Australians die from cold than from heat. This, it seems, is down to the Aussies' poor building regulations.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 23 November, 2019, 01:56:05 pm
The melody for The Seekers hit 'The Carnival is Over' is a Russian song called 'Volga, Volga' from the late 19th Century.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 November, 2019, 02:35:24 pm
Years ago - 60s, probably - I heard a member of the Soviet Army Ensemble singing it, with the Seekers' words.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 23 November, 2019, 03:05:29 pm
 :)

It's a very sweet (almost syrupy?) melody that tugs on the heartstrings wired for nostalgia; looking at the Seekers YouTube vid comments, it seems a favourite for funerals...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 November, 2019, 03:08:17 pm
I quite like it but I don't want to hear it at mine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 November, 2019, 11:04:50 pm
There's a whole film called Volga-Volga, from 1938. It's described as a musical comedy so probably it features the song:
https://youtu.be/BoG9hajDtNs

There's also this song, but it doesn't sound the same to me:
https://youtu.be/44wzqWQxHpQ
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Moleman76 on 23 November, 2019, 11:08:45 pm
this may only interest fellow USAnians: according to the "scam alert" posted at the checkstand, Home Depot gift cards cannot be used to pay bail bonds.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 23 November, 2019, 11:20:45 pm

There's also this song, but it doesn't sound the same to me:
https://youtu.be/44wzqWQxHpQ

That one does sound much the same to me, if half the tempo.

It was a Polish friend who Facebooked her piano version of Wolga Wolga that got me started...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 24 November, 2019, 07:15:01 pm
Unless I wither whilst dying, I am too heavy to donate my body for medical research. 80Kg is the limit Leicester University set for their donors.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 24 November, 2019, 07:30:03 pm
With the size some people get to I wouldn't be surprised if cremation started to add a premium for super huge bodies.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 24 November, 2019, 07:57:42 pm
That the equals sign (=) was a Welsh invention. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 24 November, 2019, 09:30:58 pm
With the size some people get to I wouldn't be surprised if cremation started to add a premium for super huge bodies.
Oh, I don't know... With all that fat they could probably cut down on the amount of gas used, so I reckon a discount might be in order.  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 24 November, 2019, 09:32:54 pm
 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 24 November, 2019, 11:51:40 pm
Unless I wither whilst dying, I am too heavy to donate my body for medical research. 80Kg is the limit Leicester University set for their donors.

80kg is not very much! Both my late grandmother and father became considerably lighter after they were 80.

My grandmother was 14 stone (89kg) when I was 6 and around 70kg when she died at 101.

Dad's about 72kg now but was 105kg most of my childhood & adolescence. He is 89.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 25 November, 2019, 08:41:48 am
That the equals sign (=) was a Welsh invention.
Recorde also introduced some wonderful terminology for power functions above x3.  We structural engineers measure the interent stiffness of a shape by its second moment of area, measured commonly in cm4, or "zenzizenzic centimetres", as I am wont to say.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rr on 25 November, 2019, 10:27:31 am
With the size some people get to I wouldn't be surprised if cremation started to add a premium for super huge bodies.
Oh, I don't know... With all that fat they could probably cut down on the amount of gas used, so I reckon a discount might be in order.  :demon:
Indeed body fat is the main fuel for a traditional cremation, the wood is only there to get the fat running and to provide a wick for the fat, thin people need much more fuel.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 November, 2019, 12:55:46 pm
With the size some people get to I wouldn't be surprised if cremation started to add a premium for super huge bodies.
Oh, I don't know... With all that fat they could probably cut down on the amount of gas used, so I reckon a discount might be in order.  :demon:

Huh. Do you reckon they'd pass on the saving?  More likely they'd keep mum and stiff the stiffs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 25 November, 2019, 01:20:35 pm
Isn't there quite a high capital cost for the crematoria to provide BIGGER, STRONGER cremators, lifts, biers and other equipment that reduced fuel consumption is unlikely to offset?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 November, 2019, 01:54:30 pm
Supersized corpses ==> supersized crematoria? Marketing opportunity for McDonald's?

You want fries with that?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 25 November, 2019, 02:28:52 pm
Truly tasteless...
(click to show/hide)

Seems it IS a problem
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-34404342 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-34404342)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 25 November, 2019, 02:40:46 pm
On the day I was born the Luftwaffe grounded their fleet of F-104 Starfighters, because of their propensity for turning from aeroplane to mechanical mole.

<insert lyrics from Robert Calvert song here>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 25 November, 2019, 04:32:20 pm
On the day I was born the Luftwaffe grounded their fleet of F-104 Starfighters, because of their propensity for turning from aeroplane to mechanical mole.

<insert lyrics from Robert Calvert song here>

Also known as the Widowmaker, very difficult in anything other than a straight line apparently
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 November, 2019, 05:16:54 pm
Lockheed's slush-powered aeroplane.

An F-104 was responsible for an XB-70 prototype crashing. They were flying slowly in formation for a photo op but the F-104 couldn't hold station and drifted back into the XB-70's wing.  Marketing-inspired fuckup, as usual.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 25 November, 2019, 05:53:21 pm
I've heard people suggest that the F-104 wasn't actually that much more dangerous than its contemporaries, but I've not checked the stats myself. Some of the suspicion may of course come from the whole bribery thing - even by arms company standards, the F-104G's procurement decisions were... motivated by external factors, shall we say?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 25 November, 2019, 06:40:21 pm
I've heard people suggest that the F-104 wasn't actually that much more dangerous than its contemporaries, but I've not checked the stats myself. Some of the suspicion may of course come from the whole bribery thing - even by arms company standards, the F-104G's procurement decisions were... motivated by external factors, shall we say?

The German loss rate for their F-104s of 32% over 31 years wasn't actually the worst for operators of the type.

Italy lost 37% over 29 years, Belgium lost 41% over 20 years and Canada lost at least 46% over 25 years. It should be noted that Canadian F-104s clocked up three times the flying hours compared to those operated by Germany, so on a loss per x flying hours, Canada was doing better than Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter#Safety_record

Other fleets had lower attrition rates - the main Wiki page for the F-14 says that Japan lost 15%, but on the page for Starfighter operators, it says only 3 were lost, which works out at under 1.5%. The Spanish air force didn't lose a single F-104.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter_operators

As far as other types go, ISTR that the F-100 Super Sabre had a pretty bad attrition rate. According to El Wiki, the USAF lost 889 in accidents, which is just under 39% of the entire production run of 2294.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 25 November, 2019, 06:57:58 pm
The grandfather of conservative party candidate and extremely crap parker (https://dorseteye.com/this-is-symbolic-of-how-the-tories-have-treated-the-disabled/) Richard Drax, was a friend of Ian Fleming, who named the villain in Moonraker after him.


Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 26 November, 2019, 07:01:55 am
Lockheed's slush-powered aeroplane.

An F-104 was responsible for an XB-70 prototype crashing. They were flying slowly in formation for a photo op but the F-104 couldn't hold station and drifted back into the XB-70's wing.  Marketing-inspired fuckup, as usual.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fCORwUxlNQo (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fCORwUxlNQo)

This one
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 November, 2019, 08:50:58 am
Yup, that's it.  The plane taking the photos was something like a Piper Cub and its max speed was just above the F-104's stalling speed. In addition, the F-104's limited visibility meant that very often Joe Walker couldn't see the XB-70's wing and just had to hope he was in the right place.

From what I've read, the crashes in Europe were mostly due to the fact that the F-104 was a high-altitude interceptor, but in Europe it was forced into service as a low-level high-speed attack bomber - the kind of role that had been planned for the TSR-2 - and it was horribly unsuited for it. But Lockheed spread its sheltering slush fund around and none of the politicians died.

In the 90s the Luftwaffe sold off a lot of old F-104 airframes, minus engines and, presumably, armament.  A chap a few km from here bought one and kept it in his garden for a few years; then one day it was minus wings and a bit later it was gone. Rather beautiful.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 26 November, 2019, 09:13:24 am
There's a place down the A17 not far from here, roadside diner, that has a load of ex-military stuff displayed on the forecourt, a few artillery pieces, tracked vehicles and a Hunter.  Keep meaning to stop and take a photo of that one as my dad used to work on those
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 26 November, 2019, 10:18:19 am
This place (https://www.google.com/maps/@52.8070674,0.059233,3a,60y,140.19h,85.81t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s6q2oSjUzzMRAohNn5Ki0Aw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 November, 2019, 10:44:14 am

From what I've read, the crashes in Europe were mostly due to the fact that the F-104 was a high-altitude interceptor, but in Europe it was forced into service as a low-level high-speed attack bomber - the kind of role that had been planned for the TSR-2 - and it was horribly unsuited for it. But Lockheed spread its sheltering slush fund around and none of the politicians died.


"We need a plane for bombing, strafing, assault und battery, interception, ground support and reconnaissance, not just A FAIR-WEATHER FIGHTER" ~ Franz Josef Strauß in 1961, yesterday
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 26 November, 2019, 11:49:22 am
Lockheed Rep: Well, we'll jazz it up a little and call it the F-104G.

Franz Josef Strauss: F-104G?

Lockheed Rep: Yes Herr Minister, F-104G. G, err, G for Germany.

Franz Josef Strauss: G for Germany! Also, G for Gott Strafe England!, This I am enjoying.

Part of conversation which led to Germany buying 800 Starfighters (as related by one R Calvert Esq)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 26 November, 2019, 12:18:38 pm
This place (https://www.google.com/maps/@52.8070674,0.059233,3a,60y,140.19h,85.81t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s6q2oSjUzzMRAohNn5Ki0Aw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)?

That's the one
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 26 November, 2019, 01:20:14 pm
Actually, 'teeny wing, big engine' is a decent solution to the low-level strike design problem, albeit one that makes for long takeoff and landing runs. I don't know what the avionics were like - the 'missile with a man in it' wasn't exactly endowed with loads of spare room.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 26 November, 2019, 01:26:30 pm
 Interview with a starfighter pilot. (https://coldwarconversations.com/episode63/)

Interviewer: What was it like to land?
Starfighter pilot: Ha ha ha. ... It was a pig.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 November, 2019, 10:46:29 am
Slightly chilling: according to an article in Nature, tumours can form synapses with healthy nerves.  Haven't read the article yet, Nature is MrsT's and I saw it over her shoulder.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 November, 2019, 10:54:34 am
Actually, 'teeny wing, big engine' is a decent solution to the low-level strike design problem, albeit one that makes for long takeoff and landing runs. I don't know what the avionics were like - the 'missile with a man in it' wasn't exactly endowed with loads of spare room.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter#German_service

Quote
One contributing factor to [the high rate of controlled flight into terrain] was the operational assignment of the F-104 in German service: it was mainly used as a fighter-bomber, as opposed to the original design of a high-speed, high-altitude fighter/interceptor. In addition to the much lower-level mission profiles, the installation of additional avionic equipment in the F-104G version, such as the inertial navigation system, added far more distraction to the pilot and additional weight that further hampered the flying abilities of the plane. In contemporary German magazine articles highlighting the Starfighter safety problems, the aircraft was portrayed as "overburdened" with technology, which was considered a latent overstrain on the aircrews.

The rest of that piece is well worth reading too. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 29 November, 2019, 05:12:07 pm
That there is a Michelin Plate award.  Which our local decent restaurant has just been awarded.
AFAIUI the Plate is awarded to those establishments which are listed in the Michelin guide, but have not earned a star.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 03 December, 2019, 04:49:24 pm
That Richmal Crompton was a woman.   :facepalm:
I've obviously not been paying attention for most of my life.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 December, 2019, 04:48:01 pm
That a 2-litre ice cream tub, when filled with ratatouille and transported in a pannier, is not watertight. Nor even vegetable juice-tight. Fortunately I had put it in a mk one plastic bag.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 08 December, 2019, 05:16:40 pm
That a 2-litre ice cream tub, when filled with ratatouille and transported in a pannier, is not watertight. Nor even vegetable juice-tight. Fortunately I had put it in a mk one plastic bag.

Shouldn't that be in the Good News thread?

ETA.  Thinking about it, no.  It was only the liquid that escaped.  There would still be the same amount of bloody courgettes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 08 December, 2019, 05:24:19 pm
That a 2-litre ice cream tub, when filled with ratatouille and transported in a pannier, is not watertight. Nor even vegetable juice-tight. Fortunately I had put it in a mk one plastic bag.
Does not compute - transported !??!? Do you not like ratatouille? If made in this house there will not be any left to transport elsewhere.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 December, 2019, 05:37:19 pm
Okay, it's a deviation in the thread but specially for Basil:
GN: I made some ratatouille.
GN: I took it to lunch with some friends.
GN: They liked it.
BN: Some of it leaked in my pannier.
GN: But only into a plastic bag.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 December, 2019, 05:38:16 pm
Another thing I've learnt today, in fact just this minute, is that Surly named one of their bikes after an Austrian folklore devil figure.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/08/austria-struggles-with-marauding-krampus-day-demons-gone-rogue
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 December, 2019, 09:23:05 am
That a mush-faker was a 19th-century tradesman who mended umbrellas, mush being short for mushroom and a faker being any kind of artisan.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 09 December, 2019, 04:46:01 pm
that seagull can also be used as a verb  :o :hand:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 09 December, 2019, 04:50:52 pm
that seagull can also be used as a verb  :o :hand:

Presumably in reference to a particular style of management where "seagull" is shorthand for: "fly in, make lots of noise, crap on everything and then fly off, leaving you with a sticky and corrosive mess to clean up"?  :demon: ;) :demon:

ETA - or is this something covered under Rule 34?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 09 December, 2019, 05:03:38 pm
Management-speak I was aware of, others NO, No, No
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 11 December, 2019, 05:44:52 pm
Unicorns do actually exist.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 December, 2019, 08:56:31 pm
That the last December election was in 1923, which was also the first for which the results were transmitted over the radio – and that the past tense of 'broadcast' used to be 'broadcasted'.
https://youtu.be/JS_h8l_RfEA
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 11 December, 2019, 09:55:38 pm
I thought the past tense of broadcast was still broadcasted? I.e. the news report was broadcasted
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 December, 2019, 09:22:56 am
I don't think it ever was.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 12 December, 2019, 09:25:23 am
Presumably from broad + cast and no one ever casted their cares on the wind.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 December, 2019, 10:16:29 am
The French franc used to carry the image of a broadcaster:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/1Franc1999avers.png/220px-1Franc1999avers.png)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 December, 2019, 10:35:06 am
Looks a bit blé to me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 December, 2019, 01:16:55 pm
One FB froup to which I belong is currently being plagued by a troll going by the name of "Uno Uno".  This has led me to learn that the repetition of a word or phrase in immediate succession has a name.  It is called epizeuxis.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 12 December, 2019, 05:19:18 pm
One FB froup to which I belong is currently being plagued by a troll going by the name of "Uno Uno".  This has led me to learn that the repetition of a word or phrase in immediate succession has a name.  It is called epizeuxis.

Guy Martin: "That's got "Asterix character"* written all over it. Written all over it, I say..."



* Call him Epizeusix, draw him to look like the truck mechanic-cum-nutter, with his verbal tic. I'll waive the royalties.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 13 December, 2019, 03:12:37 pm
That when you blow a candle out if your pour the wax away that is melted around the wick it makes relighting it a lot easier
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 December, 2019, 10:28:00 pm
That dishwashers have float switch interlocks at the bottom of the enclosure which are often the cause of mysterious error messages and sulking.  Furthermore, transient flooding problems (due to eg. too much soap) can be resolved simply by tipping them backwards to allow the water to drain out, and then cycling power.

What's even better is that I've learned this by proxy via IRC and Youtube, rather than having to get electric shocks while elbows-deep in sudsy schmoo on anyone's kitchen floor or anything, which is the usual format of my white goods learning experiences.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 December, 2019, 04:49:07 pm
That tigernuts are not only not tiger's nuts, they are not even nuts. They're actually tubers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 23 December, 2019, 11:40:11 am
That I shouldn't go to the mothership as the humans have flooded the lower deck with poo swill.

(Apparently, the landlords were 'deep cleaning the toilet stack' at the weekend, whatever that entailed, I guess that worked out well.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 23 December, 2019, 12:09:33 pm
Descaling probably. Not a fun job.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 December, 2019, 04:54:26 pm
Blue masking tape doesn't stick very well to Christmas wrapping-paper.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 24 December, 2019, 05:18:46 pm
Descaling probably. Not a fun job.

Flooded the 'Faith Room.'

Someone evidently hasn't been praying hard enough. It's smiting next.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 27 December, 2019, 10:38:27 am
I've been shopping for mudguards today. On the CRC site about SKS Bluemels:

Quote
Highly resistant to corrosion and infused with violet radiation

 ;D ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 December, 2019, 01:14:36 pm
That's just phatasmagoriana-oriented marketing.  :)

Yesterday I learned that cooking with paracetamol is a thing amongst the unscrupulous (or perhaps ignorant) street vendors of Ghana and Nigeria.  Apparently it tenderises the meat more cheaply than the fuel required for longer cooking times, and poisons the livers of repeat customers...

I'm drawn between "OMG fuck no!" and "I must try this, for SCIENCE"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 27 December, 2019, 01:45:23 pm
Seems like another reason to eat vegetarian in these places. The 1st being you dunno what the meat is...

Perhaps you could science it without having to eat the results...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 27 December, 2019, 03:16:46 pm
That our American boss was somewhat perplexed when he heard we were having a Christmas jumper day, and that even the men were joining in.  This led me to learn that in the US a jumper is a pinafore dress, not a sweater. IYSWIM.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 December, 2019, 04:13:33 pm
I've been shopping for mudguards today. On the CRC site about SKS Bluemels:

Quote
Highly resistant to corrosion and infused with violet radiation

 ;D ::-)
Wow! Do they glow in the dark? When I had some of those, they were just black. Perhaps they were infused with black radiation? That might explain why they had their own gravity field.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 27 December, 2019, 07:56:32 pm
That our American boss was somewhat perplexed when he heard we were having a Christmas jumper day, and that even the men were joining in.  This led me to learn that in the US a jumper is a pinafore dress, not a sweater. IYSWIM.

This is one of the things I do on purpose. It's so cold, I'm wearing a jumper I'll declare at the start of a webex and leave them to digest it. They're less troubled than they ought to be when I tell them I'm wearing stocking and suspenders, of course.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 27 December, 2019, 08:03:58 pm
In other news, I belated learned the big (no longer) mysterious concrete platforms at the top of the hill weren't put there to provide a handy landing pad for passing UFOs but were in fact built to host a BFO gun and its targeting predictor mechanism during WWII.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: sg37409 on 27 December, 2019, 09:50:54 pm
Saw a car advert tonight that said it was also available as a "mild hybrid".  Looked it up and learned there is also such a thing as a strong hybrid.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 December, 2019, 11:34:24 am
I await with eager antici


pation the advent of up, down, charmed and strange hybrids, and may advise Professor Larrington to hold off buying a new car until they appear.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 December, 2019, 01:30:21 pm
Many drivers of hybrids believe they are charmed. And lots of them are strange.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 29 December, 2019, 11:51:26 am
Thanks to the wonders of Amazon parcel tracking and Google maps I now know what Crest Hill Illinois looks like
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 29 December, 2019, 01:36:12 pm
How a cuckoo clock goes cuckoo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hubner on 29 December, 2019, 06:30:30 pm
The phrase "you've got another thing coming" was originally "you've got another think coming".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 December, 2019, 10:04:48 am
The phrase "you've got another thing coming" was originally "you've got another think coming".

I've never come across the thing version - the full version was always "if you think that you've got another think coming".

God, the language is falling apart faster than the environment. Or me. Maybe we'll all go together.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 30 December, 2019, 11:21:36 am
"... when we go,
All suffused with an incandescent glow ..."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 30 December, 2019, 12:06:20 pm
That German airlines have a staff union called UFO.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 30 December, 2019, 12:10:19 pm
That while hurtling up Geln Carron at increasingly great velocity the thought "how in feck am I going to get back down" should be rattling in the mind not "just the climb to kinloch ewe and a blat down to torridon".



Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 30 December, 2019, 03:18:11 pm
Microphones can listen to light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozIKwGt38LQ

and

https://lightcommands.com/

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 30 December, 2019, 03:49:55 pm
Microphones can listen to light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozIKwGt38LQ

and

https://lightcommands.com/

Interesting.
Some significant flaws highlighted there.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuzzy on 31 December, 2019, 11:36:34 pm
That I shouldn't go to the mothership as the humans have flooded the lower deck with poo swill.

(Apparently, the landlords were 'deep cleaning the toilet stack' at the weekend, whatever that entailed, I guess that worked out well.)

I am guessing the toilet stack is the big downtube to which all the toilets are connected and carries poo etc. down to the sewer. Cleaning the toilet stack I think means getting rid of any lingering solids. If the solids are sufficiently lingering twixt floors, when you clean the lingering solids, everything they are holding back escapes. Much jollity ensues (for witnesses, not practitioners).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 31 December, 2019, 11:42:40 pm
I am guessing the toilet stack is the big downtube to which all the toilets are connected and carries poo etc. down to the sewer. Cleaning the toilet stack I think means getting rid of any lingering solids. If the solids are sufficiently lingering twixt floors, when you clean the lingering solids, everything they are holding back escapes...

...from the loose pipe fitting into the void that some poor sod will have to pull a bundle of Ethernet cables through some time later.  (DAHIKT)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 January, 2020, 04:32:18 pm
Christopher Lee once met the assassins of Rasputin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 02 January, 2020, 04:58:56 pm
That I shouldn't go to the mothership as the humans have flooded the lower deck with poo swill.

(Apparently, the landlords were 'deep cleaning the toilet stack' at the weekend, whatever that entailed, I guess that worked out well.)

I am guessing the toilet stack is the big downtube to which all the toilets are connected and carries poo etc. down to the sewer. Cleaning the toilet stack I think means getting rid of any lingering solids. If the solids are sufficiently lingering twixt floors, when you clean the lingering solids, everything they are holding back escapes. Much jollity ensues (for witnesses, not practitioners).

The mothership has a history of poo-smell problems (it used to belch forth from the CEOs office, though the noisome stench did dent our collective amusement). I think there's some kind of weird and contrary poo-beast in the basement charged with chewing through our collective effluent.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 02 January, 2020, 07:42:29 pm
This I learned a few days ago. First the scene set.

In France, the day before driving back to the UK, requiring 1200km driving in a day. I would like to ensure a good night sleep, for obvious reasons. I have a streaming cold. I have bought some cold remedy from a French Pharmacy, with pills marked "Day" and "Night". Not wishing to knock myself out for an early start, I choose a "Day" capsule, thinking I will get a good night sleep. Two hours later I have come to the conclusion that the "Day" capsules have an over-quantity of caffeine, as I am more than a little wired and sleep is a distant dream (only it isn't a dream, clearly). Which is odd, as my tolerance for caffeine is high. Oh well.

It is the day after return I learn that the French cold remedy decongestant is amphetamine, with the night dose being a fraction of the day dose. Oh well.



Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 02 January, 2020, 08:24:21 pm
You are Alain Baxter AICMFP.  :demon:

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 02 January, 2020, 09:00:33 pm
So the moral of the story is, take night nurse with impunity and main line day nurse all day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 03 January, 2020, 10:07:57 am
This I learned a few days ago. First the scene set.

In France, the day before driving back to the UK, requiring 1200km driving in a day. I would like to ensure a good night sleep, for obvious reasons. I have a streaming cold. I have bought some cold remedy from a French Pharmacy, with pills marked "Day" and "Night". Not wishing to knock myself out for an early start, I choose a "Day" capsule, thinking I will get a good night sleep. Two hours later I have come to the conclusion that the "Day" capsules have an over-quantity of caffeine, as I am more than a little wired and sleep is a distant dream (only it isn't a dream, clearly). Which is odd, as my tolerance for caffeine is high. Oh well.

It is the day after return I learn that the French cold remedy decongestant is amphetamine, with the night dose being a fraction of the day dose. Oh well.

Most (if not all) nasal decongestants are amphetamine-like sympathomimetic drugs (despite the fact they [all] involve a risk of stroke and severe neurological effect still regularly available because no one likes a blocked nose).

Still, it was France, so you're lucky the capsules were for oral consumption.

I'd avoid the weak stuff like pseudoephedrine and go direct to crystal meth. You can always take the edge off with a couple of bennies. That seems to be what most drivers in south London are doing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 03 January, 2020, 04:48:11 pm
That some responsible for street names in South Yorkshire is a little bit of a comedian. The address of the South Yorkshire Police Operations Complex is something of a classic. Do google ‘south yorkshire police operations complex’ it’s a bit of a giggle.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 03 January, 2020, 05:00:42 pm
Yesterday but I appear to be able to control and move in a decent manual wheelchair using my hands on wheels and control them independently as well as forward (not sure about reverse) or on carpets rather than hard flooring.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 January, 2020, 05:11:50 pm
Yesterday but I appear to be able to control and move in a decent manual wheelchair using my hands on wheels and control them independently as well as forward (not sure about reverse) or on carpets rather than hard flooring.
This might be a useful skill but the fact that you have discovered it could be not so good. ... ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 04 January, 2020, 12:14:05 am
I'm likely to need scary ortho surgery (between 1 and 4 procedures) to my pelvis/femurs which will require limited weightbearing on the operated leg for around 12 weeks during recovery... Crutches aren't an option. Frames would be limited.

A manual wheelchair is much more flexible than a powerchair in many ways. I have some delightfully knowledgeable friends willing to help me work out what I need and try them out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 January, 2020, 12:19:17 am
Hopefully you will go through scary and come out at least partially mended.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 January, 2020, 08:38:55 am
What Cudzo said. Wincing in sympathy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 04 January, 2020, 07:33:14 pm
Ouch! Hope the procedures go well.

For my part, I discovered that the '700c' inner tube I've been carrying around in my saddle pack the last two years is actually an 18" Birdy one! And to think I actually came off in November when I was offering it as a spare (offer declined!) to a fellow cyclist on a cyclepath.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orraloon on 04 January, 2020, 08:06:40 pm
That some responsible for street names in South Yorkshire is a little bit of a comedian. The address of the South Yorkshire Police Operations Complex is something of a classic. Do google ‘south yorkshire police operations complex’ it’s a bit of a giggle.
Erm. ???  'Ave Oi got a humour bypass?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 04 January, 2020, 08:23:35 pm
That some responsible for street names in South Yorkshire is a little bit of a comedian. The address of the South Yorkshire Police Operations Complex is something of a classic. Do google ‘south yorkshire police operations complex’ it’s a bit of a giggle.
Erm. ???  'Ave Oi got a humour bypass?

The police facility is the only building on Letsby Avenue. As in, "lets be 'avin' you".

Badum, and indeed, tish...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/feb/12/martinwainwright

Google map (https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Sheffield+S9+1XX/@53.3959569,-1.3996525,20z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x487977c27e4e1acb:0x234f8a28da0b83e4!8m2!3d53.3965858!4d-1.4005634)

HTH.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orraloon on 04 January, 2020, 08:46:54 pm
Ah.  Thought there must be more to the 'joke' than that.  Is there Benny Hill stylee in tandem with truncheons erect fast forwarding on offer?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 05 January, 2020, 07:34:38 pm
Thanks all. I have to persuade the surgeons to operate at all - they're unhappy about my age which affects bone-union healing. But without surgery I have a high percentage risk of developing arthritis and labral tears and my limited mobility and pain worsening even further.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 06 January, 2020, 10:34:07 pm
While researching entrepreneurial brothers in law for the KWC2019 quiz I discovered that Callard & Bowsers is cockney rhyming slang for trousers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 January, 2020, 10:12:14 am
While researching entrepreneurial brothers in law for the KWC2019 quiz I discovered that Callard & Bowsers is cockney rhyming slang for trousers.

Those of a Certain Age may recall that there was a cartoon in Private Eye in the 1960s and early 1970s yclept "Barry McKenzie". At least once he referred to his "petrols", an abbreviation of "petrol bowsers".

My rather interesting factoid is that les français have a word for "pie chart" - "camembert". Apparently it's also known as "un diagramme circulaire", but that's just boring.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 07 January, 2020, 08:45:27 pm

Those of a Certain Age may recall that there was a carton in Private Eye in the 1960s and early 1970s yclept "Barry McKenzie". At least once he referred to his "petrols", an abbreviation of "petrol bowsers".



I don't remember any rhyming slag at all!  As far as I know most of the slang in the strip was invented by Barry Humphries. I do, however, recall his referring to trousers as "strides"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 10 January, 2020, 11:47:47 am
That Ciao is derived from the Venetian term for slave.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 January, 2020, 12:37:25 pm
That Ciao is derived from the Venetian term for slave.

Seems reasonable.  I've known Germans use servus as a greeting, and it's Latin for slave, and "your servant" used to be a common English expression.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 10 January, 2020, 08:59:41 pm
Toss up between the "div" thread and here.

Not to thin dope whilst wearing one of the few pairs of half way decent strides in my possession.  I now have one fewer half way decent pairs of strides.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 January, 2020, 01:38:00 pm
What strides are, apart from the obvious.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 11 January, 2020, 04:42:55 pm
What strides are, apart from the obvious.

Here's another one (in case you didn't already know); in Yorkshire they are called kecks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 January, 2020, 05:20:29 pm
In Gloucestershire, kecks were underwear.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 11 January, 2020, 06:12:49 pm
In Gloucestershire, kecks were underwear.


We'd better not mention knickers!
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orraloon on 11 January, 2020, 08:15:20 pm
In Gloucestershire, kecks were underwear.
And indeed in East Kilbride, though pronounced "kechs".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 January, 2020, 08:43:43 pm
I'm not sure if it shares a derivation with "cack".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 11 January, 2020, 08:53:18 pm
In Northants keck is another name for cow parsley.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 12 January, 2020, 09:00:39 am
Only Northants - I was told that back in the '50s* and had always assumed that it was a general term.

*Prolly in the field at the top of Lodge Road, Little Houghton (Hoe_ton, not How_ton!).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 12 January, 2020, 10:34:36 am
That the German equivalent of a Friday car (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Friday%20car) is a Montagsauto (https://www.dw.com/de/das-montagsauto/a-48251720), the implication being that standards of British* car workers drop when they are looking forward to the weekend, while their German counterparts find it difficult to concentrate immediately after a heavy weekend.

* and American, given the hashtags of the 2nd urban dictionary definition.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 12 January, 2020, 02:05:02 pm
In Northants keck is another name for cow parsley.
That's interesting.  I'm from Lincolnshire, and it's keck (for cow parsley) there too - but not heard it anywhere else in the UK. Maybe an East Midlands term?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 12 January, 2020, 03:24:22 pm
The alarm call of a chaffinch.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 12 January, 2020, 03:57:17 pm
In Northants keck is another name for cow parsley.
That's interesting.  I'm from Lincolnshire, and it's keck (for cow parsley) there too - but not heard it anywhere else in the UK. Maybe an East Midlands term?

The OED has a citation from south Cheshire.

It also occurs in the works of John Clare of Helpston, which is in Northants but within spitting distance of the Lincolnshire border.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 12 January, 2020, 06:25:09 pm
In Northants keck is another name for cow parsley.
That's interesting.  I'm from Lincolnshire, and it's keck (for cow parsley) there too - but not heard it anywhere else in the UK. Maybe an East Midlands term?

The OED has a citation from south Cheshire.

It also occurs in the works of John Clare of Helpston, which is in Northants but within spitting distance of the Lincolnshire border.
This is getting spooky.  I live now (and have for 30 years, at the very bottom south end of Cheshire.....).  Cow parsley is cow parsley here, the locals have never heard of "keck".  What's the OED citation say?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 13 January, 2020, 09:10:17 am
In Northants keck is another name for cow parsley.
That's interesting.  I'm from Lincolnshire, and it's keck (for cow parsley) there too - but not heard it anywhere else in the UK. Maybe an East Midlands term?

The OED has a citation from south Cheshire.

It also occurs in the works of John Clare of Helpston, which is in Northants but within spitting distance of the Lincolnshire border.
This is getting spooky.  I live now (and have for 30 years, at the very bottom south end of Cheshire.....).  Cow parsley is cow parsley here, the locals have never heard of "keck".  What's the OED citation say?

It's from "The folk-speech of South Cheshire" by Thomas Darlington published in 1887. "As dry as a keck".
The definition says it refers to "Any of the large Umbelliferæ, or their hollow stems", also that it is "now dialect", implying it was earlier used over a larger area.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 13 January, 2020, 10:44:24 am
The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe - what a magnificent name "Aslan" is. How creative was C S Lewis, eh?

Aslan is Turkish for "lion".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 January, 2020, 04:13:32 pm
The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe - what a magnificent name "Aslan" is. How creative was C S Lewis, eh?

Aslan is Turkish for "lion".

Wait till you hear about Simba...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 13 January, 2020, 04:46:23 pm
Just how small the IC parts of a current F1 engine are. (We have some parts in our facility at the moment for CT scanning).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 14 January, 2020, 11:31:18 am
From Jim Al-Khalili's 'The Life Scientific' on R4 this morning.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex is closer in time to the iPad than to Stegosaurus.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 14 January, 2020, 01:07:39 pm
Wow. But then again, a couple of people I work with are dinosaurs, so...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 14 January, 2020, 01:27:30 pm
In Northants keck is another name for cow parsley.
That's interesting.  I'm from Lincolnshire, and it's keck (for cow parsley) there too - but not heard it anywhere else in the UK. Maybe an East Midlands term?

The OED has a citation from south Cheshire.

It also occurs in the works of John Clare of Helpston, which is in Northants but within spitting distance of the Lincolnshire border.
This is getting spooky.  I live now (and have for 30 years, at the very bottom south end of Cheshire.....).  Cow parsley is cow parsley here, the locals have never heard of "keck".  What's the OED citation say?

It's from "The folk-speech of South Cheshire" by Thomas Darlington published in 1887. "As dry as a keck".
The definition says it refers to "Any of the large Umbelliferæ, or their hollow stems", also that it is "now dialect", implying it was earlier used over a larger area.

Thank you Salvatore.  Fascinating.  I'll raise that with the village historian next time I see him - he'll no doubt either have that book or know where to borrow one.  The term has definitely fallen out of use here in Cheshire - but I'll ask my old farmer neighbour next time I see him, but it's still in common use in Lincolnshire. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 14 January, 2020, 01:34:55 pm
The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe - what a magnificent name "Aslan" is. How creative was C S Lewis, eh?

Aslan is Turkish for "lion".

Wait till you hear about Simba...
One of our serves is called Shenzi, given its running an ancient version of Solaris it could be a good description of the heighheedyin responsible for it.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 January, 2020, 09:39:22 pm
I have started watching Tony Palmer's epic 17-part history of popular music "All You Need Is Love" and have thus learned that Hoagy Carmichael was a white man from Indianapolis :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 15 January, 2020, 09:06:32 am
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51105056 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51105056)

"The issue of hyphens gets more complex when someone joins the House of Lords, with peerage rules demanding a double surname be hyphenated (so it's Andrew Lloyd Webber but Lord Lloyd-Webber, and Martha Lane Fox but Baroness Lane-Fox)."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 January, 2020, 10:47:26 am
Elohim is plural, so in the beginning gods created heaven and earth.  Or is that the editorial we at work?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 15 January, 2020, 10:54:25 am
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51105056 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51105056)

"The issue of hyphens gets more complex when someone joins the House of Lords, with peerage rules demanding a double surname be hyphenated (so it's Andrew Lloyd Webber but Lord Lloyd-Webber, and Martha Lane Fox but Baroness Lane-Fox)."

Hyphenated names: I have from time to time wondered why Terry-Thomas (born Thomas Terry Hoar Stevens) had a hyphenated stage name. Prompted by Legs' post, I did a bit of delving.

During this period, he billed himself as Thomas (or Thos) Stevens, but reorganised the name to its backward spelling of Mot Snevets; the name did not last long and he changed it to Thomas Terry. He soon realised that people were mistaking him as a relative of Dame Ellen Terry, so inverted the name to Terry Thomas. He did not add the hyphen until 1947, and later explained that it was "not for snob reasons but to tie the two names together. They didn't mean much apart; together they made a trade name": the hyphen was also "to match the gap in his front teeth" from https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Terry-Thomas
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 16 January, 2020, 12:40:19 am
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51105056 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51105056)

"The issue of hyphens gets more complex when someone joins the House of Lords, with peerage rules demanding a double surname be hyphenated (so it's Andrew Lloyd Webber but Lord Lloyd-Webber, and Martha Lane Fox but Baroness Lane-Fox)."

Peerage rules are stupid and wrong. If there's no hyphen, putting one in is inaccurate.

I have a friend who intentionally gave his daughter a two word forename to break databases so he could be pedantic at them... Little bobby tables and all that... I bet she changes it when she turns 18 tho.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 16 January, 2020, 05:22:27 am
Elohim is plural, so in the beginning gods created heaven and earth.  Or is that the editorial we at work?
I think it‘s thought to be like the Royal We.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 16 January, 2020, 08:37:35 am
Elohim is plural, so in the beginning gods created heaven and earth.  Or is that the editorial we at work?
I think it‘s thought to be like the Royal We.

For the optional names see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism

and for the specific explanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Elohim

And if you think there is a simple explanation, have a look at a "basic" bible page in the form as would be typically used for study.
(https://www.reed.edu/humanities/110Tech/graphics/Genesis2.GIF)

The big writing top right is the start of the first sentence. The dots around the letters are both vowels and punctuation (more on that later).

The left hand first line is the "Translation of Onklos", Onklos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targum_Onkelos) was a Rabbi who translated the bible into some form of Aramaic, and is one of the first recorded bible translations. There is a fundamental principle in jewish teaching that says Anyone Who Went Before Is Cleverer And Beterer That We Are, so this is worthy of study in its own right. Given it's pigeon aramaic written in hebrew characters one has to wonder, but hey ho.

Underneath that on the two column layout is the explanation by Rashi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashi), who lived in Troyes in the 11th Century, who took a basic explanatory approach to his commentary. So much so that there are tracts after tracts, book after book, written on arguments about what he meant. Given that (apart from Onklos) he is one of the early written commentators (I'm excluding the Talmud here, on which he also provided a commentary) he Cannot Be Wrong. Oh yes, did I mention it's written in a completely different version of the Hebrew alphabet? And, as iis common, without vowels. Given that vowels can change the meaning of a word, and this is meant to be an explanation, you do have to wonder.

Next down we're into the Spanish Influence.

Ibn Ezra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_ibn_Ezra) is the left hand column, Spanish, 12th Century.

Then we get to Ramban (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nachmanides) (right hand column) an interesting character of the 13th century who was significant in Spain. (not to be confused with Rambam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targum_Onkelos) of a similar period who was big in the Spanish Court)

The next block is "The Explanation of Ibn Ezra". Ibn Ezra, who Went Before and therefore Knows More Than Us didn't really explain himself well enough. He needed someone (can't remember who, but they Went Before, too) to explain what he said.

Last - but certainly not least - is Siforno (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obadiah_ben_Jacob_Sforno) again Spanish, 16th century.

We haven't got out of either the first century (error) sentence or the 16th century by this time.

Anyhow, back to the punctuation. This is interesting in many ways because it is also used as the notation for the chanting when sung out loud in the synagogue, and apart from providing another source of challenge for boys going through Bar-Mitzvah (where traditionally (?) they take the place of the cantor or rabbi for the reading of their portion of the scroll) also provides additional fodder for commentary. In the sentence concerned there is an effective comma: In the beginning god created, the heaven and the earth.

Only, you guessed it, it isn't quite so simple.

First, "the heaven and the earth" - the actual way to say that would be ha'shamayim ve ha'aretz. Only, there is an additional "ess" with both: ess ha'shamayim veess ha'aretz. "Ess" actually has a connotation of "with".

Second, the bit before the comma could as easily be translated "The beginning created god". What is actually certain is the "In the beginning god created" is not very accurate. It's an awkward sentence - see the extent of commentary on the page.

So, let's put those together: "The beginning created god, with the heaven and with the earth"

There you go, Big Bang theory, in the bible.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 January, 2020, 08:38:12 am
Elohim is plural, so in the beginning gods created heaven and earth.  Or is that the editorial we at work?
I think it‘s thought to be like the Royal We.

Oh, I dare say a good deal of editing went into it.  :demon:

Meanwhile, I have discovered that if you suppress a dog's intestinal flora with antibiotics its shit doesn't stink.  Which was fortunate, given that I had to clear it up before breakfast.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 January, 2020, 09:31:49 am
So, let's put those together: "The beginning created god, with the heaven and with the earth"

There you go, Big Bang theory, in the bible.
Out of the whole of your long and erudite post, this is the bit I will remember, understand, am not surprised by and actually makes sense to me. Even without knowing anything about the commas.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 January, 2020, 11:33:01 am
That's all very well, Ham, but the KJV is definitive and, moreover, is written in English Just Like Jesus Spoke.  Blasphemer!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 16 January, 2020, 02:03:58 pm
Blasphemer!

I believe so
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 16 January, 2020, 02:11:08 pm
That's all very well, Ham, but the KJV is definitive and, moreover, is written in English Just Like Jesus Spoke.  Blasphemer!

That's a bit harsh, it's not like Ham said "Jehovah" in his post.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 16 January, 2020, 02:45:21 pm
Elohim is plural, so in the beginning gods created heaven and earth.  Or is that the editorial we at work?

...and I meant to add that the reason for that as far as I can see was that Judaism differed from almost everything that went before, as well as almost all other concurrent religions, in that it is a monotheistic religion. That's actually a real big deal in a world that split divinity and often had those gods warring against each other. With that in mind, that the first name used in the bible is the one that expresses that critical difference most clearly (all in one), is no surprise.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 17 January, 2020, 01:41:14 pm
There's a 'Sourdough Saloon' in a hotel in Dawson, Yukon, that serves a 'Sourtoe' cocktail. To join the 'Sourtoe club' you must drink the cocktail and your lips must touch the severed human toe at the bottom. Since 1973 when it was established as a cocktail (using a toe in a jar of bourbon that had been in the hotel since 1930) around 7 toes have been used. Some of the previous toes have been swallowed, either deliberately or by accident.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sourtoe-cocktail (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sourtoe-cocktail)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 17 January, 2020, 01:57:39 pm
Elohim is plural, so in the beginning gods created heaven and earth.  Or is that the editorial we at work?

...and I meant to add that the reason for that as far as I can see was that Judaism differed from almost everything that went before, as well as almost all other concurrent religions, in that it is a monotheistic religion. That's actually a real big deal in a world that split divinity and often had those gods warring against each other. With that in mind, that the first name used in the bible is the one that expresses that critical difference most clearly (all in one), is no surprise.

There is also a theory that there are actually two gods in the old testament not one. Two separate tribal traditions that eventually get mashed into one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 January, 2020, 02:55:21 pm
Re mono- vs polytheism, there's an idea that monotheists tend to be more aggressive, via proselytism, oppressive laws or jihad, whereas polytheists tend more to take-it-or-leave-it.  Dunno to what extent that holds - Modi's actions at present seem to argue against it, if he isn't being just another cynical populist.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: caerau on 17 January, 2020, 04:25:41 pm
I'd be interested to hear more about that.  I love a good bit of amataeur history and my (amateur) reading of that sort of thing is that the 'benevolent' - you can worship anything you like - or 'religious toleration' thing was practiced by some of the actual most oppressive and murderous regimes in history.


E.g. Genghis Khan's mongols - you can worship anyone you want - but you better acknowledge us as overlords or you're dead and so are your family and your pets, and the rest of the city - and we may rape your daughters in front of you too.  Basically yes you were free to worship your own god - but otherwise a slave for them to abuse as they pleased.
Romans were not so far off - worship anyone you want as long as one of them is the emperor.  That's why Jews and Christians fared so badly with them - the 'one true god' thing didn't include a self-proclaimed god-on-earth.


A lot of the very famous religious *intolerance* is also usually a reaction to bad factors elsewhere.  Nations historically and peoples, tend to be quite relaxed when times are good.  Give them a dose of invasion, massacre, plague, famine etc. and the one-true god lot - who are usually led to believe that they are the chosen ones who god favours - look inwardly at what they've done wrong to deserve this punishment. Why have we angered god?  That's when those who don't worship god 'correctly' or those of other faiths get the short-end of the stick.  It also massively increases the proportion of zealots.  Perhaps we're not worshipping god hard enough, or enough...


Post-enlightenment period (US revolution, French Revolution type period-is up to now - we are still in this period) is when 'rationally' kicked in, the thought paradigm prior to that was that god was behind everything so bad things must be because of a punishment from God.  So what might now be debated as to reason or cause of bad things - would back then have been seen very differently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 17 January, 2020, 05:09:52 pm
Rome didn't have a problem with Jews, in fact it gave them many privileges. What it did have a problem with and never tolerated was rebellion which is what the three Jewish wars were about, Judea trying to chuck the Romans out it wasn't about religion per se. By the third war the Romans had had enough and killed or enslaved most of the Jewish population of Judea. Jews outside Judea such as those in Galilee were left to carry in unmolested bar having to pay a new tax.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 January, 2020, 05:44:42 pm
Re mono- vs polytheism, there's an idea that monotheists tend to be more aggressive, via proselytism, oppressive laws or jihad, whereas polytheists tend more to take-it-or-leave-it.  Dunno to what extent that holds - Modi's actions at present seem to argue against it, if he isn't being just another cynical populist.
Though some would argue Hinduism is mono- or even atheistic. And others say it has 33.3 million deities.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 17 January, 2020, 05:47:51 pm
I don't blame God for disasters. I blame the gays for making him angry.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pickled Onion on 17 January, 2020, 06:23:56 pm
That Henry Williamson, author of "Tarka The Otter" was a  fascist  >:(

He went to my school, and certain masters were very proud to say so. Now I've seen your WIHLT, it figures.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 January, 2020, 10:24:48 am
Re mono- vs polytheism, there's an idea that monotheists tend to be more aggressive, via proselytism, oppressive laws or jihad, whereas polytheists tend more to take-it-or-leave-it.  Dunno to what extent that holds - Modi's actions at present seem to argue against it, if he isn't being just another cynical populist.
Though some would argue Hinduism is mono- or even atheistic. And others say it has 33.3 million deities.

Most religions that I'm aware of are hierarchies with a boss god at the top and strata of sub-deities below. Depending on the distance between the boss and the lower echelons they're either polytheistic or monotheistic. The Greek & Roman gods were rather casual with each other unless Daddy got pissed off, but the vast difference in power between God and his underlings rules out any familiarity. Dunno about Islam - does it have archangels etc?

Another thing I heard on the radio years ago divided religions into two classes.  Some mostly tribal religions make becoming a full member a very painful procedure, usually happening at around puberty and involving knives/skewers/fire/genitals (delete as appropriate but genitals are usually obligatory), but once you're in nobody much bothers if you turn up for the happy clappy bits or not. The other class doesn't have a painful initiation but insists on regular sessions of submission and boredom to keep the flock well aware of who's boss.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 January, 2020, 03:02:22 pm
There's a 'Sourdough Saloon' in a hotel in Dawson, Yukon, that serves a 'Sourtoe' cocktail. To join the 'Sourtoe club' you must drink the cocktail and your lips must touch the severed human toe at the bottom. Since 1973 when it was established as a cocktail (using a toe in a jar of bourbon that had been in the hotel since 1930) around 7 toes have been used. Some of the previous toes have been swallowed, either deliberately or by accident.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sourtoe-cocktail (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sourtoe-cocktail)

I managed to forego that particular pleasure when I passed through Dawson City a couple of years ago, because I don't alcohol.  Well, that was one reason.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 21 January, 2020, 09:59:42 am
Mr (and one assumes Mrs) Joe Average does not exist. Well, I suppose statistically there may be one individual whom matches every average data point, but he’s part of a very small group of people who have done so over the years.

This startling fact was discovered by the researchers working on behalf of the US Air Force when they were developing the first G-suits. They took 132 different measurements for over 4000 US airmen but when they were having problems with the resultant garment not fitting anybody properly, they revisited their data. They could not find a single individual who matched the average measurements.

More here
 https://youtu.be/NbiveCNBOxk (https://youtu.be/NbiveCNBOxk)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 January, 2020, 01:09:08 pm
I remember Cliff Michelmore on Tonight in the 60s mentioning that Mr. Average Briton had one-third of an outside lavatory.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 21 January, 2020, 01:11:15 pm
...and slightly less fewer than two legs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 January, 2020, 02:33:48 pm
I remember Cliff Michelmore on Tonight in the 60s mentioning that Mr. Average Briton had one-third of an outside lavatory.

We've got a third of an outside lavatory.  If you go by mortar, if not functional plumbing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 January, 2020, 02:42:57 pm
...and slightly less fewer than two legs.

I'd go with less, 1.5 being less than two. Ha! Is this a principle? Does "few" only apply to whole numbers?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 21 January, 2020, 02:49:55 pm
I remember Cliff Michelmore on Tonight in the 60s mentioning that Mr. Average Briton had one-third of an outside lavatory.

We've got a third of an outside lavatory.  If you go by mortar, if not functional plumbing.

So the outhouse looks like it took a direct hot from a mortar, then? :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 January, 2020, 03:15:18 pm
I remember Cliff Michelmore on Tonight in the 60s mentioning that Mr. Average Briton had one-third of an outside lavatory.

We've got a third of an outside lavatory.  If you go by mortar, if not functional plumbing.

So the outhouse looks like it took a direct hot from a mortar, then? :demon:
Does it have a shit hot hot seat?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 January, 2020, 03:17:35 pm
I remember Cliff Michelmore on Tonight in the 60s mentioning that Mr. Average Briton had one-third of an outside lavatory.

We've got a third of an outside lavatory.  If you go by mortar, if not functional plumbing.

So the outhouse looks like it took a direct hot from a mortar, then? :demon:
Does it have a shit hot hot seat?

No, but it does have a bees' nest.  Suspected to be structural.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 21 January, 2020, 03:25:34 pm
;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 January, 2020, 02:43:22 pm
What to corpse means. 19c, apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 22 January, 2020, 09:39:11 pm
What to corpse means. 19c, apparently.


How appropriate  :thumbsup:     I've just learned what a Taphonomist is.   https://twitter.com/Thomas_Clements/status/1219998244182339584?s=20


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



Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 January, 2020, 09:20:51 am
I bet they didn't laugh much.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 January, 2020, 08:39:32 am
The French name for puffball mushrooms - vesses de loup - means wolves' silent deadly farts.  I've known the name for >40 years but only now looked up the literal meaning.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 January, 2020, 10:01:16 am
About Robertson screwdrivers.
https://youtu.be/R-mDqKtivuI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 28 January, 2020, 01:09:19 pm
Antarctica isn't so much a gurt big island as the biggest island in an archipelago all joined up with ice.

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51097309 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51097309)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 04 February, 2020, 10:22:10 am
That Kansas City is not in Kansas.  Or rather, that there are two Kansas Cities, the larger of which is not in Kansas.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 February, 2020, 10:23:47 am
But which is the one that has the 'crazy little women'?
https://youtu.be/5yk2N9YELjs
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 February, 2020, 10:25:42 am
To roll up my sleeves before planing the edge of a door in situ.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 04 February, 2020, 02:40:31 pm
To roll up my sleeves before planing the edge of a door in situ.


If you roll up your sleeves inwards they stay rolled up. Works for trouser legs too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 04 February, 2020, 02:47:59 pm
That the Blue EU flag is actually the Council of Europe flag (Treaty of London 1949) of which the UK was a founding and continuing member. It was never formally adopted by the EU.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 February, 2020, 03:17:20 pm
Ain't that a kick in the head?  Better not tell Boris.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 04 February, 2020, 04:39:11 pm
Oh that's wonderful.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 February, 2020, 07:43:58 pm
That average speed cameras in the Netherlands work the way people often think they do in the UK (rather than the way they actually do work here).
Quote
THE POLICE IN THE NETHERLANDS USE SOME DIFFERENT METHODS TO

CONTROL THE SPEED OF CARS

Speed cameras: driving too fast past a speed
camera will result in a photograph and a fine.
The cameras are smart, taking a photo of the
passing car at two points along the road,
sometimes also in between. The average
speed between the points determine
whether a fine is produced or not.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10iWb4SJPVt6irFsb-LcX1VocRBNnNRhI/view
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 04 February, 2020, 08:03:10 pm
So how does the U.K. system differ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 February, 2020, 08:53:49 pm
AFAIUI the UK system doesn't take your speed at two points, it times you between two points.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 04 February, 2020, 11:01:56 pm
AFAIUI the UK system doesn't take your speed at two points, it times you between two points.

But that operation is implicit in the assertion that "The average speed between the points determine whether a fine is produced or not."

Well, unless you've got a means of calculating the average speed that doesn't involve dividing the distance between the points by the time taken.

(I bet the cameras record the instant speed as well though, even if it's not usable for prosecution.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 05 February, 2020, 12:14:07 am
UK type approval for average speed cameras currently allows for
Between any 2 points where there is no change in speed limit

These rules make the set up of the A9 perth to Inverness cameras obvious.
Then only intermediate camera on a single carriageway section is at bruaf iirc. The rest are all at the nearest point to the stsrt of dual carriageway that a power supply could be made cheaply.
Also because there's no wiring linking them all together like on all the other schemes, the control computers have to go on site, and they only have a handful of pairs of them.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 05 February, 2020, 08:34:26 am
AFAIUI the UK system doesn't take your speed at two points, it times you between two points.

But that operation is implicit in the assertion that "The average speed between the points determine whether a fine is produced or not."

Well, unless you've got a means of calculating the average speed that doesn't involve dividing the distance between the points by the time taken.

(I bet the cameras record the instant speed as well though, even if it's not usable for prosecution.)
Agreed.  I thought Cudzo was going to illuminate me about a common misconception, but it turns out that he has misread the Dutch pamphlet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 February, 2020, 04:00:58 pm
That the first and third letters of 4a in this morning's Guardian's Quick Crossword were not F and E.

https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/quick/15521
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 05 February, 2020, 05:31:03 pm
That the first and third letters of 4a in this morning's Guardian's Quick Crossword were not F and E.

https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/quick/15521
:sick:
 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 February, 2020, 01:05:03 pm
AFAIUI the UK system doesn't take your speed at two points, it times you between two points.

But that operation is implicit in the assertion that "The average speed between the points determine whether a fine is produced or not."

Well, unless you've got a means of calculating the average speed that doesn't involve dividing the distance between the points by the time taken.

(I bet the cameras record the instant speed as well though, even if it's not usable for prosecution.)
Agreed.  I thought Cudzo was going to illuminate me about a common misconception, but it turns out that he has misread the Dutch pamphlet.
I have. Sorry.  :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 07 February, 2020, 01:21:09 pm
Paul Daniels famous husband of the lovely Debbie McGee, was born in Middlesbrough.

(office game - name 5 good things to come out of Middlesbrough. Google aid was required)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 07 February, 2020, 07:59:37 pm
Paul Daniels famous husband of the lovely Debbie McGee, was born in Middlesbrough.

(office game - name 5 good things to come out of Middlesbrough. Google aid was required)

I can name two... My niece, Smoggy Jane, and Bob Mortimer, who is the only amusing person ever y
To come from Mbro.

Bugger! I've remembered two more; Paul Rogers of Free Nd the late, great, Ron Aspery of Back Door.

I'll give up now, while I'm behind.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Chris S on 07 February, 2020, 11:24:09 pm
Jiberjaber OTP.

For my part - what I've learned today - what Flotsam and Jetsam are. Human pollution and whale crap. Great. It all sounded so enticing and mysterious as I was growing up on various family beach holidays. Now it just sounds miserable and nasty.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 07 February, 2020, 11:35:54 pm
I though they were stuff that fell off a boat and stuff that was chucked off a boat respectively, I don't think whales come into it.  Unless the stuff fell off while the boat was getting the Moby Dick treatment, I suppose.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Chris S on 08 February, 2020, 12:02:37 am
So, is Jetsom Ambergris (https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/sperm-whales-confirmed-as-the-origin-of-jetsam-ambergris-67065) a different thing then?

That's likely to trigger me too. Using the same fucking word for two different things. I pity anyone trying to learn English.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 February, 2020, 12:12:45 am
....And today I learned another minging fact about sperm whales.  Sort of thing that really makes you appreciate the petrochemical industry.   :hand:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 08 February, 2020, 12:18:52 am
Oh, go on ...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 February, 2020, 12:34:15 am
That there ↑

Jetsom Ambergris (https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/sperm-whales-confirmed-as-the-origin-of-jetsam-ambergris-67065)

I already knew about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermaceti
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Davef on 08 February, 2020, 06:46:18 am
So, is Jetsom Ambergris (https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/sperm-whales-confirmed-as-the-origin-of-jetsam-ambergris-67065) a different thing then?

That's likely to trigger me too. Using the same fucking word for two different things. I pity anyone trying to learn English.  :facepalm:
I have only ever heard it called just plain ambergris. It is worth a fortune - so if you find a rock like thing on the beach and it floats you could be ten grand better off for a kilogram lump of whale poop/vomit. The jetsam bit just means it was floating debris that washed up on the beach and the whale lightened it’s load deliberately.

When it comes to bowel movements I find deliberate (jetsam) far preferable to accidental (flotsam).




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 February, 2020, 08:37:45 am
Given the enduring pong, if you took it home in your car it'd probably pay for the new one you'd need. But then the Crown Estates might have a prior claim.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 08 February, 2020, 09:08:31 pm
That the phrase "Lashings of ginger beer " does not appear in any Enid Blyton book.

Bit like "Play it again,  Sam".

Or, "You dirty rat "
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 08 February, 2020, 10:01:33 pm
or "Here's Johnny!"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Davef on 08 February, 2020, 10:24:17 pm
That the phrase "Lashings of ginger beer " does not appear in any Enid Blyton book.

Bit like "Play it again,  Sam".

Or, "You dirty rat "
Isn’t it from “five go on an audax”

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=2ahUKEwjQ_a2u_sLnAhUUThUIHaN4BzgQwqsBMAN6BAgREAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.channel4.com%2Fprogrammes%2Fcomic-strip-presents%2Fvideos%2Fall%2Ffive-go-mad%2F2770269400001&usg=AOvVaw2wJwkO-WZlRX5YNLPemfge



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Robh on 09 February, 2020, 12:14:16 am
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand?wprov=sfti1

“The ampersand is the logogram &, representing the conjunction "and". It originated as a ligature of the letters et-Latin for "and".[1]“

I did not know that (in bold) until today.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 February, 2020, 07:45:06 am
In some fonts it still appears that way, e.g. Trebuchet: & (if you have Trebuchet on your machine, that is).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 09 February, 2020, 08:09:15 am
..if you have Trebuchet on your machine, that is.

Quite a lot of people will have thrown it out  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 09 February, 2020, 08:36:12 am
I flung it as far as I could
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 February, 2020, 09:45:38 am
:facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 February, 2020, 04:13:45 pm
That love is 200 million years old.
Quote
Evidence of parent-offspring bonding appears around 200 million years ago, in the latest Triassic and earliest Jurassic periods. Fossils of Kayentatherium, a Jurassic proto-mammal from Arizona, preserve a mother who died protecting her 38 tiny babies. For this behaviour to exist, the instincts of both mother and offspring first had to evolve.
https://theconversation.com/the-origin-and-evolution-of-love-131109

No heart shapes necessary!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 15 February, 2020, 11:08:53 am
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand?wprov=sfti1

“The ampersand is the logogram &, representing the conjunction "and". It originated as a ligature of the letters et-Latin for "and".[1]“

I did not know that (in bold) until today.
Many writings of the late 19th century used &c. For etcetera

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orraloon on 15 February, 2020, 11:53:38 am
That whispering on t'internet is A Thing.  ASMR.  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_response
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 15 February, 2020, 12:06:33 pm
yes, t'was on the beeb this morning
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orraloon on 15 February, 2020, 01:18:24 pm
Got it from podcast episode of The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry, also from the BBC.  Hasn't worked for me, yet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 15 February, 2020, 03:34:00 pm
Try saying "LUMOS MAXIMA!" to the Google Assistant on your Android phone.  I just thought I'd try it since we were watching Harry Potter.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 16 February, 2020, 11:31:58 pm
Gay panic defense, jeez-o  :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 17 February, 2020, 12:57:49 pm
That you can be guilty of sinister buttocks .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 February, 2020, 01:18:08 pm
Oh I like that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 19 February, 2020, 08:33:21 am
That Heartbreak Hotel has both Scotty Moore and Chet Atkins playing guitar on it. Not too sloppy, the singer was pretty good as well.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 21 February, 2020, 07:41:25 pm
From that Twitter.

The word ‘didgeridoo’ doesn’t exist in any Aboriginal language – it was first recorded in an Australian newspaper in 1908 and is thought to be onomatopoeic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 21 February, 2020, 10:02:50 pm
Also from that Twitter, about Ida Cook https://twitter.com/garius/status/1220711078100897793

Awesome story and amazing read, if if I do I fucking hate Twitter as a medium for imparting information.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 22 February, 2020, 06:35:14 am
The German for thimble is Fingerhut = Finger hat.

This is also their name for a foxglove flower.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 February, 2020, 08:10:31 pm
That claiming a false mileage when advertising a car, or on an MOT certificate is not a DVSA issue, it's trading standards.  A very suspect low mileage and iffy progresssion on a car I saw online.

Secondly, that if you sell a car privately and return the V5, then DVSA automatically refunds the tax, had a cheque in the post this morning.  Previously It'd always been a case of take the tax disc back to the post office in my experience
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 22 February, 2020, 08:15:01 pm
That claiming a false mileage when advertising a car, or on an MOT certificate is not a DVSA issue, it's trading standards.  A very suspect low mileage and iffy progresssion on a car I saw online.

Aye, I looked into it after I had a speedometer failure in the last SAAB I had, basically at sale if you state clearly enough that it's not a genuine mileage then as seller you're covered.
The mileage stated on the MOT certificate is a function of what the car is displaying.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 February, 2020, 08:28:10 pm
On this one I've seen a) it's a suspiciously low mileage, 2) it's been up and down like a yoyo if you look online at the MOT history
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 22 February, 2020, 08:43:52 pm
My late father used to get a one year old car at auction every two years. It seemed to be accepted practice that any car from Scotland which came through a dealer had had its mileage set to zero. Mind, this was a few years ago, not sure if that's still the case.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 22 February, 2020, 09:06:46 pm
That claiming a false mileage when advertising a car, or on an MOT certificate is not a DVSA issue, it's trading standards.  A very suspect low mileage and iffy progresssion on a car I saw online.

Aye, I looked into it after I had a speedometer failure in the last SAAB I had, basically at sale if you state clearly enough that it's not a genuine mileage then as seller you're covered.
The mileage stated on the MOT certificate is a function of what the car is displaying.

Or what the tester entered into the system - I had the wrong mileage entered into the system in 2015. As MOT paperwork shows only the mileage at the time of testing and the previous three years, the anomaly disappeared last year, but I am surprised that nobody ever said a thing, as if it was naturally assumed to be finger trouble.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 February, 2020, 09:25:15 pm
The online record goes back much further. I only found an error on my own car's record when I came to sell it, a ffe which was corrected next time round
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 23 February, 2020, 08:42:12 am
Quote from: ElyDave
... if you sell a car privately and return the V5, then DVSA automatically refunds the tax, had a cheque in the post this morning. 
Yes, all very convenient.  Now sit back and wait for the reminder to tax the car you have sold.  See earlier rant/grumble.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 February, 2020, 01:31:31 pm
That 'pony-painting parties' are, to some indeterminate extent, a thing.

Other than the petition that drew the concept to my attention, I've only found news sites reporting the petition, a poorly-written article in Horse & Hound, and a Mumsnet thread.  Which I've taken as a warning to end my futile quest to determine whether they're real or satire and to run away from the internets before they irrevocably rot my BRANES.

It's only a matter of time before somebody attempts to combine one with a gender-reveal and everyone involved dies of aggravated horse bites...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 23 February, 2020, 03:41:17 pm
The German for thimble is Fingerhut = Finger hat.

This is also their name for a foxglove flower.

Fingerhut was the surname of one of the famiiles that attended my school. They were high-flyers...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 February, 2020, 03:50:56 pm
And Verhütung is contraception. Put a hat on it.

Curiously, hatters used to use a lot of mercury, and mercury was what you got if you engaged in risky pursuits without Verhütung.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 23 February, 2020, 03:56:18 pm
From the Podcast Scientish about sharks. The most effective predator ever is the humble Dragonfly with a kill rate of 95% (ninety five percent!) of all prey it targets. From the same recording this is apparently in part due to the fact it has a second branes in its wing bump, a flight computer if you will, that is solely responsible for effective wing configuration.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 24 February, 2020, 03:09:01 pm
That a EURion constellation is a pattern on some banknotes designed to stop you photocopying them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 25 February, 2020, 11:45:24 am
Not so much Learned, as forgotten and then re-learned.
Welsh old buggers bus passes work at any time of the day.
English ones (which I'm not supposed to have retained - shhh) only commence at 9:30.
Hence an embarrassing doh moment in Reading at 9:10 this morning.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 February, 2020, 01:33:07 pm
The expression "leck mich im Arsch" has a noble history involving a medieval German knight, Mozart and Goethe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leck_mich_im_Arsch
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 February, 2020, 01:46:26 pm
That drumsticks wear out, and do so surprisingly quickly.  The future Mr von Brandenburg posted "before" and "after" pictures of a pair of Vic Firth 5a sticks on FB with about eight hours use on the latter.  They look like pencils :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 February, 2020, 08:27:12 pm
Various isolated words of Swahili, the only one of which that's ever remotely likely to be any use to me is maji, water, but my favourite has to be imechekua, "the boss has taken it away". Probably rather pidgin...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 February, 2020, 02:25:29 pm
Various isolated words of Swahili, the only one of which that's ever remotely likely to be any use to me is maji, water, but my favourite has to be imechekua, "the boss has taken it away". Probably rather pidgin...

I like it that the Swahili word for the rich/powerful/corrupt is "Wabenzi", from their habit of buying a Mercedes when the money first starts to roll in.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rr on 26 February, 2020, 03:10:42 pm
That a EURion constellation is a pattern on some banknotes designed to stop you photocopying them.
See also first direct cheques, at least in the good old days.

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Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 February, 2020, 03:06:24 pm
There is SCIENCE built into copiers, scanners etc that prevents them from scanning banknotes.  Which is a pain if you want a picture of a fiver or a ten dollar bill for joke comedy purposes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 February, 2020, 04:24:10 pm
Given the Internet of Things they could well shop you into the bargain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 27 February, 2020, 05:19:30 pm
There is SCIENCE built into copiers, scanners etc that prevents them from scanning banknotes.  Which is a pain if you want a picture of a fiver or a ten dollar bill for joke comedy purposes.

You're just going to have to do it J. S. G. Boggs1-style, or offer a drawing of a spider2 in lieu of the intended comedy prop. ;)


1 Unfortunately now unavailable for commissions on account of being DED since 2017.

2 See: http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 29 February, 2020, 06:45:24 pm
That Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated on 9th Nov 1918, and went to exile in the Netherlands who then refused to extradite him for war crimes, partly on the basis that despite asking, the British weren't really that enthusiastic about it.

Also hadn't realised that he lived until 1941
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 March, 2020, 08:49:01 am
Cantometrics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantometrics)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 March, 2020, 11:11:11 am
Also that there are two (or more?) types of infinity: one consisting of integers and one with fractions. This from a maths grad and software programmer-developer. This seems to me to contradict the idea of infinity.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 01 March, 2020, 11:19:42 am
Recent research in US indicates Electrolytes are not that useful for Athletes.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/25/health/ultramarathons-electrolyte-drinks-wellness/index.html (https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/25/health/ultramarathons-electrolyte-drinks-wellness/index.html)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 01 March, 2020, 11:54:42 am
Recent research in US indicates Electrolytes are not that useful for Athletes.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/25/health/ultramarathons-electrolyte-drinks-wellness/index.html (https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/25/health/ultramarathons-electrolyte-drinks-wellness/index.html)

I could just as easily interpret that study to say that heavy people who don't train enough and race in hot weather are more likely to become hyponatremic than properly trained, thinner athletes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 01 March, 2020, 12:46:46 pm
That Isambard Kingdom Brunel was sort of responsible for a model for a national health service (this from the wiki entry for Swindon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swindon)) : -

Quote
From 1871, GWR workers had a small amount deducted from their weekly pay and put into a healthcare fund; GWR doctors could prescribe them or their family members free medicines or send them for medical treatment. In 1878 the fund began providing artificial limbs made by craftsmen from the carriage and wagon works, and nine years later opened its first dental surgery. In his first few months in post the dentist extracted more than 2,000 teeth. From the opening in 1892 of the health centre, a doctor could also prescribe a haircut or even a bath. The cradle-to-grave extent of this service was later used as a blueprint for the NHS.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 02 March, 2020, 08:19:33 am
Also that there are two (or more?) types of infinity: one consisting of integers and one with fractions. This from a maths grad and software programmer-developer. This seems to me to contradict the idea of infinity.

There are lots of types of infinity some infinitely bigger than others !

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 March, 2020, 09:56:30 am
I think this is a case of maths speaking its own special language. As a non-speaker of mathematics, I find one infinity quite enough to try to grasp.

That reminds me, there was also discussion of when numbers evolved, what we did before them and speculation that cave paintings were a form of counting (of bison etc).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 02 March, 2020, 12:50:05 pm
How Tesco's Clubcard ended up being introduced - TBH, it was probably all over the news at the time, but seeing as it was 25 years ago...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesco_Clubcard#Incidents

Apparently, a third person tried extorting Tesco in a similar fashion to Riolfo and Dyer, and was caught because he had the £1,000,000 ransom sent to an account with a £200 per day withdrawal limit. ;D

https://theguardian.com/uk/2008/jan/28/ukcrime
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Phil W on 02 March, 2020, 01:07:28 pm
Also that there are two (or more?) types of infinity: one consisting of integers and one with fractions. This from a maths grad and software programmer-developer. This seems to me to contradict the idea of infinity.

The proofs of different infinities is something covered in set theory in first term of university undergraduate maths from memory.  Wouldn't surprise me if some of this is taught at A level these days.  Taught in the same few weeks you are taught the proof that there are an infinite number of prime numbers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 02 March, 2020, 01:18:33 pm
Also that there are two (or more?) types of infinity: one consisting of integers and one with fractions. This from a maths grad and software programmer-developer. This seems to me to contradict the idea of infinity.

The proofs of different infinities is something covered in set theory in first term of university undergraduate maths from memory.  Wouldn't surprise me if some of this is taught at A level these days.  Taught in the same few weeks you are taught the proof that there are an infinite number of prime numbers.

The one that gets me is that the infinite series of even integers is exactly the same size as the infinite series of all integers. Common sense says that one is twice as big as the other but it's easy to prove that that isn't so.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Phil W on 02 March, 2020, 01:23:00 pm
Also that there are two (or more?) types of infinity: one consisting of integers and one with fractions. This from a maths grad and software programmer-developer. This seems to me to contradict the idea of infinity.

The proofs of different infinities is something covered in set theory in first term of university undergraduate maths from memory.  Wouldn't surprise me if some of this is taught at A level these days.  Taught in the same few weeks you are taught the proof that there are an infinite number of prime numbers.

The one that gets me is that the infinite series of even integers is exactly the same size as the infinite series of all integers. Common sense says that one is twice as big as the other but it's easy to prove that that isn't so.

All about Cardinality and bijective functions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinality
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 March, 2020, 02:03:41 pm
Wow.
Quote
Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel (colloquial: Infinite Hotel Paradox or Hilbert's Hotel) is a thought experiment which illustrates a counterintuitive property of infinite sets. It is demonstrated that a fully occupied hotel with infinitely many rooms may still accommodate additional guests, even infinitely many of them, and this process may be repeated infinitely often.
I'd say (I expect most people would say) if it has infinitely many rooms, it can never be full. But at this point one or more of my minds has boggled an uncountable number of times. I am unendingly glad that there exist people who understand these concepts.
Title: what I have learned today.
Post by: Davef on 02 March, 2020, 02:19:24 pm
Also that there are two (or more?) types of infinity: one consisting of integers and one with fractions. This from a maths grad and software programmer-developer. This seems to me to contradict the idea of infinity.
The integers and the fractions (the rational numbers) are both the same size - they are “countable”. The irrational numbers - like pi or square root of 2 - numbers that cannot be expressed as a fraction (where the top and bottom are integers) they are a “bigger” infinity.


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Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 02 March, 2020, 02:30:15 pm
Wow.
Quote
Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel (colloquial: Infinite Hotel Paradox or Hilbert's Hotel) is a thought experiment which illustrates a counterintuitive property of infinite sets. It is demonstrated that a fully occupied hotel with infinitely many rooms may still accommodate additional guests, even infinitely many of them, and this process may be repeated infinitely often.
I'd say (I expect most people would say) if it has infinitely many rooms, it can never be full. But at this point one or more of my minds has boggled an uncountable number of times. I am unendingly glad that there exist people who understand these concepts.

That's the standard hotelier model isn't it, assume Hilbert's paradox when taking bookings
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 02 March, 2020, 04:19:10 pm
Some languages do not have a word for "spelling".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 02 March, 2020, 07:11:52 pm
Quote from: Cudzoziemiec
...there was also discussion of when numbers evolved, what we did before them and speculation that cave paintings were a form of counting (of bison etc).
You might enjoy, "The Universal History of Numbers, From prehistory to the invention of the computer." by Georges Ifrah.  No need to be a maths whizz.

I think of it as "new", but of course it's over 25 years old.  French (speaking) members of the parish can read it in the original the rest us will have to bumble along with a translation.  The English translation was published by the Harvill Press in '98, ISBN 1-86046-324-X
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 02 March, 2020, 11:02:50 pm
I had forgotten that ibuprofen and paracetamol can be combined.

The year 4 med student who saw me today at the doctors wasn't wrong about the "it's kind of like a 2 + 2 = 5 thing"



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Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Davef on 03 March, 2020, 07:33:28 am
I had forgotten that ibuprofen and paracetamol can be combined.

The year 4 med student who saw me today at the doctors wasn't wrong about the "it's kind of like a 2 + 2 = 5 thing"



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Although ibuprofen is well understood, paracetamol is a bit of a mystery according to my daughter who knows about these things.


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Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 03 March, 2020, 07:46:13 am
Wow.
Quote
Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel (colloquial: Infinite Hotel Paradox or Hilbert's Hotel) is a thought experiment which illustrates a counterintuitive property of infinite sets. It is demonstrated that a fully occupied hotel with infinitely many rooms may still accommodate additional guests, even infinitely many of them, and this process may be repeated infinitely often.
I'd say (I expect most people would say) if it has infinitely many rooms, it can never be full. But at this point one or more of my minds has boggled an uncountable number of times. I am unendingly glad that there exist people who understand these concepts.

A few years ago I came across this visualisation on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj3_KqkI9Zo
which may help understanding. Or not....

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 March, 2020, 07:52:04 am
20 seconds in and it's already shot itself in the foot. "A thought experiment to show us just how hard it is to wrap our minds around the concept of infinity." I think it's only too obvious it's hard! Almost by definition it's hard.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 03 March, 2020, 10:34:55 am
I could never get my head around objects being able to meet when it is always possible to divide distance by two. However, I am mathematically challenged.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 03 March, 2020, 02:32:31 pm
Where that infinite goes wrong, is that its using hotel rooms, if they had used bikes it would have been so clear.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 03 March, 2020, 08:46:59 pm
Marcel Marceau was fluent in English, French and German, who would have guessed? Jewish, he stayed in France and was in the French Resistance throughout the war, working to save children from the camps.

As an aside, my mother saw one of his earliest performances in the late 40's, I saw him perform in the 70's and he carried on  performing through to 2006.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Phil W on 03 March, 2020, 08:56:11 pm
Bit more detail on how the immune system deals with viruses

https://www.immunology.org/public-information/bitesized-immunology/pathogens-and-disease/immune-responses-viruses
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 03 March, 2020, 10:27:32 pm
I had forgotten that ibuprofen and paracetamol can be combined.

The year 4 med student who saw me today at the doctors wasn't wrong about the "it's kind of like a 2 + 2 = 5 thing"


And today I have discovered that it's maybe a bit too effective; think I'd prefer to have some of the pain most of the time to remind me to caw canny rather than have the occasional jab of "you eejit"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 03 March, 2020, 10:34:17 pm
That paracetamol functions as a painkiller for some people...   :o

(Okay, this is a bit like people looking like their relatives:  I understand the principle, but that never stops it being novel when I come across it in real life.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 04 March, 2020, 06:24:20 am
Last time I was in co-codamol I was sure to not take the maximum suggested dose, just to make sure I didnt entirely mask the pain and do something stupid.

I still have some left, just in case, been very tempted to use them once or twice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 March, 2020, 12:32:35 pm
See, if I'm in enough pain that codeine seems like a good idea, by the time I've taken enough of it to make a difference[1] I'm too stoned to do anything, stupid or otherwise.  And still in pain, just less able to pay attention to it.  It's basically a way to make time pass more quickly.

Paracetamol only seems to function as an antipyretic.  It does absolutely nothing for pain, to the point where I've wondered if people were making it up.  It's mainly useful as the thing you have to take before they give you opioids.

I remain unsure about NSAIs.  They don't seem to have any magic effects on joint pain, but that doesn't mean they aren't stopping it being worse.  I've not had enough migraine to tell if ibuprofen helps make it go away any faster.  Possibly helpful against drippy snot.  My digestive system isn't a fan.

The only time I've been given Tramadol (post-operatively), I wasn't in pain.  It made my face tingle.

I've had co-dydramol and morphine.  They were like a large dose of codeine, with added nausea.  Quite unpleasant.


Can't help feeling that I'm just bad at drugs...



[1] This isn't strictly true:  I've found that if I take a small dose of codeine, it makes me pleasantly sleepy some 6-12 hours later as it wears off, which can be useful for things like neck spasms.  It's not repeatable, though, as taking more stops the effect.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: bludger on 04 March, 2020, 12:43:26 pm
Paracetomel is my preferred pain relief when on the bike - ibuprofen messes your kidneys up apparently.

Codeine is useful but aside from the risk of becoming a dependent smack-addict, it is also liable to constrict your means of doing a number 2 so it's definitely the last resort.

I had a marvellous time recovering from an operation once, off my head on codeine and watching pirated films on a tablet. The Revenant was particularly good.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Rowan on 04 March, 2020, 12:46:20 pm
See, if I'm in enough pain that codeine seems like a good idea, by the time I've taken enough of it to make a difference[1] I'm too stoned to do anything, stupid or otherwise.  And still in pain, just less able to pay attention to it.  It's basically a way to make time pass more quickly.

Paracetamol only seems to function as an antipyretic.  It does absolutely nothing for pain, to the point where I've wondered if people were making it up.  It's mainly useful as the thing you have to take before they give you opioids.

I remain unsure about NSAIs.  They don't seem to have any magic effects on joint pain, but that doesn't mean they aren't stopping it being worse.  I've not had enough migraine to tell if ibuprofen helps make it go away any faster.  Possibly helpful against drippy snot.  My digestive system isn't a fan.

The only time I've been given Tramadol (post-operatively), I wasn't in pain.  It made my face tingle.


Can't help feeling that I'm just bad at drugs...



[1] This isn't strictly true:  I've found that if I take a small dose of codeine, it makes me pleasantly sleepy some 6-12 hours later as it wears off, which can be useful for things like neck spasms.  It's not repeatable, though, as taking more stops the effect.
It made my whole body tingle, I just loved the stuff.  When my wife found out I was no longer taking it for the pain she chucked the lot out, had to go cold turkey.

Paracetamol seems as good as anything for me.  Opiates don't seem to do much for pain but (see above), and NSAIDs are just a complete waste of time for me.  These things can work so differently in different people and animals. We had a dog where NSAIDs seemed to be an overnight cure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 March, 2020, 01:02:47 pm
Got to be careful with dogs and paracetamol: toxic or lethal. Same goes for some NSAIDS; Voltaren (diclofenac) destroys kidneys.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 04 March, 2020, 01:45:05 pm
My general view is that taking drugs to allow strenuous activity is a downward spiral, they mask the pain, you do more damage, drugs wear off, pain is worse, rinse and repeat.

I accept pain as feedback for muscular niggles and strains and work within it's constraints.  Major surgey, fracture etc I take a slightly different view as I generally won't be doing the activity in the first place. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 04 March, 2020, 01:49:16 pm
The person who invented the Theramin also invented The Thing, which was used to bug the US Ambassodor in Moscow. Wiki link here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Theremin#Espionage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Theremin#Espionage)

Round Britain Quiz has a lot to answer for. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 04 March, 2020, 03:04:36 pm

Round Britain Quiz has a lot to of answers for which the question still eludes me.

Little bit of FIFY
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 04 March, 2020, 03:16:51 pm
See, if I'm in enough pain that codeine seems like a good idea, by the time I've taken enough of it to make a difference[1] I'm too stoned to do anything, stupid or otherwise.  And still in pain, just less able to pay attention to it.  It's basically a way to make time pass more quickly.

Paracetamol only seems to function as an antipyretic.  It does absolutely nothing for pain, to the point where I've wondered if people were making it up.  It's mainly useful as the thing you have to take before they give you opioids.

I remain unsure about NSAIs.  They don't seem to have any magic effects on joint pain, but that doesn't mean they aren't stopping it being worse.  I've not had enough migraine to tell if ibuprofen helps make it go away any faster.  Possibly helpful against drippy snot.  My digestive system isn't a fan.

The only time I've been given Tramadol (post-operatively), I wasn't in pain.  It made my face tingle.


Can't help feeling that I'm just bad at drugs...



[1] This isn't strictly true:  I've found that if I take a small dose of codeine, it makes me pleasantly sleepy some 6-12 hours later as it wears off, which can be useful for things like neck spasms.  It's not repeatable, though, as taking more stops the effect.
It made my whole body tingle, I just loved the stuff.  When my wife found out I was no longer taking it for the pain she chucked the lot out, had to go cold turkey.

Paracetamol seems as good as anything for me.  Opiates don't seem to do much for pain but (see above), and NSAIDs are just a complete waste of time for me.  These things can work so differently in different people and animals. We had a dog where NSAIDs seemed to be an overnight cure.

I was given Morphine when my appendix was wanting out, I was very much disapointed when I was told I wasn't allowed any more.

You can interrogate the BNF on the NICE website
https://bnf.nice.org.uk/drug/paracetamol.html
https://bnf.nice.org.uk/drug/ibuprofen.html

There is a LOT more info in there than on the product info sheets, often covered by the "If you are taking any other drugs or have an existing condition speak to your pharmacist" clause.

Paracetamol does your liver in, Ibuprofen your Kidneys and causes stomach ulcers
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Davef on 04 March, 2020, 03:55:35 pm
When my collar bone came off in a cycle accident I felt only mild pain, both during the accident and the recovery and did not require pain killers at all. I became convinced I was like that bond film character that could feel no pain. Then I stubbed my toe.




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Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 04 March, 2020, 05:14:02 pm
... Then I stubbed my toe.

did your toes curl up when you read that too ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 March, 2020, 05:27:16 pm
I don't remember any pain when I broke my collar bone either. It was uncomfortable for several years after if I put anything on the join (or rather on the scar). I think that was the occasion I discovered I find general anaesthetic really pleasant.

As for morphine based painkillers, very little experience that I remember, but I know I was prescribed them after some minor surgery and found them really unpleasant. But the whole prescription was unnecessary as there wasn't any pain anyway. Nevertheless, if I ever become a junkie, it's not going to be heroin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 05 March, 2020, 12:20:39 am
I don't believe in paracetamol either, I stopped using it except for anti-pyretic purposes after Cochrane did a review suggesting it's not that great for musculo-skeletal pain.

Ibuprofen for some kinds of pain is a maybe. I mostly use it for managing teh snot as it definitely stops my sinuses swelling so much, GP who used to be an ENT surgeon is well up for that use case.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MikeFromLFE on 05 March, 2020, 07:39:57 am
Paracetamol + Ibuprofen is the only way of dealing with my on-going ear pain. Neither singly touches it, and nothing else OTC does either. I went to the GP when I was needing this combo once daily to get to sleep, I'm now doing it twice daily - ENT appointment is beginning of April.

Anyway - back on topic, Yesterday I discovered (duh!) that Cyprus is a member of the commonwealth. Pretty obvious really, when they drive on the correct side of the road and have arguably sensible British plugs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 05 March, 2020, 11:47:38 am
Hamsterkauf is the German word for panic buying/hoarding    .....   https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-scare-when-will-hamsterkauf-become-an-english-word/a-52635400 (https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-scare-when-will-hamsterkauf-become-an-english-word/a-52635400)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 05 March, 2020, 01:13:28 pm
That the photic sneeze reflex can also be referred to as the ACHOO syndrome*

* From wiki - cetacean needed
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 March, 2020, 02:13:57 pm
Hamsterkauf is the German word for panic buying/hoarding    .....   https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-scare-when-will-hamsterkauf-become-an-english-word/a-52635400 (https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-scare-when-will-hamsterkauf-become-an-english-word/a-52635400)

When I worked in Stuttgart we had a tech whose nickname was Hamster. If you had an interest tool or gadget that went missing, his bench was the first you stopped at.  He'd say oh yes, I was looking at it and forgot to put it back - ich bin der Hamster.  He was otherwise such an obliging guy that nobody complained. Takes all sorts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 08 March, 2020, 11:05:27 am
People pay up to £45 for vintage Feu Orange car air fresheners.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 08 March, 2020, 03:25:35 pm
Paracetamol only seems to function as an antipyretic.  It does absolutely nothing for pain, to the point where I've wondered if people were making it up.  It's mainly useful as the thing you have to take before they give you opioids.

I realised when I was an Eight-Year-Old Grumpy Child with Toothache that paracetamol was useless and didn't work when Disprin did.
I've hardly touched paracetamol for myself since, in the ensuing 54 years.

I have prescribed it for Others, some of whom seem to be helped. I don't like the stuff; it's NASTY to the liver and pretty useless.

AspIrin and NSAIDs work for me. I've never had opioids.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 March, 2020, 03:38:35 pm
Paracetamol only seems to function as an antipyretic.  It does absolutely nothing for pain, to the point where I've wondered if people were making it up.  It's mainly useful as the thing you have to take before they give you opioids.

I realised when I was an Eight-Year-Old Grumpy Child with Toothache that paracetamol was useless and didn't work when Disprin did.
I've hardly touched paracetamol for myself since, in the ensuing 54 years.

I have prescribed it for Others, some of whom seem to be helped. I don't like the stuff; it's NASTY to the liver and pretty useless.

AspIrin and NSAIDs work for me. I've never had opioids.

IIRC, 20 or 30 years back someone pointed out that you could combine N-acetylcystine with paracetamol to make "safe" paracetamol but the drug companies wouldn't touch it with a bargepole in case people got the impression that paracetamol was dangerous.

I can't tolerate NSAIDS or aspirin, so short of opiods (non merci) paracetamol is about the only option. GP limits me to 3g/day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 08 March, 2020, 04:02:21 pm
NSAIDs have their problems too, liver, kidney, stomach ulcers...

I've been on morphine before, fine under the control of hospital pharmacists wouldn't want to take outwith their rein of terror.

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Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 08 March, 2020, 04:03:28 pm
People pay up to £45 for vintage Feu Orange car air fresheners.
???
How bizarre....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 March, 2020, 05:43:17 pm
I worked through the entire orchestra of opiates and combinations when my legs were mangled. I'm not sure they so much as stopped the pain as stop me bothering about it. The other side effects were finding US daytime TV strangely compelling and crashing my wheelchair into things.

I don't find paracetamol works, but ibuprofen and aspirin are fine. Also the best joke in the world is 'why are there no aspirin in the jungle? Because the parrots eat them all.' Fact.

You'd have to take a lot of aspirin/ibuprofen to cause stomach or kidney problems, they're relatively safe, whereas even small overdoses of paracetamol can cause fatal hepatotoxicity.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 08 March, 2020, 06:12:18 pm
Opiates take your worries away, sore legs, appendix about to explode, life of abject misery, poverty, all sorted by the wonder of opium.

Even coming off a "safe" dosage can be mentally devastating.

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Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 08 March, 2020, 07:25:05 pm
Shirley the best jungle joke is

What do all the monkeys eat in the jungle?

Gorilla'd cheese sandwiches
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuaran on 08 March, 2020, 08:08:28 pm
You'd have to take a lot of aspirin/ibuprofen to cause stomach or kidney problems, they're relatively safe, whereas even small overdoses of paracetamol can cause fatal hepatotoxicity.
But there is increased risk if your kidneys are stressed already. ie doing exercise, leading to dehydration.
There have been several studies of ultrarunners taking ibuprofen. Seems to be a significantly increased chance of kidney problems.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/07/pain-reliever-linked-to-kidney-injury-in-endurance-runners.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 08 March, 2020, 08:49:48 pm
I developed an issue with ibuprofen when I was 29 years and taking it for RSI - I ended up with kidney failure which took a year and a half to sort out. I was only taking a couple of Voltarol Tablets a day but it did for me. Also didn’t really help the RSI!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 March, 2020, 08:54:25 pm
Voltarol is diclofenac, which is worse for gastric side effects than ibuprofen.  No idea how it compares kidney-wise.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Davef on 08 March, 2020, 09:06:07 pm
You'd have to take a lot of aspirin/ibuprofen to cause stomach or kidney problems, they're relatively safe, whereas even small overdoses of paracetamol can cause fatal hepatotoxicity.
But there is increased risk if your kidneys are stressed already. ie doing exercise, leading to dehydration.
There have been several studies of ultrarunners taking ibuprofen. Seems to be a significantly increased chance of kidney problems.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/07/pain-reliever-linked-to-kidney-injury-in-endurance-runners.html
It was definitely something we were warned about when I did the marathon des sables.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 March, 2020, 08:22:13 am
Voltarol is diclofenac, which is worse for gastric side effects than ibuprofen.  No idea how it compares kidney-wise.

It certainly destroys dogs' kidneys, according to our vet.  And vultures' - remember the great 1990s vulture hecatomb in India?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 March, 2020, 09:37:56 am
You'd have to take a lot of aspirin/ibuprofen to cause stomach or kidney problems, they're relatively safe, whereas even small overdoses of paracetamol can cause fatal hepatotoxicity.
But there is increased risk if your kidneys are stressed already. ie doing exercise, leading to dehydration.
There have been several studies of ultrarunners taking ibuprofen. Seems to be a significantly increased chance of kidney problems.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/07/pain-reliever-linked-to-kidney-injury-in-endurance-runners.html

These are outliers though, the majority of people tolerate ibuprofen well (better than aspirin), but every drug has side-effects that will be pronounced in individual and special groups (like endurance athletes). One of the reasons that so many things are toxic to obligate carnivores is that their livers and kidneys are already stressed by managing the protein load in their diets (much of which will be deaminated in the liver and the resulting urea excreted by the kidneys). There's no headroom with paracetamol though, anyone who takes a pack or two will likely find themselves in need of a new liver.

I didn't really have much issue getting off the opiates (it's telling nowadays that all my doctors in the US were quite enthusiastic to continue prescribing), but I can totally understand the attraction of popping a few of those as an alternative to real life. Like most people, I kept half a pack back for a bad day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 09 March, 2020, 11:29:25 am
That owls have asymmetric ears with one point up and one pointing down. Also, with some species of Owls you can see the back of the owl's eye by looking in its ear. that second one is seriously freaky.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 10 March, 2020, 05:32:41 am
That's how they can pinpoint their prey, binocular hearing, if that makes sense.

They also have extra bones in their necks, which allows that articulation.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 March, 2020, 09:48:05 am
That's how they can pinpoint their prey, binocular hearing, if that makes sense.

They also have extra bones in their necks, which allows that articulation.
Binaural?
See also: ambidextrous sight.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 10 March, 2020, 11:59:59 am
quite, I did think of that word, but wasn's quite sure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 10 March, 2020, 12:35:57 pm
Same process by which we can tell if sounds are in front of us or behind us: Subtle differences in the frequency and phase due to the shape of the outer ear.  Predators tend to have steerable ears and higher frequency response than humans, for better pinpointing of critters.

The really impressive thing about owls is their vestibular system...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6M-h5g3PwI
https://youtu.be/k6M-h5g3PwI
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 10 March, 2020, 12:41:35 pm
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ESrYpfjWAAAI7ID?format=jpg&name=large)

Quote
#NationalNappingDay: juvenile snow owls often sleep face down on the ground because the weight of their heads means they can't sleep when perched.

This one, pictured in a Japanese wildlife park in 2017, may look like an ex-owl but he is only having a nap. HE IS NOT A DRUNK OWL!!

https://twitter.com/PulpLibrarian/status/1237039268838682624

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 March, 2020, 01:08:49 pm
Same process by which we can tell if sounds are in front of us or behind us: Subtle differences in the frequency and phase due to the shape of the outer ear.  Predators tend to have steerable ears and higher frequency response than humans, for better pinpointing of critters.

The really impressive thing about owls is their vestibular system...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6M-h5g3PwI
https://youtu.be/k6M-h5g3PwI

Not to mention their patience.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 March, 2020, 01:17:59 pm
And then there is the Burrowing Wol, which is prone to This Sort of Thing:

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49643965622_61e5a70348_o.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 10 March, 2020, 01:53:03 pm
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ESrYpfjWAAAI7ID?format=jpg&name=large)

Quote
#NationalNappingDay: juvenile snow owls often sleep face down on the ground because the weight of their heads means they can't sleep when perched.

This one, pictured in a Japanese wildlife park in 2017, may look like an ex-owl but he is only having a nap. HE IS NOT A DRUNK OWL!!

https://twitter.com/PulpLibrarian/status/1237039268838682624
I ATEN’T DEAD!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 10 March, 2020, 03:43:18 pm
I'm just impressed by those feet! Snuggly and grippy at the same time
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 March, 2020, 03:58:02 pm
Not to put too much wax lube on a chain. The thing looks as if it's covered in snot.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 10 March, 2020, 07:21:32 pm
That's how they can pinpoint their prey, binocular hearing, if that makes sense.

They also have extra bones in their necks, which allows that articulation.
Binaural?
See also: ambidextrous sight.
AIUI it’s not binaural hearing in the same way that most predators have, because there ears actually point up and down. This allows then to locate their prey in 3 dimensions apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 10 March, 2020, 08:56:15 pm
This is stupid. Everyone knows owls can read minds.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 March, 2020, 09:41:51 pm
That the green woodpecker's tongue is not only incredibly long, it is "back to front and upside down" in comparison with most animals.
(https://cdn.birdwatchingdaily.com/2013/12/Flicker-Tongue-660x403.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 11 March, 2020, 09:51:53 pm
This may have already got mentioned but you can tell when an owl is active by the colour of its eyes. Will be different if it's Nocturnal, diurnal or crepuscula (apologies for spelling)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 12 March, 2020, 08:03:55 am
That the green woodpecker's tongue is not only incredibly long, it is "back to front and upside down" in comparison with most animals.
(https://cdn.birdwatchingdaily.com/2013/12/Flicker-Tongue-660x403.jpg)

And they also make a hell of a mess when digging in your lawn for ants
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 March, 2020, 02:45:49 pm
When you finish using an electric screwdriver, be it only for a couple of minutes, always leave it set to drive.  I just now learnt this after spending five minutes in a stress position, getting a screw between almost inaccessible part A lined up and engaged in invisible and wanting to bugger off part B and then merrily unscrewing it.  And when I pulled the driver back the screw came with and everything went zonk.  Language ensued.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 March, 2020, 02:01:34 pm
That a blue triangle on a yellow circle as an internationally recognized symbol of civil defence and not, as I'd assumed, purely a Polish government logo (that being the only place I've seen it).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 March, 2020, 04:08:13 pm
That there is a cut of beef called clod.  That lends an extra flavour to insults hurled by 1930s public-schoolboys called Osbert.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 30 March, 2020, 04:25:27 pm
Pac-Man was originally going to be Puck-Man (which makes far more sense given his shape) but Namco realised kids would deface arcade machines to "Fuck-Man".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 April, 2020, 04:42:26 pm
In the early 20th century, Julius Wagner-Jauregg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Wagner-Jauregg) won a Nobel Prize for treating syphillis by giving patients malaria.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 April, 2020, 09:20:44 am
That Ham is anxious.  ;)
https://dcf.psychiatry.ufl.edu/files/2011/05/HAMILTON-ANXIETY.pdf
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 03 April, 2020, 09:46:45 am
Swarfega started life as a product to clean silk stockings.

Quote
Swarfega was invented in 1947 by Audley Bowdler Williamson (28 February 1916 - 21 November 2004), an industrial chemist from Heanor, Derbyshire.[1][2] In 1941 he had founded a detergent-sales company, Deb Silkware Protection Ltd., based in Belper, to produce a formulation for extending the life of silk stockings.[3] The name derived from "debutante",[1] to signify the newness of the company and its products. The introduction of nylon stockings threatened to render it superfluous; however, Williamson purportedly suggested that mechanics had already found it useful for cleaning their hands. This may have been a myth encouraged to attract interest, but the product was reformulated and marketed as Swarfega, becoming the company's main product.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarfega (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarfega)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 03 April, 2020, 01:43:04 pm
I learned what recrudescence means from Ian in the Coronavirus thread. Great word!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 03 April, 2020, 04:34:36 pm
Swarfega started life as a product to clean silk stockings.

Quote
Swarfega was invented in 1947 by Audley Bowdler Williamson (28 February 1916 - 21 November 2004), an industrial chemist from Heanor, Derbyshire.[1][2] In 1941 he had founded a detergent-sales company, Deb Silkware Protection Ltd., based in Belper, to produce a formulation for extending the life of silk stockings.[3] The name derived from "debutante",[1] to signify the newness of the company and its products. The introduction of nylon stockings threatened to render it superfluous; however, Williamson purportedly suggested that mechanics had already found it useful for cleaning their hands. This may have been a myth encouraged to attract interest, but the product was reformulated and marketed as Swarfega, becoming the company's main product.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarfega (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarfega)

I learnt several years ago that swarfega can go off.  A tub bought when I was a PSO and doing stuff on my own cars was required much, much later, taken out of the garage chemical box and found to have gone distinctly nasty
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 03 April, 2020, 05:33:22 pm
Swarfega started life as a product to clean silk stockings.

Quote
Swarfega was invented in 1947 by Audley Bowdler Williamson (28 February 1916 - 21 November 2004), an industrial chemist from Heanor, Derbyshire.[1][2] In 1941 he had founded a detergent-sales company, Deb Silkware Protection Ltd., based in Belper, to produce a formulation for extending the life of silk stockings.[3] The name derived from "debutante",[1] to signify the newness of the company and its products. The introduction of nylon stockings threatened to render it superfluous; however, Williamson purportedly suggested that mechanics had already found it useful for cleaning their hands. This may have been a myth encouraged to attract interest, but the product was reformulated and marketed as Swarfega, becoming the company's main product.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarfega (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarfega)

I learnt several years ago that swarfega can go off.  A tub bought when I was a PSO and doing stuff on my own cars was required much, much later, taken out of the garage chemical box and found to have gone distinctly nasty
Now that is odd as I have a 10litre container bought 40years ago which still has a small amount left which is fine. Slightly less viscous, probably from deliquescence but still works fine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 03 April, 2020, 05:42:34 pm
Dave's stockings are presumably mankier than yours.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 03 April, 2020, 06:07:47 pm
I learned what recrudescence means from Ian in the Coronavirus thread. Great word!

I learned of its biological sense relatively recently, I had previously used it to refer to those colleagues who leave the mothership to much cheer in ian's heart and then, several months later, reappear in a different role yet with precisely the same set of incompetencies.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 03 April, 2020, 06:13:04 pm
That Ham is anxious.  ;)
https://dcf.psychiatry.ufl.edu/files/2011/05/HAMILTON-ANXIETY.pdf

Ham is in the public domain  :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 03 April, 2020, 10:13:45 pm
I learned what recrudescence means from Ian in the Coronavirus thread. Great word!

I learned of its biological sense relatively recently, I had previously used it to refer to those colleagues who leave the mothership to much cheer in ian's heart and then, several months later, reappear in a different role yet with precisely the same set of incompetencies.

 ;D ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 04 April, 2020, 08:11:36 am
I learned what recrudescence means from Ian in the Coronavirus thread. Great word!

I learned of its biological sense relatively recently, I had previously used it to refer to those colleagues who leave the mothership to much cheer in ian's heart and then, several months later, reappear in a different role yet with precisely the same set of incompetencies.

I think its just appalling that your company can't train people in new incompetencies to fit their new role, are you not interested in personal development?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 April, 2020, 08:31:43 am
I learned what recrudescence means from Ian in the Coronavirus thread. Great word!

I learned of its biological sense relatively recently, I had previously used it to refer to those colleagues who leave the mothership to much cheer in ian's heart and then, several months later, reappear in a different role yet with precisely the same set of incompetencies.

Funny: I always thought that crude and its relatives derived from a Latin word for growth, but they just come from crudus, meaning raw. Hence those miserable plates of dead veg you often see on French menus as an assiette de crudités.  Or as an old chum used to put it, assiette de cruauté - and cruauté - cruelty - has the same roots, as does your shatter-bottled grand cru.

Wake up at the back.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 04 April, 2020, 09:24:52 am
The German for chaperone is Anstandsdame (Decency Lady) but colloquially Anstandswauwau, wauwau being the German for a dog bark.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 April, 2020, 11:29:59 am
That WIPO insists on American date format. Oh dear.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 April, 2020, 02:11:51 pm
That petrichor is produced by geosmin, a compound released by some bacteria to attract certain invertebrates.
https://theconversation.com/heres-why-soil-smells-so-good-after-it-rains-135978
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 11 April, 2020, 12:17:38 pm
Deer can't see orange (they only really see blues and greens) so US deer hunters often wear hi-viz orange to avoid shooting each other.

I don't know if turkeys can see it, or whether Greg LeMond was wearing hi-viz when he got a load of shotgun pellets in him.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Blodwyn Pig on 11 April, 2020, 02:26:05 pm
....that cycling is a bit like gunslinging, in the Wild West. No matter how fast you think you are, there is always someone faster.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 April, 2020, 03:23:11 pm
....that cycling is a bit like gunslinging, in the Wild West. No matter how fast you think you are, there is always someone faster.

...and they're probably on a sodding Brompton.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 28 April, 2020, 09:49:39 am
Ned Boulting is the grandson of a chap called John Boulting. John and his twin brother Roy were well-known British film-makers of the 1940s to 60s. (Not that I'd ever heard of them.)

https://twitter.com/nedboulting/status/1254879604030033920
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulting_brothers
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 28 April, 2020, 10:03:38 am
I know of them, but wouldn't have put the two (three?) together
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 28 April, 2020, 10:07:56 am
Ned Boulting is the grandson of a chap called John Boulting. John and his twin brother Roy were well-known British film-makers of the 1940s to 60s. (Not that I'd ever heard of them.)

https://twitter.com/nedboulting/status/1254879604030033920
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulting_brothers

Interesting. I know of the Boulting Brothers films - their Brighton Rock is a classic - but had no idea Ned was a relation.

Apparently, according to that wiki link, Jordan from Rizzle Kicks is also a direct descendant. I shall have to tell my colleague this - both the Rizzle Kicks are good friends of hers.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 28 April, 2020, 11:01:20 am
That the stuff growing in quite a lot of places in our garden this year is three-cornered leek and all parts of it are edible. It's quite nice - a bit chivey a bit garlicy - should be useful.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 28 April, 2020, 02:08:02 pm
You can buy a funky little tool to remove the kickstands from Raleigh bikes (the ones with a Toblerone-shaped integral frame bracket).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 28 April, 2020, 02:38:27 pm
Today I learned that I need to buy a screwdriver...

For verily I didst buy myself an Elementary Screwdriver No 1 for Christmas

https://tinkerandfix.co.uk/collections/elementary-screwdrivers

And the Lord declared that it was a Very Nice Thing Indeed.
First used in anger yesterday as I want to keep it looking nice. I may revise this policy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 April, 2020, 10:12:02 am
I know of them, but wouldn't have put the two (three?) together

This ^^^^.  Since the likelihood of there being a Tour Ov France this year are almost zero I shall ask Bethany to be my amanuensis in regard to ***'s famous relatives.

Bethany (10):Amanuensis?  U dirty fckr!  I ent doin' none ov that!  Well, not yet!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 April, 2020, 11:42:14 am
Today I learnt the word contenary. I'm using it now because I'll probably never have another opportunity.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 29 April, 2020, 12:20:18 pm
Today I learnt the word contenary. I'm using it now because I'll probably never have another opportunity.


Do tell. I tried looking it up, but only found cases where it seems a misspelling of something else (catenary, centenary,  contrary, container). ???




Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 April, 2020, 02:05:04 pm
It's a portmanteau of catenary and contact. Electrified railways have a contact wire, that actually delivers the current, suspended from the catenary, but in certain cases where there isn't sufficient headroom for separate wires, the catenary also functions as the contact wire.
Quote
Where reinforced insulation cannot be provided, such as at low overbridges, a section of contact wire typically replaces the catenary. This minimises the chance of wire stranding in the event of a flashover. This cable is known as contenary.
http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/ocs4rail/download/Overhead-Line-Electrification-for-Railways-4th-edition.pdf
page 53
You'll the soul of the party with language like that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 29 April, 2020, 04:27:22 pm
Or as the Bard of Harvard said, "This may prove useful to you some day, in a bizarre set of circumstances."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 29 April, 2020, 07:29:46 pm
If you have a problem with ants in your house and you've run out of ant powder,
try some Milton Sterilising Fluid. I'm having some success using it from a spray
bottle.


Online suggestions of white vinegar or lemon juice didn't appear to work for me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 29 April, 2020, 07:35:02 pm
If you have a problem with ants in your house and you've run out of ant powder,
try some Milton Sterilising Fluid. I'm having some success using it from a spray
bottle.


Online suggestions of white vinegar or lemon juice didn't appear to work for me.

My brother and I once re-routed an ant trail to attempt to spell a rude word using his can of Lynx Nevada.  Unfortunately the ants got fed up and fucked off to where the Lynx wasn't before we finished.

Hair spray is also effective on ants, particularly when ignited.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 29 April, 2020, 07:54:28 pm
If you have a problem with ants in your house and you've run out of ant powder,
try some Milton Sterilising Fluid. I'm having some success using it from a spray
bottle.


Online suggestions of white vinegar or lemon juice didn't appear to work for me.

Turmeric
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 29 April, 2020, 09:42:47 pm
If you have a problem with ants in your house and you've run out of ant powder,
try some Milton Sterilising Fluid. I'm having some success using it from a spray
bottle.


Online suggestions of white vinegar or lemon juice didn't appear to work for me.

My brother and I once re-routed an ant trail to attempt to spell a rude word using his can of Lynx Nevada.  Unfortunately the ants got fed up and fucked off to where the Lynx wasn't before we finished.

Hair spray is also effective on ants, particularly when ignited.
Roger Moore / James Bond stylee  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 29 April, 2020, 09:45:01 pm

Hair spray is also effective on ants, particularly when ignited.

 ;D  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 29 April, 2020, 10:11:14 pm
If you have a problem with ants in your house and you've run out of ant powder,
try some Milton Sterilising Fluid. I'm having some success using it from a spray
bottle.


Online suggestions of white vinegar or lemon juice didn't appear to work for me.

I'm not sure why ants would be bothered by acetic & citric acid given they produce formic...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 29 April, 2020, 10:50:06 pm

I'm not sure why ants would be bothered by acetic & citric acid given they produce formic...
And formic acid has a pleasantly citrus  flavour. Ants are used by Brazilian Indians as a way of flavouring fish
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 30 April, 2020, 12:46:51 am
If you have a problem with ants in your house and you've run out of ant powder,
try some Milton Sterilising Fluid. I'm having some success using it from a spray
bottle.


Online suggestions of white vinegar or lemon juice didn't appear to work for me.

I'm not sure why ants would be bothered by acetic & citric acid given they produce formic...

AIUI It's about disrupting their "something interesting this way, guys" pheremone trails, rather than repelling them as you might expect to do with a mammal.  I'd expect the citrus oils are more relevant than the acid, until they evaporate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 30 April, 2020, 06:10:22 am

I'm not sure why ants would be bothered by acetic & citric acid given they produce formic...
And formic acid has a pleasantly citrus  flavour. Ants are used by Brazilian Indians as a way of flavouring fish

The Cambridge Gin Company does an Ant Gin, its interesting
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 30 April, 2020, 06:41:30 am
We tried ants as a fish flavouring when visiting our son in Brazil and they did indeed have a citrus taste whilst being slightly crunchy. Weird
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 30 April, 2020, 07:17:34 am
Some ants are sweet, though I learnt that as a little.
https://www.sbs.com.au/food/article/2018/09/06/these-sweet-australian-ants-are-best-honey-youve-ever-tasted
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 30 April, 2020, 08:25:32 am
Who knew?  He's a brilliant and innovative engineer in the motorcycle world, but I didn't know he'd also done this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUak9sqJmnM
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 30 April, 2020, 08:51:08 am
If you have a problem with ants in your house and you've run out of ant powder,
try some Milton Sterilising Fluid. I'm having some success using it from a spray
bottle.


Online suggestions of white vinegar or lemon juice didn't appear to work for me.

Turmeric
Too expensive.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 April, 2020, 08:56:45 am
Some ants are sweet
https://www.sbs.com.au/food/article/2018/09/06/these-sweet-australian-ants-are-best-honey-youve-ever-tasted

MrsT recounts that as a schoolgirl in Kenya she was once walking to church with others when they saw a large, repulsive bug on the path. They split up to pass either side, whereat a S. African girl just behind emitted a S. African "yeah!!", pounced on the thing and ate it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 April, 2020, 08:59:42 am
Meanwhile, I have learned, from the frivol columns of the Graun this morning, that Charlton Heston once played Sir Thomas Moore in a production of A Man For All Seasons that he also directed.  I'm very glad we missed it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 30 April, 2020, 11:29:47 am
If you have a problem with ants in your house and you've run out of ant powder,
try some Milton Sterilising Fluid. I'm having some success using it from a spray
bottle.


Online suggestions of white vinegar or lemon juice didn't appear to work for me.

Turmeric
Too expensive.

Depends where you are and where you get it from.  In-law, Leicester, Belgrave Gate etc
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 30 April, 2020, 11:41:20 am
If you have a problem with ants in your house and you've run out of ant powder,
try some Milton Sterilising Fluid. I'm having some success using it from a spray
bottle.


Online suggestions of white vinegar or lemon juice didn't appear to work for me.

Turmeric
Too expensive.

http://www.asiansupermart.co.uk/turmeric-powder
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 30 April, 2020, 12:00:36 pm
It's Thursday.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 30 April, 2020, 03:08:35 pm
If you have a problem with ants in your house and you've run out of ant powder,
try some Milton Sterilising Fluid. I'm having some success using it from a spray
bottle.


Online suggestions of white vinegar or lemon juice didn't appear to work for me.

Turmeric
Too expensive.

Depends where you are and where you get it from.  In-law, Leicester, Belgrave Gate etc
Ok, what's the price?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 30 April, 2020, 04:18:40 pm
Ant powder and wasp nest powder are (well certainly we're a few years back) the same product in different packaging. A few years ago working in a store that sold both hsd run out of wasp nest destroyer powder and had a pest controller show us the back of the packaging and indeed they were the same
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 April, 2020, 04:55:33 pm
Wasps and ants are fairly closely related.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 30 April, 2020, 07:00:01 pm
Ant powder and wasp nest powder are (well certainly we're a few years back) the same product in different packaging. A few years ago working in a store that sold both hsd run out of wasp nest destroyer powder and had a pest controller show us the back of the packaging and indeed they were the same

I think they both are basically permethrin, a synthetic pyrethroid (a chemical produced by chrysanthemums). It's relatively safe for humans so generally most over the counter insecticides and repellants contain it.

It's extremely poisonous to cats and fish (there's a big issue with run-off, it toxic to about everything in aquatic environments).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 01 May, 2020, 08:34:41 am
What an adverb is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 May, 2020, 08:48:05 am
What an adverb is was.

FTFY. They're dying out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 01 May, 2020, 11:06:21 am
What an adverb is was.

FTFY. They're dying out.

Or rather, the traditional adverbs are being replaced by new ones that used to be adjectives.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 01 May, 2020, 11:30:02 am
Surely every adjective dreams of being an adverb when it grows up.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 05 May, 2020, 07:22:19 am
That the Stranglers hit Golden Brown was about taking heroin

RIP Dave Greenfield
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 May, 2020, 09:33:46 am
All these years I thought it was a paean to demerara sugar.

That said, Perfect Day is a tale of when Lou Reed went to the post office and bank and there wasn't a queue at either and he found $5 on the sidewalk outside his apartment.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 May, 2020, 01:14:44 pm
Coincidentally, my 'seen today' object was, between two parked cars on a side street, the following items: a round metal tin, such as contains biscuits or sweets, a mangled tea spoon and two hypodermic syringes. And I saw this after thinking to myself that the bloke two places ahead of me in the bakery queue looked like an homage to Lynnyrd Skynnyrd* (no actual connection between said bloke and aforesaid objects).

*Or however you spell that name.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 May, 2020, 01:30:09 am
That the full name of Tom Petty's keyboard player is Benjamin Montmorency Tench III, which thus beats Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV* for the title of Ponciest Name in Rock.

* aka Black Francis
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 08 May, 2020, 08:46:03 am
Coincidentally, my 'seen today' object was, between two parked cars on a side street, the following items: a round metal tin, such as contains biscuits or sweets, a mangled tea spoon and two hypodermic syringes. And I saw this after thinking to myself that the bloke two places ahead of me in the bakery queue looked like an homage to Lynnyrd Skynnyrd* (no actual connection between said bloke and aforesaid objects).

*Or however you spell that name.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - The Needle and the Spoon.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 08 May, 2020, 08:52:57 am
That Mavic are based in Annecy, a place I spent a summer in about 1969.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 08 May, 2020, 08:58:50 am

I'm not sure why ants would be bothered by acetic & citric acid given they produce formic...
And formic acid has a pleasantly citrus  flavour. Ants are used by Brazilian Indians as a way of flavouring fish

And by the Cambridge Distillery for making gin.   :thumbsup:

https://cambridgedistillery.co.uk/collections/gin/products/anty-gin
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 08 May, 2020, 11:32:53 am

I'm not sure why ants would be bothered by acetic & citric acid given they produce formic...
And formic acid has a pleasantly citrus  flavour. Ants are used by Brazilian Indians as a way of flavouring fish

And by the Cambridge Distillery for making gin.   :thumbsup:

https://cambridgedistillery.co.uk/collections/gin/products/anty-gin
Talk about your defence back-firing!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 08 May, 2020, 12:46:08 pm

I'm not sure why ants would be bothered by acetic & citric acid given they produce formic...
And formic acid has a pleasantly citrus  flavour. Ants are used by Brazilian Indians as a way of flavouring fish

And by the Cambridge Distillery for making gin.   :thumbsup:

https://cambridgedistillery.co.uk/collections/gin/products/anty-gin
Talk about your defence back-firing!
A bit expensive if you do not like it. £220!!!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 08 May, 2020, 01:53:49 pm
That the full name of Tom Petty's keyboard player is Benjamin Montmorency Tench III, which thus beats Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV* for the title of Ponciest Name in Rock.

* aka Black Francis
Surely that title goes to Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 08 May, 2020, 03:08:10 pm

I'm not sure why ants would be bothered by acetic & citric acid given they produce formic...
And formic acid has a pleasantly citrus  flavour. Ants are used by Brazilian Indians as a way of flavouring fish

And by the Cambridge Distillery for making gin.   :thumbsup:

https://cambridgedistillery.co.uk/collections/gin/products/anty-gin
Talk about your defence back-firing!
A bit expensive if you do not like it. £220!!!

It’s £7 a shot at the distillery bar.  Really nice!

Their most expensive gin is £2,000 a bottle:  https://cambridgedistillery.co.uk/collections/gin/products/watenshi

It used to be the world’s most expensive until a company in London dec8ded to make one at £4,000 a bottle.

I’ve had some Watenshi - it’s a sublime gin. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 08 May, 2020, 04:56:01 pm
Today, during a little hill dodging1 pootle, I realised that cycling is not only legal outside exercise, it is also legal sunbathing.   :thumbsup:

1 So obviously quite little.   :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 08 May, 2020, 05:25:46 pm
That the full name of Tom Petty's keyboard player is Benjamin Montmorency Tench III, which thus beats Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV* for the title of Ponciest Name in Rock.

* aka Black Francis
Surely that title goes to Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno?

Whose brother is the more mundane Roger Eugene. Although Brian was christened more simply Brian Peter George. The St. John le Baptiste de la Salle was added later.


EDIT. Was added on his confirmation.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 08 May, 2020, 09:56:27 pm

I'm not sure why ants would be bothered by acetic & citric acid given they produce formic...
And formic acid has a pleasantly citrus  flavour. Ants are used by Brazilian Indians as a way of flavouring fish

And by the Cambridge Distillery for making gin.   :thumbsup:

https://cambridgedistillery.co.uk/collections/gin/products/anty-gin

i already said that up there ^^^^
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 08 May, 2020, 09:58:46 pm
The St. John le Baptiste de la Salle was added later.

EDIT. Was added on his confirmation.

I didn’t know that - thanks!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 09 May, 2020, 03:54:34 pm
That I broke the law by cleaning out the abandoned bluetit nest from our nest box. I should have left it until July 31st.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 May, 2020, 06:28:17 pm
That there is a real place called Skygate. Unfortunately, instead of being a portal into another dimension, it's an East Midlands warehouse for a group of tat-driven debt-mongers.
https://www.business-live.co.uk/retail-consumer/take-exclusive-look-inside-shop-17063309
https://theverygroup.jobs/locations/distribution-centres
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 13 May, 2020, 06:31:53 pm
Today I learned that the world's first real-time online cash machine was installed at the Brentwood branch of the Natwest Bank in 1972. I know this because it's my good pal Felix's birthday and he and his wife went out there on their tandem as a birthday treat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 13 May, 2020, 09:37:48 pm
That there is a real place called Skygate. Unfortunately, instead of being a portal into another dimension, it's an East Midlands warehouse for a group of tat-driven debt-mongers.
https://www.business-live.co.uk/retail-consumer/take-exclusive-look-inside-shop-17063309
https://theverygroup.jobs/locations/distribution-centres

Those places are pretty impressive - about 10 years ago I had a tour of a massive M&S logistics warehouse near Nottingham (I think it was managed by DHL) - the amount of automation was stunning with clother orders picked from loads of stock all on hangers and fed around the place and into the packaging line with very little human intervention.   

I suppose nowadays Gregg Wallace would have been saying "Cor, mate, that's the biggest thing I've ever seen" as he seems to have done on all of his factory shows.

Rob
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 15 May, 2020, 08:38:14 pm
That “tentacle porn” is a thing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 15 May, 2020, 09:18:31 pm
We once inadvertently wandered into a Hentai gathering. There were tentacles. So many tentacles. An octopus would have felt inadequate. And if you didn't have your own, you could buy them. I generally never felt undertentacled until that point.

It was the sort of day that started with attending a mass dog wedding and ended with an Octoberfest. That would have less odd if it weren't May.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 May, 2020, 09:49:31 pm
That “tentacle porn” is a thing.

Hence the best "This article is about..." line on Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendril_perversion
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 May, 2020, 10:20:44 pm
That “tentacle porn” is a thing.

Hence the best "This article is about..." line on Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendril_perversion
The Tendril Tendency? Or maybe Tentacles with Testicles (should that be Testicles with Tentacles?)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 16 May, 2020, 11:24:13 am
that a second cousin of my father was a mistress (albeit one of many) of the Prince of Wales (the one who became Edward VIII).




Allegedly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 May, 2020, 12:53:00 pm
That “tentacle porn” is a thing.

Hence the best "This article is about..." line on Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendril_perversion

Needs a link saying "For creepy oddballs sexually attracted to squid, see...", though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 16 May, 2020, 03:11:19 pm
Oedipus has a bad rap, and that seems down to Freud. He didn't mean to shag his mum, he was adopted and thought his adopted parents were his real parents, and killing his dad was just a random act of road rage. He hooked up with his mum as a kind of prize for solving the riddle of the sphinx. For years I thought Oedipus killed his dad to get to his mum, but the 2 events had no relation to each other.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 16 May, 2020, 06:01:09 pm
Interesting article for those of you suffering with hay fever
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/16/how-urban-planners-preference-for-male-trees-has-made-your-hay-fever-worse
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 19 May, 2020, 06:03:30 am
That there is a BBC News service in Pidgin https://www.bbc.com/pidgin
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 May, 2020, 01:04:18 pm
That the track Sonho Dourado, on the OST album of the 2004 fillum "Friday Night Lights", is not by Explosions In The Sky at all, but rather by Daniel Lanois.  And also that it's deeply earworm-y.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 May, 2020, 10:32:38 am
You know the wee card US prezzes carry around, the one with a bunch of codes on that identify them for nuclear Armageddon purposes?  Bill Clinton lost his, and Jimmy Carter's supposedly went to the cleaners in a suit pocket.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Morat on 22 May, 2020, 10:46:02 pm
That you can't paste high ASCII into certain makes of firewall login - which is especially annoying if you've already set such a password through the GUI.
Silly me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 23 May, 2020, 08:15:47 am
You know the wee card US prezzes carry around, the one with a bunch of codes on that identify them for nuclear Armageddon purposes?  Bill Clinton lost his, and Jimmy Carter's supposedly went to the cleaners in a suit pocket.
Doesn't surprise me in the least.  Question is; do the older presidents get large print versions? :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 May, 2020, 08:39:43 am
You know the wee card US prezzes carry around, the one with a bunch of codes on that identify them for nuclear Armageddon purposes?  Bill Clinton lost his, and Jimmy Carter's supposedly went to the cleaners in a suit pocket.
Doesn't surprise me in the least.  Question is; do the older presidents get large print versions? :)

A flunky with a Teleprompt and a supply of Depends.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 24 May, 2020, 07:08:54 am
Having read Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat and his Three Men on the Bummel* I finally found out what "Bummel" means (having searched in the past) - it's a derivaton of a German word that means "strolling"

* less well-known of the works, it has some hilarious passages about cycling and in particular saddles during a tour of the Black Forest.

Rob

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 May, 2020, 08:20:16 am
Also the origin of the US word bum for a tramp.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 May, 2020, 11:08:04 am
That the record label run by space fanboi and Amplifier frontman Sel Balamir is called "Rockosmos" as a play on words involving Russian space agencies.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rower40 on 26 May, 2020, 03:48:55 pm
When cutting a length of wood to act as a paint stirrer, with the paint poured into a plastic ice-cream tub, make sure the stirrer is not just longer than the longer edge of the ice-cream tub, but also longer than the diagonal.  Or even the 3-D opposite corner diagonal.  Just to be sure.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 26 May, 2020, 03:58:51 pm
When cutting a length of wood to act as a paint stirrer, with the paint poured into a plastic ice-cream tub, make sure the stirrer is not just longer than the longer edge of the ice-cream tub, but also longer than the diagonal.  Or even the 3-D opposite corner diagonal.  Just to be sure.


:-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 May, 2020, 03:59:44 pm
That an Irish accent pronounces the h in Birmingham, almost like American.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 May, 2020, 04:09:08 pm
Realized why there's a diaeresis or the E in aiguë. It's because the U is pronounced.

Also, that barges pulled by horses often had stables on board. Logical, really.

(http://www.traitsensavoie.fr/IMG/jpg/peniche_berry_800.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 26 May, 2020, 04:43:52 pm
They also had removable barriers till the young horses learnt to stay away from the edge. It stopped them foaling in
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 May, 2020, 04:53:29 pm
That's mare than I needed to know.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 26 May, 2020, 06:23:55 pm
Pre-wedding photoshoots are a thing.

Presumably this is a way of getting all those tiresome wedding pics done without having it spoil the day itself.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 27 May, 2020, 09:08:03 am
Does the groom have to keep his eyes shut?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Davef on 27 May, 2020, 09:28:52 am
When cutting a length of wood to act as a paint stirrer, with the paint poured into a plastic ice-cream tub, make sure the stirrer is not just longer than the longer edge of the ice-cream tub, but also longer than the diagonal.  Or even the 3-D opposite corner diagonal.  Just to be sure.
I am not sure if it is still the case but it used to be that the Royal Mail maximum parcel size was 3 feet in any one dimension, so you could send a 3ft cube but not a 5 foot broom handle ... unless you packed it down the long diagonal of a 3ft cube box.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 27 May, 2020, 09:37:14 am
Samphire used to be used in the manufacture of glass, hence its other name: 'glasswort'
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 27 May, 2020, 09:37:37 am
Does the groom have to keep his eyes shut?

If he's got any sense, he'll steer well clear of the whole business.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 27 May, 2020, 11:45:23 am
The french word for pollard is tadpole.

Têtard (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%AAtard) Têtard (http://www.oncfs.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/Arbres-tetards-ONCFS-Focus.pdf)

I love this.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 27 May, 2020, 01:15:03 pm
Pre-wedding photoshoots are a thing.

Presumably this is a way of getting all those tiresome wedding pics done without having it spoil the day itself.
Unfortunately not...
Our photographer explained his rationale as it was a chance for us to get to know one another a bit and also for him to learn a bit about how we reacted to having our photos taken - could we easily do what he wanted, did we pull funny faces, that kind of thing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 May, 2020, 01:23:31 pm
The french word for pollard is tadpole.

Têtard (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%AAtard) Têtard (http://www.oncfs.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/Arbres-tetards-ONCFS-Focus.pdf)

I love this.

Me too. Didn't know that.

Meanwhile, I have learnt what bundle means in Southron slang.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 27 May, 2020, 01:36:45 pm
That to Sard was the medieval version of to F*ck

Also what a grawlix is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 28 May, 2020, 09:19:15 pm
That despite buying a whiskey under their label, my wife has no idea what a Pogue is, or any recollection of Fairy Tale of New York, so I've just played it, all
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 May, 2020, 08:07:33 am
That despite buying a whiskey under their label, my wife has no idea what a Pogue is, or any recollection of Fairy Tale of New York, so I've just played it, all

Pogue is lotsastuff: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pogue
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 29 May, 2020, 11:29:38 am
yebbut, she didn't have any idea, just liked the look of the bottle
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 June, 2020, 11:50:45 am
Onoz!  The Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat is on the critically-endangered list :'(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MikeFromLFE on 01 June, 2020, 08:15:07 pm
I've been joking about how having really, really bad hay fever must be wots making my tinnitus worse.
It's a thing!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 June, 2020, 10:27:09 pm
That former Polish rock Maanam took their name from the Tamil for "respect".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 03 June, 2020, 10:44:57 pm
For some reason, tonight I wondered if there was such a thing as a welsh sign language.  Apparently not.  BSL is, in fact, fully British and used in all four nations.  Although many people in NI are bilingual and can read BSL and ISL.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 03 June, 2020, 11:17:25 pm
For some reason, tonight I wondered if there was such a thing as a welsh sign language.

Yeah, it's the BSL dialect where <letter> looks like <cunt>.  (Postman Piers helpfully warned me about this before I turned up at the BDA's Cardiff office to do some unisex spaceadmining some years ago.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 03 June, 2020, 11:21:18 pm
BSL is extremely regional, so people in Sheffield use lots of different signs than say Doncaster a few miles away.

Northern Irish Sign Language is also sometimes recognised as being even more dialectically different from the rest - not sure why, whether more ISL influence or something else.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 03 June, 2020, 11:45:38 pm
Pete Shelley was inspired to write Ever Fallen In Love by a line in Guys & Dolls.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 June, 2020, 08:40:57 am
BSL is extremely regional, so people in Sheffield use lots of different signs than say Doncaster a few miles away.

That sounds like the Alsacien dialect, which varies from village to village.  Our old cleaning woman could tell which of the neighbouring villages someone came from just from how they spoke.  She also used to look down on everyone who wasn't from her village, which is a cowsnest like any other but does boast a kilometre-long 10% climb.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 04 June, 2020, 08:41:58 am
When cutting a length of wood to act as a paint stirrer, with the paint poured into a plastic ice-cream tub, make sure the stirrer is not just longer than the longer edge of the ice-cream tub, but also longer than the diagonal.  Or even the 3-D opposite corner diagonal.  Just to be sure.
aka 'body diagonal'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 04 June, 2020, 08:59:48 am
Pete Shelley was inspired to write Ever Fallen In Love by a line in Guys & Dolls.
I heard that too. Now trying to work it into what is officially the longest listener-generated, thematically-linked sequence of musically-based items on the radio.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 04 June, 2020, 09:07:52 am
BSL is extremely regional, so people in Sheffield use lots of different signs than say Doncaster a few miles away.

Northern Irish Sign Language is also sometimes recognised as being even more dialectically different from the rest - not sure why, whether more ISL influence or something else.

Thanks.  Dialects hadn't occurred to me, but I don't think there is any reason why they wouldn't develop. That's rather interesting.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 04 June, 2020, 09:22:54 am
Pete Shelley was inspired to write Ever Fallen In Love by a line in Guys & Dolls.
I heard that too. Now trying to work it into what is officially the longest listener-generated, thematically-linked sequence of musically-based items on the radio.

Bzzzt! Repetition...
https://www.thechain.uk/590-buzzcocks-ever-fallen-in-love-with-someone-you-shouldntve/

(Had to check to be sure, but it would have been a major oversight if they'd never had it yet.)

Must admit that I've not listened to Love Bites in its entirety for some years, but it is an abso-fucking-lutely awesome album. Cranked it up to 11 and pogoed round the kitchen while making dinner.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 June, 2020, 01:19:27 pm
BSL is extremely regional, so people in Sheffield use lots of different signs than say Doncaster a few miles away.

Northern Irish Sign Language is also sometimes recognised as being even more dialectically different from the rest - not sure why, whether more ISL influence or something else.

Thanks.  Dialects hadn't occurred to me, but I don't think there is any reason why they wouldn't develop. That's rather interesting.

Combination of factors:

Sign language users have historically had small communities based around schools for the deaf, Deaf clubs, and sometimes churches and sports groups.  Bear in mind that most deaf people have hearing parents, and that sign was deliberately marginalised by the authorities in favour of oralism (particularly in the UK) since 1880.

Sign languages lacked the homogenising effect of telephone, radio and television until video technology became cheap enough for Deaf people to access.  (An hour a week of Blue Peter See Hear on the BBC[1] was all you got on broadcast telly until quite recently, and that only started in the 1980s.)  Spoken languages have had a century's head start, in that respect.

My own sign is a mixture of Big Gay Yorkshire and Mary Hare, courtesy of my Sheffield BSL tutors and Postman Piers (with the usual SSEishness of Crap Hearing People).  I can do London numbers, but they're like starting a bike with the other foot.


[1] Needless to say the majority of BSL you see on telly is the 'London' dialect.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 June, 2020, 01:27:44 pm
Pete Shelley was inspired to write Ever Fallen In Love by a line in Guys & Dolls.
I heard that too. Now trying to work it into what is officially the longest listener-generated, thematically-linked sequence of musically-based items on the radio.

Bzzzt! Repetition...
https://www.thechain.uk/590-buzzcocks-ever-fallen-in-love-with-someone-you-shouldntve/

(Had to check to be sure, but it would have been a major oversight if they'd never had it yet.)

Must admit that I've not listened to Love Bites in its entirety for some years, but it is an abso-fucking-lutely awesome album. Cranked it up to 11 and pogoed round the kitchen while making dinner.
Blimey. I don't think I've ever listened to the whole album. What have I been doing for the past 77 years?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 04 June, 2020, 01:29:59 pm
@Kim. Kin yow soinge Broomeye?   ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 June, 2020, 01:32:23 pm
I knew I'd been here too long when a Canterbury friend observed that I pronounce 'Birmingham' in Broomeye (can't hear it myself).  More recently, I've found myself using 'roight' unironically...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 June, 2020, 01:36:16 pm
Accents are funny things you often can't hear in yourself but can pass on. I remember a Japanese girl in NZ asking me what currency we use in Britain. When she repeated 'pound' back to me, I could hear a Gloucestershire accent...

Anyways, a thing I've learnt today is the word 'perfusion'. A less interesting but, unfortunately, more directly applicable thing, is the New York 11 (a sugar contract).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 04 June, 2020, 01:37:35 pm
Do you use the traditional greeting "or-roight"?

Edit. That was aimed at Kim.  I didn't realise that Cudz had posted
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 June, 2020, 01:39:04 pm
Pete Shelley was inspired to write Ever Fallen In Love by a line in Guys & Dolls.
I heard that too. Now trying to work it into what is officially the longest listener-generated, thematically-linked sequence of musically-based items on the radio.

Bzzzt! Repetition...
https://www.thechain.uk/590-buzzcocks-ever-fallen-in-love-with-someone-you-shouldntve/

(Had to check to be sure, but it would have been a major oversight if they'd never had it yet.)

Must admit that I've not listened to Love Bites in its entirety for some years, but it is an abso-fucking-lutely awesome album. Cranked it up to 11 and pogoed round the kitchen while making dinner.
Blimey. I don't think I've ever listened to the whole album. What have I been doing for the past 77 years?
Youtube has a "1996 remastered" version of Just Lust. It's... wrong...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 June, 2020, 01:40:17 pm
Do you use the traditional greeting "or-roight"?
That might be what other people hear...  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 June, 2020, 01:45:26 pm
Do you use the traditional greeting "or-roight"?

Not yet, though I fear it may only be a matter of time.  I've stopped replying to it with "Not bad, how are you?" or similar.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 04 June, 2020, 01:49:46 pm
Do you use the traditional greeting "or-roight"?

Not yet, though I fear it may only be a matter of time.  I've stopped replying to it with "Not bad, how are you?" or similar.

Yes, I remember learning that PDQ when I lived in Birmingham...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 04 June, 2020, 01:58:15 pm
With the signing of kids programs most seem very well to do and formal. The lady who did/does rasta mouse (kids are a few years past watching it) was a very cool black lady who had at least as much swagger as any of the characters in rasta mouse.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 June, 2020, 02:26:58 pm
Glycated haemoglobin is reluctant to release oxygen.  Pulse oximeters which measure the percentage of oxygenated haemoglobin in the blood may therefore give an artificially high reading in Type-2 diabetics.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SiD on 10 June, 2020, 05:06:22 pm
i have learned about a song called Medway Wheelers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 10 June, 2020, 06:17:45 pm
By Mr Childish I believe?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 10 June, 2020, 06:29:11 pm
I have just discovered the Twitter feed Giant Military Cats :D

https://twitter.com/giantcat9/status/1270688853687439361?s=19
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SiD on 10 June, 2020, 06:35:21 pm
By Mr Childish I believe?

That's correct. "They thought they'd never get there…"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Moleman76 on 11 June, 2020, 09:53:20 am
The term for a group of (garden, etc.) slugs is a
(click to show/hide)
.  I think I will probably always twinge when I say that word.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 11 June, 2020, 01:19:25 pm
i have learned about a song called Medway Wheelers.
SiD!

How the devil are you?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 18 June, 2020, 03:57:01 pm
My brother-in-law's ancestors owned Blaise Castle until they sold it to Bristol council in the 1920s. They bought it after the previous owner, Thomas Farr, went bankrupt after his ships were blockaded during the American Revolutionary War.

What makes this more interesting is that Farr had made his fortune from sugar plantations and was involved in the slave trade, while the Harfords were prominent abolitionists and close associates of William Wilberforce.

So, if anyone had been entertaining thoughts about chucking Blaise Castle in the Avon, think again! The Harfords were the good guys.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 19 June, 2020, 02:53:06 pm
Round the corner from where I live there is an industrial building of some kind, now converted to flats.
Today I have learned that it used to be St Andrews Biscuit Works, and it is where Digestive Biscuits were invented.

Also I learned that chocolate digestives are marked in France under the slogan "C'est Anglais, mais c'est bon!" ("It's English, but it's good")...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 19 June, 2020, 03:09:50 pm
Also I learned that chocolate digestives are marked in France under the slogan "C'est Anglais, mais c'est bon!" ("It's English, but it's good")...

Brilliant!  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pumpkin on 19 June, 2020, 04:21:45 pm
whereas someone I know whose daughter recently obtained a position in a prestigious German orchestra tells me the joke there is that 'The English don't have music'. Probably works better in some shouty hard German sentence
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 19 June, 2020, 04:46:07 pm
whereas someone I know whose daughter recently obtained a position in a prestigious German orchestra tells me the joke there is that 'The English don't have music'. Probably works better in some shouty hard German sentence
"but they absolutely love the noise it makes."?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 June, 2020, 06:18:07 pm
whereas someone I know whose daughter recently obtained a position in a prestigious German orchestra tells me the joke there is that 'The English don't have music'. Probably works better in some shouty hard German sentence

This from the nation that invented Wagner?  Time to invade.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 21 June, 2020, 10:29:50 pm
Accents are funny things you often can't hear in yourself but can pass on. I remember a Japanese girl in NZ asking me what currency we use in Britain. When she repeated 'pound' back to me, I could hear a Gloucestershire accent...

Anyways, a thing I've learnt today is the word 'perfusion'. A less interesting but, unfortunately, more directly applicable thing, is the New York 11 (a sugar contract).

I have no idea what my accent is after fifteen years trying to avoid getting webbed feet, but if I go back to the west country, there is a definite change over the course of a weekend
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 22 June, 2020, 07:58:22 am
I have no idea what my accent is after fifteen years trying to avoid getting webbed feet, but if I go back to the west country, there is a definite change over the course of a weekend

Sorry Dave, you have to be born in the Fens to have webbed feet.  I should know....  (A Bostonian)

And whilst my accent has softened after 40 years in Cheshire, my farm manager brother's Lincolnshire accent seems to get ever  stronger.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 June, 2020, 08:03:45 am
I have no idea what my accent is after fifteen years trying to avoid getting webbed feet, but if I go back to the west country, there is a definite change over the course of a weekend

Sorry Dave, you have to be born in the Fens to have webbed feet.  I should know....  (A Bostonian)

And whilst my accent has softened after 40 years in Cheshire, my farm manager brother's Lincolnshire accent seems to get ever  stronger.

No need to be sorry, you've confirmed its not contagious. ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 22 June, 2020, 03:07:18 pm
 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 June, 2020, 06:19:53 pm
That there is in Australia a brand of starting fluid spray named Start Ya Bastard!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 26 June, 2020, 02:37:52 pm
The song "Raindrops keep fallin' on my head" was written for the film "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".
It seems an unlikely combination....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raindrops_Keep_Fallin%27_on_My_Head
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 June, 2020, 02:39:28 pm
The scene involves a bicycle IIRC.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 26 June, 2020, 03:19:05 pm
The scene involves a bicycle IIRC.

Indeed it does - I think Paul Newman rode round the yard while Robert Redford had his wicked way with Katherine Ross (lucky chap!)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 26 June, 2020, 04:29:48 pm
I am fairly sure that I've seen the film on TV but the only bits I remember are them jumping into the river to get away and the last scene, which is why I was a bit surprised about the song.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 June, 2020, 03:46:55 pm
Heaving around a 15-kilo bag of dog food is much easier when your hands are still tacky with the hydroalcoholic gel provided at the pet-shop door.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 29 June, 2020, 03:56:48 pm
That the German for 'Great tit' is Kohlmeise, which translates literally to English as 'Coal tit'. The German for 'Coal tit' is Tannenmeise which literally translates to English as 'Fir tit'.

The coal tit used to be called the Kohlmeiß or Kleine Kohl-Maise and the great tit either Spiegelmeiß ('multicolored tit'), Brandtmeiß ('burnt tit') or Grosse Meiß ('great tit').

Completely unrelated, the Booby (the gannet-like bird) is, in German, Tölpel, which can also mean 'idiot', 'foolish person' or 'booby'. I'm not sure if the English 'Booby', meaning idiot, came after the bird since,
Quote
the English name "booby" was possibly based on the Spanish slang term bobo, meaning "stupid" as these tame birds had a habit of landing on board sailing ships, where they were easily captured and eaten.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 29 June, 2020, 04:22:17 pm
Now we need to know about blue and long tailed tits in German.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 29 June, 2020, 04:47:06 pm
Boringly equivalent.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 July, 2020, 08:38:35 pm
That the last person in the world to die of smallpox caught it in Birmingham.
Quote
Janet Parker was the last person to die of smallpox. It was 1978, and Parker was a medical photographer at the Birmingham University Medical School in England and worked one floor above the Medical Microbiology Department where smallpox research was being conducted. She became ill on August 11 and developed a rash on August 15 but was not diagnosed with smallpox until 9 days later. She died on September 11, 1978. Her mother, who was providing care for her, developed smallpox on September 7, despite having been vaccinated on August 24. An investigation performed afterward suggested that Janet Parker had been infected either via an airborne route through the medical school building’s duct system or by direct contact while visiting the microbiology corridor one floor above.
https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/history/history.html#:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 04 July, 2020, 01:15:10 pm
Learnt how to do the Rubik's cube today. Something that had been on my to do list for almost 40 years. When I was a kid, my older brother read a book and learnt how to do it, and I always assumed I would do it one day. All it took was 40 years, a global pandemic with lockdown, and more importantly a search on YouTube and 40 minutes spent watching a video. Luckily it's a skill that can impress my toddler
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 04 July, 2020, 04:58:52 pm
That the German for 'Great tit' is Kohlmeise, which translates literally to English as 'Coal tit'. The German for 'Coal tit' is Tannenmeise which literally translates to English as 'Fir tit'.

The coal tit used to be called the Kohlmeiß or Kleine Kohl-Maise and the great tit either Spiegelmeiß ('multicolored tit'), Brandtmeiß ('burnt tit') or Grosse Meiß ('great tit').

Completely unrelated, the Booby (the gannet-like bird) is, in German, Tölpel, which can also mean 'idiot', 'foolish person' or 'booby'. I'm not sure if the English 'Booby', meaning idiot, came after the bird since,
Quote
the English name "booby" was possibly based on the Spanish slang term bobo, meaning "stupid" as these tame birds had a habit of landing on board sailing ships, where they were easily captured and eaten.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the German for spoonbill is Löffler which is also a brand of cycle clothing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 04 July, 2020, 09:45:27 pm
Didn't know the first part.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 06 July, 2020, 05:36:12 pm
That the (water cooled) motor on my pressure washer has a thermal cutout if you leave it on too long without the water flowing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andyoxon on 07 July, 2020, 04:13:17 pm
Still no good at DIY haircuts.  OK with the wahl clippers on the sides, but made a right pig's ear of the top.  I now have a good region of about 1cm, with the rest 2-3cm.    ::-) ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 07 July, 2020, 04:16:25 pm
just bung on the number 2 comb and get on with it ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andyoxon on 07 July, 2020, 04:28:29 pm
I did suggest that, but mrsao - she say no... :facepalm:   ;) 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 07 July, 2020, 04:33:42 pm
Oh, hippy stylings.

Tidy Hair™ is a virtue of a number 1 all over, and a number 3 on the Beard of Authority℠. There's a bit of finesse required to blend the sideburns and transition from beard to hair, but I have well-practised wrist movements. Then number zero around the back of the neck and trim of the moustache to prevent filter feeding. Then the magic twirly trimmer on the nose and eyebrows, and a sweep of the double razor around the throat to tidy the bottom edges.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 07 July, 2020, 04:39:46 pm
Oh, hippy stylings.

Tidy Hair™ is a virtue of a number 1 all over, and a number 3 on the Beard of Authority℠. There's a bit of finesse required to blend the sideburns and transition from beard to hair, but I have well-practised wrist movements. Then number zero around the back of the neck and trim of the moustache to prevent filter feeding. Then the magic twirly trimmer on the nose and eyebrows, and a sweep of the double razor around the throat to tidy the bottom edges.

No2 all over the bonce, 5mm setting on beard and moustache, trim the excess moustache and beard edges with no comb on the trimmer, quick snip with the scissors for errant eyebrows for me. Ears and nose thankfully not requiring any attention yet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 07 July, 2020, 04:57:43 pm
I used to a number 1/2, but because my head was once gnawed by a shark, that made me look a bit like I'd escaped from a Victorian psychosurgery unit, built a time-machine, and come to terrorize the people of the future.

I could be lying about the shark, though, and it would explain the large steam-powered whirly machine in the garage.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 07 July, 2020, 05:00:42 pm
Learnt how to do the Rubik's cube today. Something that had been on my to do list for almost 40 years. When I was a kid, my older brother read a book and learnt how to do it, and I always assumed I would do it one day. All it took was 40 years, a global pandemic with lockdown, and more importantly a search on YouTube and 40 minutes spent watching a video. Luckily it's a skill that can impress my toddler

Is it that easy?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 07 July, 2020, 05:09:46 pm
Learnt how to do the Rubik's cube today. Something that had been on my to do list for almost 40 years. When I was a kid, my older brother read a book and learnt how to do it, and I always assumed I would do it one day. All it took was 40 years, a global pandemic with lockdown, and more importantly a search on YouTube and 40 minutes spent watching a video. Luckily it's a skill that can impress my toddler

Is it that easy?

It's just applying an algorithm.

As with so many things in life, there's more than one way to solve a Rubik's cube.  Some algorithms are simple to learn, but inefficient.  Some are efficient, but more complex.

I've long since forgotten how to do it.  Unless you count the peel-all-the-stickers-off-and-put-them-back-in-the-right-place algorithm my brother once used.  That cube was never the same again...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 07 July, 2020, 05:13:58 pm
Lever off a corner piece (with a care and a screwdriver), disassemble and reassemble in completed form. That's what I did.

In the same way, realise that really smart people are smart enough not to waste their time taking IQ tests.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 July, 2020, 07:27:24 pm
In Alberta, possession of an unlicensed rat can earn you a fine of $5000 or sixty days in gaol.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 July, 2020, 08:09:50 pm
I've been keeping an unlicensed breeding population of Canadians behind the garage for years. What's the fine for that?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 July, 2020, 11:00:40 am
I've been keeping an unlicensed breeding population of Canadians behind the garage for years. What's the fine for that?

Five Bloody Marys and/or ten How's Your Fathers, I think.  How do they get on with the BEARs?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 July, 2020, 12:00:56 pm
For reasons, on our smart TV, we always check out the weather using an app from a Canadian weather network. It has a video section with lots of videos of wild Canadian weather and all things Canada.

There are always videos of Canadians surprised to see bears. OMG! THERE'S A BEAR IN MY GARDEN!

Yes, that's because you live in Canada, where bears live*. If you lived – say – in Lewisham, this would be an actual surprise.

*with the notable exception of the Surrey bears.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: trekker12 on 09 July, 2020, 12:03:07 pm
In Alberta, possession of an unlicensed rat can earn you a fine of $5000 or sixty days in gaol.

How does the rat apply for a license?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 July, 2020, 12:16:09 pm
Online, at alberta.gov.ca
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 14 July, 2020, 07:49:54 am
Recycled PET bottles are known as rPET. Wouldn't Cilla be pleased?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 July, 2020, 07:54:58 am
Pentimento. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentimento One of those cases where you know the thing but not the word.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 17 July, 2020, 01:11:27 pm
NHS Taysides video about 72 years of NHS Scotland revealed that the building I work in was a Geriatric Unit at the hospital it used to be.
It appears on maps mid-50s which fits with the opening date in 1957

Further digging reveals it was one of the earliest Specialist Geriatric units in Scotland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Taylor_Brown

"I was also very happy to hear the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, speak about the value of the geriatric assessment units. As he knows, there is in operation in Maryfield Hospital, under Dr. Taylor Brown, a most effective unit of that kind. He, I think, like me, has seen it in operation, and it is amazing the extent to which old people are enabled to return to a normal life by an application of the special techniques which have been discovered because such a unit was set up in the Eastern Region. I know that before long it will, in fact, be standard practice everywhere."
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1962/mar/29/hospital-plan-for-scotland


And seemingly one of the major steps to "care in the community"
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1957/jul/24/scotland-health-services

This work of restoring old people to health and activity is already being carried out by geriatric units at Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow, and at Maryfield Hospital. Dundee. The latest figures from Maryfield will, I know, interest the Committee. They show that some 53 per cent, of old people admitted—and we all know what it used to be like when an old person was admitted to hospital—were sufficiently restored to return home or to be discharged to residential accommodation. As several speakers have said, when old people are discharged to their own homes, they can receive very valuable assistance from the home helps service, and I am very glad to be able to tell, hon. Members that this year for the first time every—and I repeat every—Scottish local health authority is operating a home help service scheme of this kind. It is best, of course, for old people to live in their own homes——




The general belief here has been that this bit was the nurses home
So those ghosts people claim to see...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 22 July, 2020, 12:56:47 pm
That a ml of water weighs a gram. My new kitchen scales taught me. I kept switching from mls to gms to check, and looking at it like a slack-jawed yokel.

How did I not know this?

How much time have I squandered in my life, rummaging about looking for a measuring jug when the scale was right in front of me?

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 22 July, 2020, 01:05:53 pm
 :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 July, 2020, 01:42:50 pm
Just about the first thing we learnt in grammar school physics was that the density of water was 1 gm/cc (back then the abbreviation was gm).  I much prefer cc to ml, too: you can picture a little cube of water, 1 cm on a side.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 22 July, 2020, 05:08:18 pm
That a ml of water weighs a gram. My new kitchen scales taught me. I kept switching from mls to gms to check, and looking at it like a slack-jawed yokel.

How did I not know this?

How much time have I squandered in my life, rummaging about looking for a measuring jug when the scale was right in front of me?

 :facepalm:

.... and for old school codgers : a pint of water weighs a pound and quarter

Rob
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 July, 2020, 06:42:02 pm
Just about the first thing we learnt in grammar school physics was that the density of water was 1 gm/cc (back then the abbreviation was gm).  I much prefer cc to ml, too: you can picture a little cube of water, 1 cm on a side.
Don't forget that's at 4 degrees C, which is, I think, when water is at its densest. (See also why ice floats).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 22 July, 2020, 06:55:37 pm
Ten out of ten Mr Hall.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 22 July, 2020, 07:31:15 pm
The Girl From Ipanema (https://youtu.be/OFWCbGzxofU) is weirder than I ever imagined.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 July, 2020, 07:38:25 pm
That a ml of water weighs a gram. My new kitchen scales taught me. I kept switching from mls to gms to check, and looking at it like a slack-jawed yokel.

How did I not know this?

How much time have I squandered in my life, rummaging about looking for a measuring jug when the scale was right in front of me?

 :facepalm:
??? I don't doubt that this is true but  ???

and at the same time  :thumbsup:

And also 4.18J/K/g = 1 cal/C/g when you are a water otter [kettle]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 July, 2020, 09:44:31 pm
That a ml of water weighs a gram. My new kitchen scales taught me. I kept switching from mls to gms to check, and looking at it like a slack-jawed yokel.

How did I not know this?

How much time have I squandered in my life, rummaging about looking for a measuring jug when the scale was right in front of me?

 :facepalm:

Hang on though. A set of scales that give a read out using a measure of volume? That's just wrong. Suppose you used the ml scale to give you 150ml of corn oil. It would be the Wrong Amount.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 July, 2020, 08:15:23 am
That a ml of water weighs a gram. My new kitchen scales taught me. I kept switching from mls to gms to check, and looking at it like a slack-jawed yokel.

How did I not know this?

How much time have I squandered in my life, rummaging about looking for a measuring jug when the scale was right in front of me?

 :facepalm:

Hang on though. A set of scales that give a read out using a measure of volume? That's just wrong. Suppose you used the ml scale to give you 150ml of corn oil. It would be the Wrong Amount.

Different substances have different densities at different temperatures, which is why we always followed related school physics results with "at STP", standard temperature and pressure. Even though we usually worked at room temperature.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 23 July, 2020, 08:20:47 am
That a ml of water weighs a gram. My new kitchen scales taught me. I kept switching from mls to gms to check, and looking at it like a slack-jawed yokel.

How did I not know this?

How much time have I squandered in my life, rummaging about looking for a measuring jug when the scale was right in front of me?

 :facepalm:

Hang on though. A set of scales that give a read out using a measure of volume? That's just wrong. Suppose you used the ml scale to give you 150ml of corn oil. It would be the Wrong Amount.
I think the instructions mention this. Would it be much out?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 23 July, 2020, 08:25:13 am
That a ml of water weighs a gram. My new kitchen scales taught me. I kept switching from mls to gms to check, and looking at it like a slack-jawed yokel.

How did I not know this?

How much time have I squandered in my life, rummaging about looking for a measuring jug when the scale was right in front of me?

 :facepalm:

Hang on though. A set of scales that give a read out using a measure of volume? That's just wrong. Suppose you used the ml scale to give you 150ml of corn oil. It would be the Wrong Amount.
I think the instructions mention this. Would it be much out?
Googling suggests corn oil has a density of around 90% that of water. You'll get around 10% more corn oil that you should.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 23 July, 2020, 08:31:37 am
That’s enough to affect the outcome. Shan’t ditch the measuring jug yet then.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 23 July, 2020, 09:05:56 am
Or you could just put in 135g of corn oil?  Wouldn't that be simpler than using the measuring jug?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 23 July, 2020, 09:23:17 am
It would if I could remember that next time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Redlight on 23 July, 2020, 09:45:36 am
That a ml of water weighs a gram. My new kitchen scales taught me. I kept switching from mls to gms to check, and looking at it like a slack-jawed yokel.

How did I not know this?

How much time have I squandered in my life, rummaging about looking for a measuring jug when the scale was right in front of me?

 :facepalm:

Don't worry. I still take great pleasure in reminding my wife about the time she was following a recipe that called for 750ml of white wine and she used a measuring jug... :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 23 July, 2020, 12:35:44 pm
That I do not possess a cone spanner that fits my touring bike's dyno wheel. I possess 14/15 and 16mm models. Bugger.  New 17mm ordered.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 July, 2020, 12:47:18 pm
That a ml of water weighs a gram. My new kitchen scales taught me. I kept switching from mls to gms to check, and looking at it like a slack-jawed yokel.

How did I not know this?

How much time have I squandered in my life, rummaging about looking for a measuring jug when the scale was right in front of me?

 :facepalm:

Don't worry. I still take great pleasure in reminding my wife about the time she was following a recipe that called for 750ml of white wine and she used a measuring jug... :facepalm:

750ml?  That's more than an armful!
</Hancock>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 July, 2020, 12:52:42 pm
That I do not possess a cone spanner that fits my touring bike's dyno wheel. I possess 14/15 and 16mm models. Bugger.  New 17mm ordered.

This seems to be the way with cone spanners.  Presumably when you've fettled enough hubs you'll have acquired a full set.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 23 July, 2020, 01:07:01 pm
That’s enough to affect the outcome. Shan’t ditch the measuring jug yet then.

Oh yes? Because you need precision, eh? Why don't you carry out this little 'speriment.

Fill the jug to, say 500 ml. Check that on your scale. You may be surprised. Measuring jugs are easily +- 5% at the best of times.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 23 July, 2020, 02:42:06 pm
That I do not possess a cone spanner that fits my touring bike's dyno wheel. I possess 14/15 and 16mm models. Bugger.  New 17mm ordered.

Hmm, IME 14mm is fairly unusual, I'd have filed it out 17  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 July, 2020, 06:17:27 pm
The multiple and seemingly contradictory medical meanings of rigor:
Rigor: A word with two different but related meanings in medicine:

A chill, usually with shivering, as at the onset of high fever and chills.
Rigidity, as in rigor mortis, the rigidity of a body after death.
https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=40571

And rigors:
Rigors are episodes in which your temperature rises - often quite quickly - whilst you have severe shivering accompanied by a feeling of coldness ('the chills'). The fever may be quite high and the shivering may be quite dramatic.
https://patient.info/childrens-health/rigors-leaflet

I'm not even sure if rigors is a variant term on rigor 1 or something slightly different!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 24 July, 2020, 09:14:21 am
That I do not possess a cone spanner that fits my touring bike's dyno wheel. I possess 14/15 and 16mm models. Bugger.  New 17mm ordered.

Hmm, IME 14mm is fairly unusual, I'd have filed it out 17  :demon:
A bit much to file out - would weaken it a lot.
I made cone spanners from good quality open-ended spanners by gently grinding one side (so that the other side retained its treatment) to 2mm thick; 13 - 14 and 14 - 15mm. When a rider's bike wound its RHS front cone into the bearing (lock nut not tight enough) a standard cone spanner was wrecked trying to move it; mine worked with no damage.
Now, if you have access to a horizontal grinder...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 July, 2020, 10:30:18 am
Today is World Tequila Day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 24 July, 2020, 03:47:35 pm
How to make authentic sauce tartare. By which I mean "in the French style".

We're having fish & chips for dinner, you see, and in a whimsical moment, I thought I'd look up an actual recipe rather than just doing my usual improv throwing ingredients together and adjusting to taste version.

So I looked in Michel Roux's Les Sauces, which is a wonderful book - if a little too cheffy to be practical for everyday use. And it confused me. His recipe is an emulsion of hard-boiled egg yolks, oil and lemon juice, with finely chopped onion and chives. Conspicuously no gherkins or capers.

This threw me a bit, so I then referred to Larousse Gastronomique to check whether this was just a Roux idiosyncracy. But no, they have it pretty much the same way.

Roux's recipe for sauce gribiche corresponds more closely to what I recognise as sauce tartare. I always thought the difference was essentially that gribiche was made with hard-boiled eggs, while tartare was made with raw (hence my usual lazy method of using shop-bought mayonnaise as the base).

I did a bit of half-hearted googling to look into the reasons for the variation in the anglicised take on tartare sauce but so far have not found a satisfactory explanation.

Roux's recipe for sauce rémoulade is much the same but with mustard and anchovies. Mmmmmm. Love a bit of rémoulade. My favourite choice from the lovely French sandwich shop on Warren Street I used to frequent many years ago was one of their speciality mini baguettes stuffed with roast beef and celeriac rémoulade. You won't get that in Pret.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 24 July, 2020, 07:06:34 pm
According to my well thumbed copy of La Technique which has in its favour a French Name, a French born author and a comprehensive photographic guide to French cuisine, but against it, Jacques Pepin achieved fame in the US...

Quote
Mayonnaise can become sauce verte, a green sauce made with mayonnaise with parsley and spinach; sauce gribiche, mayonnaise with hard cooked eggs, French sour gherkins, capers and shallots; sauce tartare, mayonnaise with parsley, chives, chervil and sour pickles (etc etc)

Practical Professional Cookery (Cracknell & Kaufmann) has tartare as remoulade without anchovies, so capers, gherkin, fines herbes. I might take issue with that authenticity because in classic french, I think Sauce Remoulade is a mayonnaise with mustard instead of eggs, but it fits the classic idea.

Turning to my french volumes, La Code de la bonne chere (1950's) doesn't mention Tartare, but informs me that Sauce Verte was created by M. Blavay, the chef of Napoleon III.

Doesn't feature in the others which are for the most part regional cooking.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 25 July, 2020, 10:42:31 am
Francoise Bernard's Les Recettes Faciles (1965) uses egg yolk, mustard, oil, vinegar, gherkins, onion, capers, fines herbes (parsley, chives, chervil, tarragon), salt and pepper. She says it's traditional to use cooked egg yolk but it's easier with raw.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 25 July, 2020, 11:47:55 am
All interesting information, thanks both. :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 25 July, 2020, 03:26:20 pm
That an ICE trike has approximately half the stopping distance of a Brompton.  DAHIKT.   :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 25 July, 2020, 03:29:12 pm
I've lived in London most of my life, and consider myself to be something of a Londonista, but I've only just now found out that the box-like stainless steel structure in the middle of what was the E&C roundabout  is a memorial to Michael Faraday (who was born nearby in Newington Butts) and  (most appropriately) contains an electricity sub-station for London Underground.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 25 July, 2020, 04:06:45 pm
I knew the last bit about it being an electricity substation for the underground, didn’t know the bit about it being a monument to Faraday.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 27 July, 2020, 10:41:53 am
Oddly, I know about the Faraday thing, but that's because our guide on one of those Hidden London things told us rather than it being anything obvious.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 27 July, 2020, 12:29:26 pm
Oddly, I know about the Faraday thing, but that's because our guide on one of those Hidden London things told us rather than it being anything obvious.

I knew both facts - partly because I was a student at the London College of Printing (now called the London College of Communication) which is the pale green glass/cladding building at the Elephant, when it opened in 1963 - our main classroom for the course looked down on the "biscuit tin" in the middle of the roundabout.  IIRC at our orientation session it was one of the facts given to us . . . . along with the one about Charlie Chaplin living across the road where the shopping centre is!

Rob
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 July, 2020, 01:25:03 pm
...London College of Printing (now called the London College of Communication)...

And thereby hangs a tale.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 27 July, 2020, 06:29:38 pm
That Wilko bike cleaner is equally effective on white boards that have not been wiped for several months
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 29 July, 2020, 07:51:11 am
The 'Gants' of Braintree (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/gants-of-braintree)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 01 August, 2020, 10:47:47 am
That WD40 lifts oil of a carpet!

We had a new patio laid and I must have walked through some oil by mistake.  Footprints all over the kitchen carpet and into the hall.  A little bit of googling and up came WD40.  It was literally amazing.  A spray of WD40, rub with a cloth and the oil just lifted out of the carpet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 01 August, 2020, 11:14:27 am
That the US prohibited all trade with the UK when  Royal Navy ships actively pursued and stopped illegal slavery ships off the west coast of Africa in the early 1800s.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 August, 2020, 12:49:51 pm
That WD40 lifts oil of a carpet!

We had a new patio laid and I must have walked through some oil by mistake.  Footprints all over the kitchen carpet and into the hall.  A little bit of googling and up came WD40.  It was literally amazing.  A spray of WD40, rub with a cloth and the oil just lifted out of the carpet.

Swarfega should work as well. ISTR that it was originally developed for cleaning silk stockings or some such.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 01 August, 2020, 01:41:31 pm
I think my dwarfed went walk about in the move.  Also needs more washing out.  This was literally spray and wipe
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 01 August, 2020, 01:51:30 pm
I think my dwarfed went walk about in the move.  Also needs more washing out.  This was literally spray and wipe

Gotta love spillchuck
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 01 August, 2020, 03:21:36 pm
Zinner Permawhite satin paint is so much better to apply than Dulux Diamond Eggshell which is shit, despite it's recommendations.

ETA: Yes, ok, it should have been Zinsser. I just wasn't concentrating.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 01 August, 2020, 03:31:37 pm
That there is such a brand as Zinsser paint  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 01 August, 2020, 03:56:59 pm
I'm obviously being thick, or uncool, as I have no idea what's funny about this.  Zinsser is the leading maker of paints for difficult situations, such as stain blocking, or unstable surfaces.  I've just used 2.5 litres of 1-2-3+ to stop the stain in some tacky sapele veneered doors leaching into the paint I'm applying.

To me, your comment is a bit like "Hey, did you know there is a car maker called Honda".  Other opinions are of course available...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 01 August, 2020, 04:06:25 pm
See the post above mine...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 02 August, 2020, 09:48:18 am
That the word 'Dord', with the definition 'Density', was printed in Merriam's New International Dictionary from 1934 for 7 years. A lexicographer had sent a slip reading 'D or d, cont./density' indicating that 'Density' should be added to the list of words that could be abbreviated by upper or lower case 'D'. 

A ghost word rather than a mountweazel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_word
 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_word)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry
 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 02 August, 2020, 09:56:24 am
The word 'mountweazel'

 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 August, 2020, 11:19:54 am
That the word 'Dord', with the definition 'Density', was printed in Merriam's New International Dictionary from 1934 for 7 years. A lexicographer had sent a slip reading 'D or d, cont./density' indicating that 'Density' should be added to the list of words that could be abbreviated by upper or lower case 'D'. 

A ghost word rather than a mountweazel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_word
 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_word)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry
 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry)

The French word for event is évènement, but for centuries the received spelling was événement, because the printer of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française ran out of è blocks and used an é instead.  Only in the 20th century did the correct spelling appear, but either spelling is still acceptable.

And in a similar vein, the "number of the Beast", 666, was 616 in the original (Greek?) text but was mistranscribed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 02 August, 2020, 01:03:01 pm
See the post above mine...

Ah! Sod's law, it was on the previous page...  I've just finished a 2.5 litre tin of Zinsser 1-2-3+ paint which cost £46...  They make the only paint which covers smoke damage on buildings, very handy for my previous career in local authority building maintenance, when tenants keep managing to set fire to tower blocks...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 August, 2020, 10:46:56 am
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly was a prequel.  So what did Clint do with the money?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 04 August, 2020, 11:57:39 am
The term "fladdering", a type of deburring, originally using a "Fladder" machine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 05 August, 2020, 09:45:23 pm
That there is an electronics measurement equipment company called "Wayne Kerr Electronics".
It's not even someone's name so there is no excuse. It named after the founders favourite film stars Naunton Wayne and Deborah Kerr.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 06 August, 2020, 09:29:18 am
It's not even someone's name so there is no excuse.

I can't believe that's an accident.

I used to think Sandy Balls (as in the New Forest holiday resort) was a comedy made-up name but apparently it's genuine and dates back hundreds of years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 06 August, 2020, 10:18:16 am
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly was a prequel.  So what did Clint do with the money?

Put Lee van Cleef in cryo so that he could be resurrected for For A Few Dollars More.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 06 August, 2020, 11:24:13 am
It's not even someone's name so there is no excuse.

I can't believe that's an accident.

I used to think Sandy Balls (as in the New Forest holiday resort) was a comedy made-up name but apparently it's genuine and dates back hundreds of years.

And then of course Ed Balls the former politician always used to joke about his sister, Ophelia.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 06 August, 2020, 04:03:28 pm
That "avocado" derives from the Aztec word for "testicle" and that "guacamole" means "testicle sauce"".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 06 August, 2020, 04:30:59 pm
That "avocado" derives from the Aztec word for "testicle" and that "guacamole" means "testicle sauce"".

Hey, I knew that one!  :smug:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 August, 2020, 06:16:27 pm
That "avocado" derives from the Aztec word for "testicle" and that "guacamole" means "testicle sauce"".

Bollocks!

(http://legslarry.org.uk/BikeStull/coat_48.png)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 07 August, 2020, 03:17:29 pm
I don't think the avocado one is quite right. It would seem that the word comes from the the Nahuatl word for 'Avacado', and the Nahuatls also used that word as a slang term for 'testicle'. That's what my part of the internet said anyway - I've mislaid my Nahuatl-English/English-Nahuatl dictionary.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 07 August, 2020, 03:30:31 pm
That in the Juchitán Zapotec language, the word nahuati means 'foolish' or 'idiot'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 August, 2020, 08:32:33 am
Painting eyes on a cow's bum scares off lions.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 August, 2020, 10:31:47 pm
Professor Yaffle off of that Bagpuss was based on Bertrand Russell.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 August, 2020, 06:27:00 pm
That dental dams are used by dentists.  (No, not for that.  Nobody uses them for that.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 August, 2020, 09:36:15 am
That when you ride too soon and revive whiplash it can take two days to show. :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 August, 2020, 06:22:43 pm
That Irish people still use "quid" as a slang term for their currency even now it's the euro. I wonder if similar nation-specific terms (I don't know what they would be) are still used elsewhere in euroland?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 August, 2020, 06:31:07 pm
That Irish people still use "quid" as a slang term for their currency even now it's the euro. I wonder if similar nation-specific terms (I don't know what they would be) are still used elsewhere in euroland?

Germans use “pfund” to refer to 500g.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 13 August, 2020, 06:38:20 pm
That Irish people still use "quid" as a slang term for their currency even now it's the euro. I wonder if similar nation-specific terms (I don't know what they would be) are still used elsewhere in euroland?

Germans use “pfund” to refer to 500g.
AIUI the Serapu French have un livre for the same purpose.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 August, 2020, 06:51:02 pm
Yes, I'm aware of both those. I was thinking about currency.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 13 August, 2020, 06:54:37 pm
Klaus says they might say „Zahle ich auf Helle und Pfennig zurück „ which are two old forms of money.

He says they might also say „Mark“ for something.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 August, 2020, 06:57:54 pm
So if something costs 10 euro they might say 10 marks, for example?

Heller are going back pre-WW2! Although used in Czech Rep till more recently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 13 August, 2020, 07:40:35 pm
that reminds me of an Americanian colleague on arrival at LHR with me one day  "I'd better get myself some quids"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 13 August, 2020, 08:48:32 pm
Just before the Euro was minted into something we could touch. CNN was doing a deep dive into what it meant to have one currency. The journo said at the end that the Euro will only truly become a European money the day it gets a common nickname like buck, dime, quid.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 13 August, 2020, 09:31:09 pm
Klaus says they might say „Zahle ich auf Helle und Pfennig zurück „ which are two old forms of money.

He says they might also say „Mark“ for something.

I remember groschen being used for a 10 pfennig piece.

Having learnt German and lived* in various Germanies in pre-euro days I have been known to instinctively use 'Mark' for 'Euro' when speaking German.

*including 2 months in Schwäbisch Hall, which was a town so rich** it had its own coin, the Häller. hence the Heller in the Czech Republic, Austro-Hungary, German East Africa etc.

** because of salt - cf Bad Reichenhall in Bavaria (where salt is produced) and 'halen' - Welsh for salt.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 13 August, 2020, 09:33:56 pm
Klaus says they might say „Zahle ich auf Helle und Pfennig zurück „ which are two old forms of money.

He says they might also say „Mark“ for something.

I remember groschen being used for a 10 pfennig piece.

Having learnt German and lived* in various Germanies in pre-euro days I have been known to instinctively use 'Mark' for 'Euro' when speaking German.

*including 2 months in Schwäbisch Hall, which was a town so rich** it had its own coin, the Häller. hence the Heller in the Czech Republic, Austro-Hungary, German East Africa etc.

** because of salt - cf Bad Reichenhall in Bavaria (where salt is produced) and 'halen' - Welsh for salt.
Do halides share the same etymological root?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 13 August, 2020, 10:15:40 pm
The OED says that the hal in halides is from the Greek for salt, so I imagine there's an Indo European common ancestor.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/s%C3%A9h%E2%82%82ls suggests that is the case (along with sal sel etc)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 14 August, 2020, 02:39:42 am

I remember groschen being used for a 10 pfennig piece.

I remember 1 Austrian schilling being made up of 100 groschen, with a 10 groschen coin being an incredibly flimsy piece of aluminum (sorry, aluminium). I'm pretty sure the 10 groschen piece was as small as Austrian coinage got.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 August, 2020, 10:52:00 am
And the groschen lives on, in the form of grosz, as the smallest coin in Poland (100 groszy to 1 zloty).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 15 August, 2020, 11:35:41 pm
Ah, yes, me saying Francs instead of Euros in Corsica in 2006. The Euro had only been in use for ~7 years in my defence  ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 16 August, 2020, 07:27:12 am

I remember groschen being used for a 10 pfennig piece.

I remember 1 Austrian schilling being made up of 100 groschen, with a 10 groschen coin being an incredibly flimsy piece of aluminum (sorry, aluminium). I'm pretty sure the 10 groschen piece was as small as Austrian coinage got.

I still have a few of those in my random foreign coin box, along with guilders, Belgian and French francs, pesetas, lira, escudos, rupees, Saudi riyals...

The closest I have in flimsiness would be the Indian one rupee, which seems more symbolic than anything. When you give money as a gift its bad form apparently to give 100 rupees as an example, considered too exact, so there is an industry in producing these coins to allow gifts of 101 rupees. 

Most Indians even do it in this country, an envelope with fifty quid and one rupee etc.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 16 August, 2020, 07:33:04 am
Ah, yes, me saying Francs instead of Euros in Corsica in 2006. The Euro had only been in use for ~7 years in my defence  ::-)

Twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union I encountered people in Ukraine referring prices in 'roubles' - for most of that period the currency was the hryvnia (and still is).   ::-)
I would refuse to buy from anyone saying that.  Then again, I'm a 'rabid Ukrainian nationalist'.  ::-) ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 August, 2020, 08:55:20 am
Klaus says they might say „Zahle ich auf Helle und Pfennig zurück „ which are two old forms of money.

He says they might also say „Mark“ for something.

I remember groschen being used for a 10 pfennig piece.

Having learnt German and lived* in various Germanies in pre-euro days I have been known to instinctively use 'Mark' for 'Euro' when speaking German.

*including 2 months in Schwäbisch Hall, which was a town so rich** it had its own coin, the Häller. hence the Heller in the Czech Republic, Austro-Hungary, German East Africa etc.

** because of salt - cf Bad Reichenhall in Bavaria (where salt is produced) and 'halen' - Welsh for salt.

A lot of places round here have soultz or seltz in their names.  A chum lives in Niedersoultzbach - nether-salt-stream.  A lot - a very lot - of places in Alsace have ludicrously long names made up of linguistic Lego blocks.  They usually come in two or three flavours, Ober, Mittel and Nieder, then a defining middle bit such as stein, selz, soultz, schaeffols etc., then a terminator such as berg, bach, hoffen, heim or hausen. Rummage around the box and pick one of each sort and you have the name of a typical Alsacien village.

The trouble is with this system that it's very hard to remember which particular set of blocks applies to which place: is it a berg or a heim, or was it maybe a hoffen?  Asking your way becomes chancy, too, because the locals usually leave bits off, e.g. when you're in Niederschaeffolsheim the Schaeffolsheim is silent, but when you're somewhere close to Niedersteinbach or Obersteinbach they'll just be referred to as Steinbach, unless you insist on the difference and brand yourself a low-life tourist.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 August, 2020, 01:11:40 pm

I remember groschen being used for a 10 pfennig piece.

I remember 1 Austrian schilling being made up of 100 groschen, with a 10 groschen coin being an incredibly flimsy piece of aluminum (sorry, aluminium). I'm pretty sure the 10 groschen piece was as small as Austrian coinage got.

I still have a few of those in my random foreign coin box, along with guilders, Belgian and French francs, pesetas, lira, escudos, rupees, Saudi riyals...

The closest I have in flimsiness would be the Indian one rupee, which seems more symbolic than anything. When you give money as a gift its bad form apparently to give 100 rupees as an example, considered too exact, so there is an industry in producing these coins to allow gifts of 101 rupees. 

Most Indians even do it in this country, an envelope with fifty quid and one rupee etc.
I don't recall the 1 rupee coin being particularly flimsy, but they might have changed it in the last ten years. It was still in normal circulation then and sometimes prices even went down to the last 50 paise, though you virtually never saw a 50 paise coin. Certainly the 1 rupee was nowhere near as flimsy as some of the Polish coins from the late 80s or early 90s which I've handled but never used. They were aluminium and felt as if they might even be hollow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 August, 2020, 02:02:04 pm
That sloppy use of 'splice' as applied to electrical cables is a USAnianism.  I'd noticed some people using 'splice' when they actually mean "join two cables with a junction box or coupler" rather than actually splicing the conductors, but hadn't twigged that it was a pondian distinction.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 16 August, 2020, 04:57:10 pm
The we have fewer genes than an onion. And that onions have deodorising properties.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 16 August, 2020, 05:50:23 pm
UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 16 August, 2020, 07:03:24 pm
Fish and chips 1/6,  those were the days, and the newspaper certainly did add a certain je ne sais quoi, particularly when wet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 16 August, 2020, 07:39:13 pm
Thruppence for a bag of crisps  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 16 August, 2020, 08:01:57 pm
Blackjacks a farthing each  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 16 August, 2020, 08:36:43 pm
4+ GALLONS of petrol for £1 when I first started driving  (it was 4/10d in old parlance, per gallon)  - and a brand new Austin Mini de luxe cost £515/12/6d.

. . . .  and when Watneys Red Barrel passed two shillings a pint we boycotted it for a while.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 16 August, 2020, 08:42:50 pm
Blackjacks a farthing each  ;D

As a child I actually bought one blackjack with a farthing coin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 16 August, 2020, 08:46:45 pm
Blackjacks a farthing each  ;D

As a child I actually bought one blackjack with a farthing coin.
Jeez - you must be really old  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 16 August, 2020, 08:51:37 pm
Blackjacks a farthing each  ;D

As a child I actually bought one blackjack with a farthing coin.
Jeez - you must be really old  ;)

It would appear so.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 16 August, 2020, 09:00:46 pm
I am modern it was four for a penny.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 16 August, 2020, 10:19:19 pm
UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.
I was at the Weald and Downland open air museum today. The woman explaining the Victorian Railwayman's cottage told me that the rent would have been twenty five pence back in the 1890s. Maybe it was my Boyish Good Looks that made her think I wouldn't understand what five shillings were.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 16 August, 2020, 10:51:20 pm
In pre-Euro Italy was there a unit of currency smaller than the Lira?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 16 August, 2020, 11:12:29 pm
A million years ago, I was hitch hiking around Italy with the previous holder of the title 'Ms B' .  The rate of exchange at that time was 1700 L to the £.
We loved a second hand car lot where the price went all the way across the windscreen and then down the side of the vehicle, almost to the back.  I'm sure I have a picture somewhere, but I can't find it atm.. 
Maybe in the biscuit box in the loft n son's house in Bournville. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 August, 2020, 01:28:13 am
Many moons ago I had a 1 Kong Kong cent banknote, when there were about ten Kongbucks to the pound.  They were only printed on one side.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/1_cent_bill_-_Hong_Kong.JPG)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 17 August, 2020, 07:58:26 am
Blackjacks a farthing each  ;D

As a child I actually bought one blackjack with a farthing coin.


Jeez - you must be really old  ;)

It would appear so.

The farthing coin (with a wren on it) went out of circulation in 1960 IIRC but had probably ceased in common use about 3 or 4 years earlier - in my memory the only items that had prices with farthings were at baker shops.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 17 August, 2020, 08:02:48 am
A million years ago, I was hitch hiking around Italy with the previous holder of the title 'Ms B' .  The rate of exchange at that time was 1700 L to the £.
We loved a second hand car lot where the price went all the way across the windscreen and then down the side of the vehicle, almost to the back.  I'm sure I have a picture somewhere, but I can't find it atm.. 
Maybe in the biscuit box in the loft n son's house in Bournville.

Don't - a couple of years pre-Euro I was on a business trip to Milan and ventured into the Galleria shopping place next to the cathedral - I saw a very small leather handbag that I thought my (later to be) wife would like  O:-) - bought it but was stunned when the Amex bill arrived a few weeks later that it was TEN TIMES what I thought it had cost :o   - I'd obviously mis-placed the decimal point in my mental currency conversion calculations.   She does still have the handbag  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 17 August, 2020, 08:26:51 am
In pre-Euro Italy was there a unit of currency smaller than the Lira?
I remember getting change for values of a not many Lira in the form of a handful of sweeties. That was in 1979.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Rod Marton on 17 August, 2020, 08:28:28 am
A million years ago, I was hitch hiking around Italy with the previous holder of the title 'Ms B' .  The rate of exchange at that time was 1700 L to the £.
We loved a second hand car lot where the price went all the way across the windscreen and then down the side of the vehicle, almost to the back.  I'm sure I have a picture somewhere, but I can't find it atm.. 
Maybe in the biscuit box in the loft n son's house in Bournville.

In Russia, during the period of post-Soviet hyperinflation, second-hand cars were priced in "virtual units". A virtual unit was equal to a dollar, but using it got round the problem that pricing in foreign currency had been made illegal, and avoided the long string of zeroes which would have been necessary were the car priced in roubles (as well as the need to increase the price every few days!).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 August, 2020, 08:53:03 am
4+ GALLONS of petrol for £1 when I first started driving  (it was 4/10d in old parlance, per gallon)  - and a brand new Austin Mini de luxe cost £515/12/6d.

. . . .  and when Watneys Red Barrel passed two shillings a pint we boycotted it for a while.

I tried that dishwater just once, on a trip to London, and boycotted it for ever.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2020, 09:26:23 am
UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.
But only IME as a joke or as (see above) reminiscence.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2020, 09:49:29 am
That some trains are fitted with engine stop-start technology, like cars. Apparently it saves 20,000 litres of fuel a year for each train.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 17 August, 2020, 09:50:03 am
In pre-Euro Italy was there a unit of currency smaller than the Lira?
I remember getting change for values of a not many Lira in the form of a handful of sweeties. That was in 1979.
I remember in 1978 getting small denomination notes as change in Milan, and getting a shake of the head when I tried to spend them in Naples. Local money for local people.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 17 August, 2020, 09:58:53 am
UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.
But only IME as a joke or as (see above) reminiscence.

Exactly. I used to annoy my kids when they were young by always referring to a 50p piece as a 'Ten Bob Coin' and a 10p as a 'Florin'.
Purely for the comic effect.

And because it annoyed them.  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Davef on 17 August, 2020, 10:03:42 am
In Indonesia in 1990 away from touristy areas there was a shortage of sensible denomination notes and the highest value was about equivalent 10 pence, so when I cashed a £50 travellers cheque I got a carrier bag full. Smaller denomination notes - down to about 0.1p were rolled up and elastic banded just kept that way as they changed hands.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 August, 2020, 10:51:57 am
an ex-colleagure of mien was complaining bitterly about the (at that time) cash exit fee from Jakarta airport with umpteen zeros, until I pointed out "Steve, that's about ten bucks"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 17 August, 2020, 10:53:28 am
While in Yugoslavia we emptied a bank and all the staff out of dinars when converting Deutsch Mark and the bank closed for the rest of the day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 17 August, 2020, 10:57:50 am
I once paid a hire car driver in Sierra Leone in Two Leone notes which were the only thing available. Four stacks each a foot high or so.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 17 August, 2020, 11:34:33 am
UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.
But only IME as a joke or as (see above) reminiscence.

You've not met my mother have you? She was about 20 at decimalisation...

She still talks about 10 bob (meaning 10 quid now) and one and six meaning some medium amount of money...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 August, 2020, 11:35:30 am
one and six meaning some medium amount of money...

7.  Some people are just rubbish at maths.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2020, 12:01:36 pm
UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.
But only IME as a joke or as (see above) reminiscence.

You've not met my mother have you? She was about 20 at decimalisation...

She still talks about 10 bob (meaning 10 quid now) and one and six meaning some medium amount of money...
My mum was 30. She did occasionally say things like "That's 10 bob in old money!" but only to exclaim over price. I don't remember my dad ever doing this. Though my parents did have a chair they called "the half crown chair" because that's how much it had cost them (2/6d). In fact, I think my sister has it now and I'm sure she calls it that too! My introduction to pre-decimal money was not my parents but the Just William books.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 17 August, 2020, 12:10:30 pm
UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.
But only IME as a joke or as (see above) reminiscence.

You've not met my mother have you? She was about 20 at decimalisation...

She still talks about 10 bob (meaning 10 quid now) and one and six meaning some medium amount of money...

I was 23 at the time of decimalisation but still think of some stuff in old money - usually in horror, making a price comparison with then and now!

Before we moved to decimal there was some discussion that we should have a "10/- pound" - i.e. split a pound into 2 top level units of currency - which is what they, I think, did in Australia when they move to decimal and the Oz dollar.    Given that the new (split) unit would have been the equivalent of 120d (old pence) with 100p (new pence) and thus much closer to the "penny" unit then the price increases and inflation that we saw immediaetly post-decimal may have been lessened?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 17 August, 2020, 12:44:43 pm
I started school in 1968 and thus learned elements of pre-decimalisation and post decimalisation: money, weights and measures.  I keep things in my mind for comparison such as 2.54 cms to an inch, 39 inches to a metre, 1,609 metres in a mile, 1.76 pints in a litre and 2.2 pounds in a kilogram.  A little bit of mental maths usually brings me to a close approximation of reality should it ever be required.

I was never any good at remembering the old notes and coins though save for thruppenny bits.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 August, 2020, 12:56:34 pm
In pre-Euro Italy was there a unit of currency smaller than the Lira?
I remember getting change for values of a not many Lira in the form of a handful of sweeties. That was in 1979.

There was a story doing the rounds that explained the shortage of small change in Italy in the 1970s being because the Swiss were nicking them and melting them down to make watch cases.  Depending on where you were, you might also have received postage stamps or tram tokens in change.

I started school in 1968 and thus learned elements of pre-decimalisation and post decimalisation: money, weights and measures.

I'd just got the hang of decimal money when we moved back to the UK in 1970 and thus had to endure ten months of monetary oddness before The Scaffold rocked up and sang our currency into the twentieth century.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 August, 2020, 01:37:56 pm
I was 23 at the time of decimalisation but still think of some stuff in old money - usually in horror, making a price comparison with then and now!

Yeah.  Downstairs I have my father's copy of Out Of The Silent Planet, a Pan paperback priced at 6d.  Now selling new on Amazon for 11 €.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 17 August, 2020, 01:41:16 pm
The problem with decimal currency is being unable to split amounts into three.

One third of a pound was 6s 8d.

Expressing today's prices in old money brings home how high inflation has been. A 1st class stamp is now about 14s 6d rather than 2½d.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2020, 01:50:43 pm
UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.
But only IME as a joke or as (see above) reminiscence.

You've not met my mother have you? She was about 20 at decimalisation...

She still talks about 10 bob (meaning 10 quid now) and one and six meaning some medium amount of money...

I was 23 at the time of decimalisation but still think of some stuff in old money - usually in horror, making a price comparison with then and now!

Before we moved to decimal there was some discussion that we should have a "10/- pound" - i.e. split a pound into 2 top level units of currency - which is what they, I think, did in Australia when they move to decimal and the Oz dollar.    Given that the new (split) unit would have been the equivalent of 120d (old pence) with 100p (new pence) and thus much closer to the "penny" unit then the price increases and inflation that we saw immediaetly post-decimal may have been lessened?
Not sure I follow this. Do you mean that under this plan, one New Pound would have been worth half an Old Pound? Or the Pound would have remained the same but would have been split into ten shillings, effectively introducing a New Shilling worth 2 Old Shillings? If so, what would have happened to the penny? 10 New Pence to 1 New Shilling?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 August, 2020, 02:37:01 pm
I think they were going to change the name to something novel, such as dollar - which is what Aus did in the end.  They had a perky TV character à la Microsoft Paperclip, called Dollar Bill.

There's a nice line in Cryptonomicon where Waterhouse goes to Bletchley "with outsize British currency clanking in his pockets like dinner-plates" or words to that effect.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 17 August, 2020, 02:45:51 pm
UK folk still talk shillings and bob and stuff... And that's nearly 50 yrs ago now.
But only IME as a joke or as (see above) reminiscence.

You've not met my mother have you? She was about 20 at decimalisation...

She still talks about 10 bob (meaning 10 quid now) and one and six meaning some medium amount of money...

I was 23 at the time of decimalisation but still think of some stuff in old money - usually in horror, making a price comparison with then and now!

Before we moved to decimal there was some discussion that we should have a "10/- pound" - i.e. split a pound into 2 top level units of currency - which is what they, I think, did in Australia when they move to decimal and the Oz dollar.    Given that the new (split) unit would have been the equivalent of 120d (old pence) with 100p (new pence) and thus much closer to the "penny" unit then the price increases and inflation that we saw immediaetly post-decimal may have been lessened?
Not sure I follow this. Do you mean that under this plan, one New Pound would have been worth half an Old Pound? Or the Pound would have remained the same but would have been split into ten shillings, effectively introducing a New Shilling worth 2 Old Shillings? If so, what would have happened to the penny? 10 New Pence to 1 New Shilling?

The "new pound" (or UK Dollar!) would have been worth 10/- (i.e. half an "old pound") and "pennies" would have been "cents" in the meaning of the word being 1/100th of the main currency unit - thus if we had done it the old threepence, sixpence, shilling, florin and half a crown would disappear.

Pretty sure the Australian answer was a simple change to dollars and cents.

And nostalgia not being what it used to be I still have some of the old currency - a 10/- note, a green £1.00.00 note, several pennies, threepenny bits (brass and older silver), sixpenses and a half-crown.    I also have two commemorative "crowns"  (5/- or 25p) - one from the 1953 Coronation that was issued to all schools-children and a Churchill one from the 1960s.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2020, 04:05:37 pm
Thanks, that's clear. It's interesting there was such a plan. Decimalisation happened before I was old enough to use money but I do remember as a small child asking my dad why they hadn't kept the penny the same and just said from now on, it takes 100 pennies to make a pound, not 240. He said that would have meant a smaller pound, and the pound was the main unit of currency, not the penny. Of course for me as a child, the penny was a real thing (8 of them for the Beano, 2 for a packet of crisps) and the pound was something grown ups had! But this plan shows there had been a third option.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 17 August, 2020, 04:14:43 pm
One of the issues was that the pound was by far the largest unit of currency around (I think the franc was about 10 to the pound and the Austrian schilling was nearly fifty, for instance) so there was a case to be made for making the pound smaller.
But, according to my dad, NCR (National Cash Register of the USA) said that wouldn't go along with that and as they made nearly all the cash registers in use that was an end to it. The pound stayed as the main unit.
Of course seeing what happened over the next ten years or so it was probably the right decision.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jaded on 17 August, 2020, 04:43:06 pm
Especially recently when Brexit has shrunken the Pound to a level much closer to FOREIGN money.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 17 August, 2020, 08:46:26 pm
The we have fewer genes than an onion. And that onions have deodorising properties.

That's the basis of the Onion Test. Not a test to see how much you know about onions or about how many you can eat, see also the C-value paradox (basically why the amount of DNA in a organism doesn't correlate with its complexity).

It's unfair to compare humans with onions anyway, even amoeba have far more genes than we do.

Though to befuddle your brain, no one has actually really defined what a 'gene' is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 August, 2020, 09:35:11 am
Drives a red Audi coupé, doesn't he?

The only other thing (well, not really) I know about onions is that the pong is not restrained by cling wrap.  MrsT put a bowl of chopped onion in the fridge yesterday, alongside the Munster cheese. The two go very nicely in a sandwich, but when the fridge is open the combined niff turns the landing wallpaper yellow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 18 August, 2020, 09:53:11 pm
That the word algorithm is an eponym. You probably all knew that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 19 August, 2020, 10:03:19 am
Named after a former Usanian VP.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 19 August, 2020, 10:59:00 am
Inconveniently no. A little earlier than him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 August, 2020, 02:07:35 pm
That my daughter, who is 43, has had grapheme-colour synaesthesia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme%E2%80%93color_synesthesia) since she was small.  She never mentioned it to us before.  She said that it's great for spotting errors in spreadsheets, but not what you'd put in your CV.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 August, 2020, 07:42:27 pm
The word “lum” :thumbsup:

Prepare for R Bardet to get very confused…
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 21 August, 2020, 07:54:01 pm
As in "lang may yer lum reek"?  Until Mrs Pingu used it in the other thread, I didn't know it was still in modern parlance (but then, I've only ventured north of the border once in my life, and that was seventeen years ago).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 21 August, 2020, 09:57:53 pm
A local art maker made a gewgaw of such lummery
https://m.facebook.com/gra.small.stories/photos/lang-may-yer-lum-reek-is-a-scottish-phrase-meaning-long-may-your-chimney-smoke-i/10155712481377797/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 21 August, 2020, 09:58:29 pm
The word “lum” :thumbsup:

Prepare for R Bardet to get very confused…

 :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Look Around You on 21 August, 2020, 10:44:20 pm
That my daughter, who is 43, has had grapheme-colour synaesthesia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme%E2%80%93color_synesthesia) since she was small.  She never mentioned it to us before.  She said that it's great for spotting errors in spreadsheets, but not what you'd put in your CV.

One of my many children has this. I found out one day when he was about 8 or 9 and told us that 2 is orange, and was quite bemused that we didn’t all see numbers etc like this. He doesn’t really mention it much (he’s 16 now) so I’m not sure how it effects his day to day life. I’ll have to question him again soon. One day. Maybe.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 22 August, 2020, 04:54:32 pm
That Morrisons is pretty quiet at 8am on a Saturday morning.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 August, 2020, 11:12:57 pm
That Mick Jones off of The Clash and Grant Shapps/Sebastian Fox/Michael Green are cousins :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 23 August, 2020, 10:01:02 am
The word “lum” :thumbsup:

I know that word via the phrase "Pipe clay up yer lum" - which supposedly means "Keep your chimney clean".

This I learned many years ago from the 1970s film adaptation of The Water Babies.

Don't think I've ever heard it in any other context.

That film also has one of my favourite ever exchanges committed to celluloid between two all-time great British actors:

James Mason: I'm Grimes
Billie Whitelaw: You're drunk
James Mason: Never the less, I'm Grimes
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 23 August, 2020, 11:31:32 am
That the first 6 digits of a 16 digit cc number represent country, brand and type of card.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 23 August, 2020, 04:21:07 pm
The full article is here! https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200821/p2a/00m/0bu/025000c (https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200821/p2a/00m/0bu/025000c)

Apparently Japan is running out of credit card numbers with the COVID-driven shift from cash to credit cards. 

Since the population is less than 120 million, how do larger countries cope?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 23 August, 2020, 04:40:56 pm
Intruigued by the payments by QR code statement...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 23 August, 2020, 04:48:49 pm
That the first 6 digits of a 16 digit cc number represent country, brand and type of card.

You're on the right track but the details are :  The first digit is the system number identifier (3 is Amex, 4 is VISA, 5 is MasterCard), next 5 digits are the issuing bank's unique code,  next 9 digits identify the card owner's account (for the issuing bank) and the last number is a check digit (there's an algorithm to define that)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuaran on 23 August, 2020, 06:28:17 pm
Intruigued by the payments by QR code statement...
Seems to be quite popular in China, especially with Alipay. The shop displays a QR code, then you scan that with the Alipay app on your phone. That will send the payment to them.
Or can work the other way around. ie you show the QR code on your phone, for the shop to scan.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 August, 2020, 08:31:12 pm
I think payment by QR code is used at some parking machines in UK?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 23 August, 2020, 08:54:28 pm
That my daughter, who is 43, has had grapheme-colour synaesthesia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme%E2%80%93color_synesthesia) since she was small.  She never mentioned it to us before.  She said that it's great for spotting errors in spreadsheets, but not what you'd put in your CV.

One of my many children has this. I found out one day when he was about 8 or 9 and told us that 2 is orange, and was quite bemused that we didn’t all see numbers etc like this. He doesn’t really mention it much (he’s 16 now) so I’m not sure how it effects his day to day life. I’ll have to question him again soon. One day. Maybe.

One of my hiking club mates also has this, extends beyond numbers so Left and Right are Red and Green in such order that the colours of port and starboard when transposed to shoes are the wrong way round for her, says it's a bit stressful when things don't match her perception.

The full article is here! https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200821/p2a/00m/0bu/025000c (https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200821/p2a/00m/0bu/025000c)

Apparently Japan is running out of credit card numbers with the COVID-driven shift from cash to credit cards. 

Since the population is less than 120 million, how do larger countries cope?

Urgh, <digs into memory> nope but here's a better explanation from "how stuff works"
https://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/debt-management/credit-card1.htm

---

The first digit in your credit-card number signifies the system:

3 - travel/entertainment cards (such as American Express and Diners Club)
4 - Visa
5 - MasterCard
6 - Discover Card
The structure of the card number varies by system. For example, American Express card numbers start with 37; Carte Blanche and Diners Club with 38.

American Express - Digits three and four are type and currency, digits five through 11 are the account number, digits 12 through 14 are the card number within the account and digit 15 is a check digit.
Visa - Digits two through six are the bank number, digits seven through 12 or seven through 15 are the account number and digit 13 or 16 is a check digit.
MasterCard - Digits two and three, two through four, two through five or two through six are the bank number (depending on whether digit two is a 1, 2, 3 or other). The digits after the bank number up through digit 15 are the account number, and digit 16 is a check digit.

---

The issuers have their own way of allocating bank numbers, so presumably the problem is they are running out themselves rather than the system.


Actually Wikipaedoia  have another descruiption that's in more depth

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

Also the UK allocator of PANs and IINs
https://www.wearepay.uk/what-we-do/standards/iin/

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 August, 2020, 08:24:23 am
Just saw in the Graun that Japan is running out of CC numbers.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/24/japan-running-out-of-credit-card-numbers-amid-online-shopping-boom

I suppose that means the rest of us won't be far behind.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 24 August, 2020, 04:36:50 pm
From trying to decipher a client's procedure I now know how to count to 3 in Bahasa,

Not sure why the client's numbering goes satu, dua, tiga, 9 though?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 24 August, 2020, 07:32:01 pm
Three possibilities occur to me.

a)  Rogue value used to indicate end of input / don't care / invalid.
b)  The language is one that has a 1, 2, 3, [4], lots numbering scheme and 9 is was chosen as a convenient way to represent "lots".  Special case of (a).
c)  The word for 9 is too long for a lazy typist or contains a character not available on the keyboard(s) in use and which can't be represented accurately by a latin character combination.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 24 August, 2020, 08:17:40 pm
or, they built LNG trains 4-8, and then mothballed them (unlikely), and then built 9

or, whoever paid for the 4th train had 9 as a lucky number (no idea)

or, it's all a big joke
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 24 August, 2020, 08:44:38 pm
I think payment by QR code is used at some parking machines in UK?

I’ve used it in Tesco with the Tescopay app. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 August, 2020, 08:47:45 pm
From trying to decipher a client's procedure I now know how to count to 3 in Bahasa,

Not sure why the client's numbering goes satu, dua, tiga, 9 though?
Don't know, but it's interesting to see the similarity to Indo-European numbers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 25 August, 2020, 08:49:54 am
The word 'iridescent' was coined by Erasmus Darwin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 25 August, 2020, 10:17:24 am
I've learned about Timpsons, the high street cobbler/repair shop, and their owner,

Stuff like they will dry clean an unemployed person's clothes for free, no proof required
https://www.timpson.co.uk/services/dry-cleaners/dry-cleaning-unemployed-interview

John Timpson, the founder, has fostered 90 kids
https://www.nfa.co.uk/story/blog-news/fostering-spotlight-interview-with-sir-john-timpson/

They are one of the largest ex offender employers in the UK
https://www.timpson-group.co.uk/timpson-foundation/ex-offenders/

Worth spreading about, how come I knew none of that before?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 25 August, 2020, 11:08:49 am
I have seen some of that stuff before, with an interview with John Timpson just pointing it out as being a full member of society
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 August, 2020, 11:26:18 am
I'm surprised to learn the chain is still owned by the Timpson family.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 25 August, 2020, 11:27:50 am
Worth spreading about, how come I knew none of that before?

AFAIK, he does it because it seems to him both the right thing to do and decent business sense - it's no secret, but he doesn't seek out publicity for it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 25 August, 2020, 12:05:38 pm
Worth spreading about, how come I knew none of that before?

AFAIK, he does it because it seems to him both the right thing to do and decent business sense - it's no secret, but he doesn't seek out publicity for it.

Don't want to take Timpsons down as a philanthropic employer - but their prices are very high . . . . key-cutting especially - sadly the traditional ironmongers that cut keys at a more realistic cost are disappearing (and not because they were losing money on keys - mainly rent, rates and the DIY sheds)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 25 August, 2020, 12:14:40 pm
Maybe those costs are high because they need to be?

Anyway, cheap always comes at a cost. Something we don't like to think about as we hammer the purchase button online. We live in a country where we want our first world benefits but aren't prepared to pay for them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 25 August, 2020, 01:13:30 pm
I've learned about Timpsons, the high street cobbler/repair shop, and their owner,

Stuff like they will dry clean an unemployed person's clothes for free, no proof required
https://www.timpson.co.uk/services/dry-cleaners/dry-cleaning-unemployed-interview

John Timpson, the founder, has fostered 90 kids
https://www.nfa.co.uk/story/blog-news/fostering-spotlight-interview-with-sir-john-timpson/

They are one of the largest ex offender employers in the UK
https://www.timpson-group.co.uk/timpson-foundation/ex-offenders/

Worth spreading about, how come I knew none of that before?
I learnt some of that from his appearance on Desert Island Discs.

It tickles me, for I am a simple soul, that Old Bailey hack and occupant of Pomeroy's Wine Bar, Rumpole of The Bailey earns much of his income defending various members of the Timson clan of minor South London villains. I wonder if they're related.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jiberjaber on 25 August, 2020, 03:55:46 pm
Jiberjaber OTP.

For my part - what I've learned today - what Flotsam and Jetsam are. Human pollution and whale crap. Great. It all sounded so enticing and mysterious as I was growing up on various family beach holidays. Now it just sounds miserable and nasty.

TY  :thumbsup: :-[ :-[
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 August, 2020, 04:08:40 pm
Jiberjaber OTP.

For my part - what I've learned today - what Flotsam and Jetsam are. Human pollution and whale crap. Great. It all sounded so enticing and mysterious as I was growing up on various family beach holidays. Now it just sounds miserable and nasty.

TY  :thumbsup: :-[ :-[

Jetsam: goods thrown overboard, e.g. Treaty of Rome
Flotsam: goods lost overboard, e.g. membership of the second-largest trading bloc in the world
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 August, 2020, 05:59:51 pm
The word “chuckies”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ScumOfTheRoad on 25 August, 2020, 06:08:05 pm
As in 'chuckie stanes'  ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 August, 2020, 06:11:29 pm
That too, probably, but also as Stuffs Aberdonians Park Their Motorhomes On.  Mrs Pingu again.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 25 August, 2020, 06:16:45 pm
Granite chips, if you're posh.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 25 August, 2020, 07:24:16 pm
That the smallest balance bikes have child resistant valve caps on their tires/tyres and tubes. I prefer not to say how long it took me to figure that one out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 25 August, 2020, 07:40:36 pm
That the best way to get my waterbutts filled is to order a new barbequeueueueueueue on the interweb
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 26 August, 2020, 09:26:10 am
That the best way to get my waterbutts filled is to order a new barbequeueueueueueue on the interweb
;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 August, 2020, 08:09:52 am
That one of New Zealand's largest telcos provides a not-for-profit, subsidised broadband service in an attempt to close the "digital gap".
https://www.spark.co.nz/help/covid-19/helping-those-without-broadband/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 27 August, 2020, 08:44:47 pm
That there existed “The Bristol Tattoo Club” in the 1960’s, to rehabilitate the tattoo in popular culture.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 27 August, 2020, 10:07:45 pm
How Jaffa Cakes are made
https://youtu.be/zYoVeJGkRRo
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 August, 2020, 11:35:44 pm
That following the assassination of Martin Luther King, James Earl Ray was arrested at Heathrow while attempting to board a flight to Brussels using a hooky Canadian passport.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 28 August, 2020, 12:20:22 am
How Jaffa Cakes are made
https://youtu.be/zYoVeJGkRRo

 :thumbsup:

I never get tired of seeing these kind of videos.  So much random cleverness goes into even the simplest everyday items.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 28 August, 2020, 07:58:29 am
How Jaffa Cakes are made
https://youtu.be/zYoVeJGkRRo

 :thumbsup:

I never get tired of seeing these kind of videos.  So much random cleverness goes into even the simplest everyday items.

You're obviously a fan of Inside the Factory - with the excitable Gregg "Cor, mate that's biggest nnn I've ever see" Wallace!     - yep, I enjoy those progs too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 August, 2020, 08:57:03 am
"Jam station" is going to be word of the day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 August, 2020, 10:29:06 am
"Jam station" is going to be word of the day.

What is that - trains that won't work today but will tomorrow if we just have faith in the revolution?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 29 August, 2020, 07:26:38 am
How Jaffa Cakes are made
https://youtu.be/zYoVeJGkRRo

 :thumbsup:

I never get tired of seeing these kind of videos.  So much random cleverness goes into even the simplest everyday items.

Whereas it made me wonder what happened to all the people.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vernon on 29 August, 2020, 09:31:46 am
How Jaffa Cakes are made
https://youtu.be/zYoVeJGkRRo

 :thumbsup:

I never get tired of seeing these kind of videos.  So much random cleverness goes into even the simplest everyday items.

Whereas it made me wonder what happened to all the people.

Soylent Orange is people!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 29 August, 2020, 11:39:41 am
How Jaffa Cakes are made
https://youtu.be/zYoVeJGkRRo

 :thumbsup:

I never get tired of seeing these kind of videos.  So much random cleverness goes into even the simplest everyday items.

Whereas it made me wonder what happened to all the people.

I thought that. Did the guy at the beginning not say they had 600 people working there?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 August, 2020, 12:07:37 pm
"Jam station" is going to be word of the day.

What is that - trains that won't work today but will tomorrow if we just have faith in the revolution?
It's in the Jaffa cake factory video.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 August, 2020, 01:35:36 pm
"Jam station" is going to be word of the day.

What is that - trains that won't work today but will tomorrow if we just have faith in the revolution?
It's in the Jaffa cake factory video.

Oh good. I thought it was one of those cultural things I've missed out on in the last 40 years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 29 August, 2020, 03:54:34 pm
That in Ireland, "to cog" is to copy, plagiarise or crib.

Its original meaning in English was to cheat at dice (16th century), but the meaning was broadened to include cheating at cards and then any sort of deceitful behaviour, including 'to crib from another's book, as schoolboys often do. This is called "cogging over"' (1873 slang dictionary). The word with this sense all but died out, except for copying at school in Ireland, where it was still used (according to my correspondents) in the 1970s and 1980s. A glance at 21st century Irish newspapers suggests the term is alive and well, and even expanded its range of meaning.

2 examples:

Headline in the Irish Independent - Wednesday 07 March 2007
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50282249686_3dba01fd1a.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2jBgF2q)

And
Quote from: Irish Independent - Saturday 09 December 2006
The chief examiner of the SEC said that the agricultural science exam had been undermined by the level of online cogging

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 August, 2020, 04:00:10 pm
At school in NI, notes smuggled into an exam were called "cogs".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 29 August, 2020, 05:33:25 pm
That Sappho was a poet (courtesy of my wife).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 29 August, 2020, 05:37:33 pm
That there is such a thing as a AAAA battery, the active pen for my laptop requires one
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 31 August, 2020, 08:15:31 am
That Sappho was a poet (courtesy of my wife).

Yet all she's ever remembered for is... proof if ever it were needed that history is written by men.

The Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classic episode on Sappho is good:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08zd8gy
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 31 August, 2020, 08:40:15 am
That Sappho was a poet (courtesy of my wife).

Yet all she's ever remembered for is... proof if ever it were needed that history is written by men.
I dunno. If you'd asked me I'd have said "poet" first.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 August, 2020, 11:26:27 am
Some would take it as proof that history is written by angry, dungaree-wearing, skinheaded, second-wave feminists. Which must mean that second-wave feminism started 3,000 years ago.*


*Wild guess, I don't know when she lived, but I certainly knew she was a poet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 August, 2020, 12:51:45 pm
How Gay Was Sappho? – The New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/16/girl-interrupted)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 06 September, 2020, 08:25:45 am
I have learned that there is a social media "thing" called nextdoor.  I have also learned that it is not worth my time and effort to join it due to the inane drivel and petty bickering that pervades it's pages.

Thank you YACF for saving me from this.   Are there any more of these social media dumpsters lurking that I should be aware of and carefully avoid please?    🙂
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 06 September, 2020, 08:32:29 am
Lord Lucan was once considered for the lead in early James Bond films.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 06 September, 2020, 12:33:41 pm
Quote from: Polar Bear
Are there any more of these social media dumpsters lurking that I should be aware of and carefully avoid please?   
Hmmm, perhaps a much shorter and very much more useful list would be those sites that are worth peoples' time and effort?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 06 September, 2020, 02:46:59 pm
Being a bit of a woodworker I usually use those "flat" pencils to mark out the timber (the pencils are flat so they don't roll off the bench) . . . I've always sharpened them with a Stanley knife or a chisel ..... today I bought a pack of flat woodwork pencils from Aldi and they came with a special pencil sharpener  :thumbsup: 

The bit you put the pencil into is slot-shaped and the has a sort of collar than then rotates as you turn the pencil (like a normal round pencil sharpener) againsts the blade.  Pretty good, and easier to get a fine point than with a knife.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 06 September, 2020, 05:17:58 pm
Oh, is that why the pencils are flat? I would just put a bit of elastic band or maybe some sugru on a round one...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 06 September, 2020, 05:22:00 pm
(the pencils are flat so they don't roll off the bench)

^This is what I have learned today.

Oh, is that why the pencils are flat?

I mean, it's bllindingly obvious now he mentions it, but I never managed to work it out before.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 06 September, 2020, 06:03:41 pm
(the pencils are flat so they don't roll off the bench)

^This is what I have learned today.

Oh, is that why the pencils are flat?

I mean, it's bllindingly obvious now he mentions it, but I never managed to work it out before.

The pencils are great - for the reason that has enlightened some people today - BUT you need either strange-shaped or VERY LARGE ears to put one behind your ear in true woodworker style.   

I also find that the little wooden pencils from either IKEA or Screwfix are pretty useful and ear-friendly ....

AND talking about rolling off the bench . .  I was watching a YouTube video the other day where the chap made a non-slip push-stick* for his table-saw** from a bit of broomstick with a rubber walking stick ferrule on the end ..... he also taped a small piece of wood to the other end to stop it rolling away.

* what its says, to push wood being sawn past the blade rather than risk your fingers
** imagine a circular saw upside down, under a table with the blade poking through the slot in the top - pretty scary (and more so for the US woodworkers that don't have guards on their machines)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 07 September, 2020, 10:37:57 am
The best way to use a saw table, especially a BFO job, is to let someone else do it. Learned that at work - I'd work on live 3-phase but the carpenter was the sacrificial goat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 September, 2020, 01:18:01 pm
(the pencils are flat so they don't roll off the bench)

^This is what I have learned today.

Oh, is that why the pencils are flat?

I mean, it's bllindingly obvious now he mentions it, but I never managed to work it out before.

The question is, why are the rest of them round? Especially when you think that traditional school desks, writing-slopes and pro drawing-boards are all tilted.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 07 September, 2020, 03:45:41 pm
I have learned that there is a social media "thing" called nextdoor.  I have also learned that it is not worth my time and effort to join it due to the inane drivel and petty bickering that pervades it's pages.

Thank you YACF for saving me from this.   Are there any more of these social media dumpsters lurking that I should be aware of and carefully avoid please?    🙂

Pinterest: Website that apparently exists purely for the purpose of obfuscating attributions.  Plus points: No bottom half of enraged gammons.  Minus points: Utterly pointless.

TikTok: Malware for young people.

LinkedIn: Spamming system for recruitment types.

Parler: Cesspit of the far right.

Tumblr: Overly complicated way of posting photos to Twitter.


Do join in if you can think of more...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 07 September, 2020, 03:58:54 pm
Instagram for those who can't afford a mirror?
Snapchat for preschool activities?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 07 September, 2020, 04:06:30 pm
Parler: Cesspit of the far right.

This one has passed me by.

Sounds like I should be grateful for this.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 07 September, 2020, 04:07:08 pm
The question is, why are the rest of them round?

Have you tried picking your nose with a flat pencil? Hmmm?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 September, 2020, 04:18:51 pm
Reddit: a forum for people who can't be bothered to join forums.

Kicker: texting for those with more data than message allowances.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 September, 2020, 06:16:10 pm
The question is, why are the rest of them round?

Have you tried picking your nose with a flat pencil? Hmmm?

And you can't reset TV's M Rendall to factory settings with a flat one.  We've tried.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 07 September, 2020, 06:20:01 pm
The question is, why are the rest of them round?

Have you tried picking your nose with a flat pencil? Hmmm?

And you can't reset TV's M Rendall to factory settings with a flat one.  We've tried.

I suspect because you cannot get a fine precision grip as easily for hand writing and drawing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 07 September, 2020, 07:45:27 pm
(the pencils are flat so they don't roll off the bench)

^This is what I have learned today.

Oh, is that why the pencils are flat?

I mean, it's bllindingly obvious now he mentions it, but I never managed to work it out before.

The question is, why are the rest of them round? Especially when you think that traditional school desks, writing-slopes and pro drawing-boards are all tilted.

because pencil sharpeners have round holes?

The question is, why are the rest of them round?

Have you tried picking your nose with a flat pencil? Hmmm?

And you can't reset TV's M Rendall to factory settings with a flat one.  We've tried.

I suspect because you cannot get a fine precision grip as easily for hand writing and drawing.

Kids these days get rubber grips put on the pencils
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 07 September, 2020, 08:21:46 pm
Reddit: a forum for people who can't be bothered to join forums.


Reddit: like USENET but in the 21st century.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 07 September, 2020, 08:23:25 pm
I have learned that there is a social media "thing" called nextdoor.  I have also learned that it is not worth my time and effort to join it due to the inane drivel and petty bickering that pervades it's pages.

Thank you YACF for saving me from this.   Are there any more of these social media dumpsters lurking that I should be aware of and carefully avoid please?    🙂

LinkedIn: Spamming system for recruitment types.

LinkedIn: Like Facebook but all your friends work in recruitment and you don't care if they die (knicked off of the wireless)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: quixoticgeek on 08 September, 2020, 01:45:54 am

Germans use “pfund” to refer to 500g.

The Dutch do something similar.

When they went metric, they converted the terms from pre metric times, ~450g for a pound makes pfund of 500g sensible. With the ounce tho, rather than taking the 28.3g ounce and making it say, 25g, they went for 100g.

This made things entertaining when baking a cake with my Dutch then partner. Using my gran's recipe I said we needed 12oz of flour. Said partner weighed out 1.2kg... rather than the 340g I was expecting...

J
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 08 September, 2020, 06:23:27 am
What if it said three-quarters of a pound?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 September, 2020, 07:42:11 am
The question is, why are the rest of them round?

Have you tried picking your nose with a flat pencil? Hmmm?

No. Have you?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 September, 2020, 07:44:06 am
Kids these days get rubber grips put on the pencils

And still end up holding them like a battle-axe.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 September, 2020, 07:50:03 am

Germans use “pfund” to refer to 500g.

The Dutch do something similar.

When they went metric, they converted the terms from pre metric times, ~450g for a pound makes pfund of 500g sensible. With the ounce tho, rather than taking the 28.3g ounce and making it say, 25g, they went for 100g.

Ditto here, half a kilo is a livreI'll have a book of sausages, please.

ISTR, not that I was there, that after the metric system was formally adopted by the state, traders who persisted in using the old measurements could be executed. Napoleon was a bit of a bastard at times.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 September, 2020, 09:29:42 am

Germans use “pfund” to refer to 500g.

The Dutch do something similar.

When they went metric, they converted the terms from pre metric times, ~450g for a pound makes pfund of 500g sensible.
Must have made for some interesting conversations, particularly in shops.
Quote
With the ounce tho, rather than taking the 28.3g ounce and making it say, 25g, they went for 100g.
That is bizarre. Still, I guess it's no more bizarre than the hundredweight/centner/quintal, which seems to vary between 100lbs, 112lbs, 100kg and 50kg depending on location, decade, trade...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 September, 2020, 10:59:42 am

Germans use “pfund” to refer to 500g.

The Dutch do something similar.

When they went metric, they converted the terms from pre metric times, ~450g for a pound makes pfund of 500g sensible. With the ounce tho, rather than taking the 28.3g ounce and making it say, 25g, they went for 100g.

Ditto here, half a kilo is a livreI'll have a book of sausages, please.

ISTR, not that I was there, that after the metric system was formally adopted by the state, traders who persisted in using the old measurements could be executed. Napoleon was a bit of a bastard at times.

We of the Democratic Ruthless Bastards Party endorse this methodology.  Self-styled “Metric Martyrs” are invariably fully paid-up members of the Lumpengammonariat and should be strongly deprecated.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 September, 2020, 11:29:03 am
I never understood the anti-metric thing. It's a few minutes to learn that there's about two pounds in a kilo and the better part of two pints in a litre. Job done, you've learned a set of simple and easy-to-use units, rather than cubic bloody hogsheads per furlong.

It's almost like they're the province of the really fucking stupid.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 September, 2020, 12:06:17 pm
I never understood the anti-metric thing.

[…]

It's almost like they're the province of the really fucking stupid.

Nail.  Head.

I may have railed before about the drooling simp who used to berate the BBC almost daily for using nasty new-fangled FOREIGN Celsius instead of honest God-fearing Tory-voting BRITISH Fahrenheit.  These people think “irony” is an adjective.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 September, 2020, 12:41:30 pm
These people think “irony” is an adjective.
Lovely!  :D
"I've got an interview today, so my shirt's all irony."
 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 08 September, 2020, 03:00:40 pm
I never understood the anti-metric thing. It's a few minutes to learn that there's about two pounds in a kilo and the better part of two pints in a litre. Job done, you've learned a set of simple and easy-to-use units, rather than cubic bloody hogsheads per furlong.

It's almost like they're the province of the really fucking stupid.

In principle yes - BUT actually visualising, say 15cm, is harder for us older folk that grew up with feet and inches . . .I'm getting better at it now - just need to work on my understanding of the new decimal currency  ;D ;D ;D

That said with metric - I worked in the printing industry in the 60s and 70s and it was a fairly early adopter of metric measurements and the A sizes for work, as well as the "grammes per square metre" method of describing paper weight (that's "gsm" or more correctly "gm2") - before that there were arcane paper sizes that signified the weight in lbs (pounds) for 500 sheets (e.g. Large Post 21 lbs; Demy 17 lbs ... and the classic size - reserved for drawing paper/plans of Double Elephant ... that's 27 x 40 inches)


BTW - it's 10 chains to the furlong (a chain being 22 yards and the length of a cricket pitch) :thumbsup:    Hogsheads were a measure of beer, among other things.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 September, 2020, 03:05:20 pm
Double Elephant is such a good name it's ridiculous that it hasn't been revived for some arty thing. Unless, of course, it has.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 08 September, 2020, 03:14:45 pm
That the auto industry regularly specify spark plugs with metric threads, imperial reach (how long the thread is) and a socket size that can be either metric or imperial

I suppose it matches wheel diameters in inches and tyre widths in mm.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 08 September, 2020, 03:23:10 pm
I never understood the anti-metric thing. It's a few minutes to learn that there's about two pounds in a kilo and the better part of two pints in a litre. Job done, you've learned a set of simple and easy-to-use units, rather than cubic bloody hogsheads per furlong.

It's almost like they're the province of the really fucking stupid.

In principle yes - BUT actually visualising, say 15cm, is harder for us older folk that grew up with feet and inches . . .I'm getting better at it now - just need to work on my understanding of the new decimal currency  ;D ;D ;D

That said with metric - I worked in the printing industry in the 60s and 70s and it was a fairly early adopter of metric measurements and the A sizes for work, as well as the "grammes per square metre" method of describing paper weight (that's "gsm" or more correctly "gm2") - before that there were arcane paper sizes that signified the weight in lbs (pounds) for 500 sheets (e.g. Large Post 21 lbs; Demy 17 lbs ... and the classic size - reserved for drawing paper/plans of Double Elephant ... that's 27 x 40 inches)


BTW - it's 10 chains to the furlong (a chain being 22 yards and the length of a cricket pitch) :thumbsup:    Hogsheads were a measure of beer, among other things.

More more correctly gm-2 or g/m2 surely?

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: quixoticgeek on 08 September, 2020, 03:29:45 pm
I never understood the anti-metric thing. It's a few minutes to learn that there's about two pounds in a kilo and the better part of two pints in a litre. Job done, you've learned a set of simple and easy-to-use units, rather than cubic bloody hogsheads per furlong.

It's almost like they're the province of the really fucking stupid.

Because of my parents I grew up using imperial at home, and metric at school, and then to the exasperation of the woodwork workshop technician, the two together*.

I still find it easier to say "it's 200 yards" for when giving rough distances such as in directions "How far's the pub?" "couple hundred yards!". When a Dutch friend asked wtf a yard is, I just said it's a small meter.

I went full metric when I worked at ESA, Mars polar orbiter taught me the importance.

My main bugbear tho is that the metric terms are more of a mouthful. "1 mile" vs "1 keel oh meet er", tho some pronounce it "clometer". "Ten k" is a bit easier to say. But 6 inches is still easier to say than 150 mil...

I tend to use the engineering subset of SI units, km, m, mm, µm, I find it offers a certain level of error checking to what you've written down. If you are cutting wood for a shelf and it's marked as 1m x 200{m x 10|m, and the bit in front of the m has been smudged out, or it's a noisy phone line, you can infer a certain to a certain amount what was intended. 1m x 20m seems a bit big for a shelf, 1m x 200cm could work, but then that's still a weird shape for a shelf... 1m x 200mm that seems about right for a shelf, so next up thickness. 10µm seems... complicated in wood... so maybe 10mm, bingo 1m x 200mm x 10mm, that looks like sensible size for a shelf. Built in error checking...

J

*For a project I sent in a cutting list that included one part that was 3" x 10cm x 12mm...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 08 September, 2020, 03:45:27 pm
One of the annoyances of having two systems is that things like tape measures are made worse because they are a compromise. A tape measure with both units will naturally read in one unit when reading from the left and the other when reading from the right. Electronic scales have a button to put them in the other units, that is just as easy to press as the on/off or tare button.

Also see rants passim about digital displays that indicate in one unit but the calculation behind them is rounded to another unit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: quixoticgeek on 08 September, 2020, 03:54:23 pm
One of the annoyances of having two systems is that things like tape measures are made worse because they are a compromise. A tape measure with both units will naturally read in one unit when reading from the left and the other when reading from the right. Electronic scales have a button to put them in the other units, that is just as easy to press as the on/off or tare button.

Erm, don't all tape measures read from the same end? Even all my rules, which are dual system tend to read from one end only...

Quote

Also see rants passim about digital displays that indicate in one unit but the calculation behind them is rounded to another unit.

Not a major issue, as long as it's done properly, without allowing floating point to make it all random. Many programmers see a problem, and think they can solve it with floating point maths. Now they have 2.00000000001 problems...

J
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 September, 2020, 03:59:46 pm
I still find it easier to say "it's 200 yards" for when giving rough distances such as in directions "How far's the pub?" "couple hundred yards!". When a Dutch friend asked wtf a yard is, I just said
...it's like a garden without any grass.  :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 September, 2020, 04:17:23 pm
My wife's phone started spaffling about '300 yards to the next junction' the other week till I hit it with the metric stick. Neither of us have any idea how long a yard is.

This follows on from a sci-fi book I read a few months back where the author kept using imperial measures. I really don't think feet (I imagine they're as long as actual feet, though that seems a variable standardization, we all know some people have bigger feet than other people) are going to be current in the 25th century.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: quixoticgeek on 08 September, 2020, 04:47:21 pm
My wife's phone started spaffling about '300 yards to the next junction' the other week till I hit it with the metric stick. Neither of us have any idea how long a yard is.

When it comes to giving directions, 1 yard == 1 meter. They are close enough, esp given none of us are using precision measuring devices when driving a car or bike...

Quote
This follows on from a sci-fi book I read a few months back where the author kept using imperial measures. I really don't think feet (I imagine they're as long as actual feet, though that seems a variable standardization, we all know some people have bigger feet than other people) are going to be current in the 25th century.

It always jars for me when watching a US space launch, and the way NASA TV or space X talk in imperial. Have they learnt nothing from Mars Polar Orbiter?

J
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 08 September, 2020, 05:10:39 pm
One of the annoyances of having two systems is that things like tape measures are made worse because they are a compromise. A tape measure with both units will naturally read in one unit when reading from the left and the other when reading from the right. Electronic scales have a button to put them in the other units, that is just as easy to press as the on/off or tare button.

Erm, don't all tape measures read from the same end? Even all my rules, which are dual system tend to read from one end only...
Yes, but when reading from one side, the scale facing the user changes depending on whether the start of the tape is to the left or to the right.

That's why single unit tapes have scales that go to both sides of the tape.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 08 September, 2020, 05:13:40 pm
I know that 3 feet = a yard, but I don't know why I know.
I have a feeling I picked it up while in a curtain shop years ago.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 08 September, 2020, 05:14:13 pm
Quote

Also see rants passim about digital displays that indicate in one unit but the calculation behind them is rounded to another unit.

Not a major issue, as long as it's done properly, without allowing floating point to make it all random. Many programmers see a problem, and think they can solve it with floating point maths. Now they have 2.00000000001 problems...

It is a problem when the rounding is correct for one unit, but of course doesn't line up with the other units.

The particular example is fuel consumption meters changing by 0.1 l/100 km each time. When displayed in mpg, that is sometimes less than 0.1 mpg, but at typical figures, it's more like 1 mpg, resulting the in mpg figure going from 42.3 to 43.2 in one step, for instance.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 September, 2020, 05:21:41 pm
The imperial measures that I don't have a feeling for are Fahrenheit and ounces, both weight and fluid. I know a pound is about half a kilo and a pint is as much as a pub glass of beer(!) but how many ounces are they? And it doesn't help that it seems to vary across the Atlantic, not to mention between pints and lbs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: quixoticgeek on 08 September, 2020, 05:26:21 pm
The imperial measures that I don't have a feeling for are Fahrenheit and ounces, both weight and fluid. I know a pound is about half a kilo and a pint is as much as a pub glass of beer(!) but how many ounces are they? And it doesn't help that it seems to vary across the Atlantic, not to mention between pints and lbs.

Fahrenheit makes no sense to me. Ounces for mass I am fine with, ounces for fluids make no sense to me.

An American friend gave me an interesting justification for why Fahrenheit is a useful system. Think of it as percentage of comfortable that you can deal with. So when it's 70°F, that's basically 70% of what a human can handle. etc... I can't say it made all that much sense to me, but they seemed to think it's logical...

J
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 September, 2020, 05:42:23 pm
Despite living for umpteen years in the US, I never really got my head around the Fahrenheit. It's even hard to spell. I got the hang of 70℉ being pleasant and 100℉ being hot and anything above 100℉ potentially fatal. I could even stretch to 32℉ being freezing. But what the hell is 40℉ and how cold is 20℉? It gets worse the further you get away, I was listening to a podcast earlier about a chap who went swimming in a vat on molten salt at about 1400℉. I have no idea how hot that is, other than as pastimes go, to be avoided.

I did learn fluid ounces from beer (8 is a teeny glass, 16 something close to a proper beer, and 32 a passport to the toilet). US gallons, I have no idea, I just filled the tank to the top.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 08 September, 2020, 06:03:31 pm
I no longer drive.
I pay someone to do that for me.
Usually he (and it almost invariably is a he) follows instructions issued to him from a voice in the dashboard or from within a mobile phone.
Yards, I can understand.
Metres, I can understand.
But I have no fucking concept what 'After one thousand feet, turn left - means'.
And yes, I can generally do dual-nationality on most measurements (temperature excepted).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 08 September, 2020, 06:16:21 pm
On a sat nav in one car I drove, it could,in common with all of them I guess, be toggled between metric and imperial units. Oddly though it could display height in yards, which just felt wrong. Feet for both length and height, yards for length only.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 September, 2020, 06:18:59 pm
I don't think I've ever encountered yards in the wild, not even in the US, where they must surely exist, but probably as a slightly different length yard to a British one, just for laughs.

I can do inches, of course, that's the international measure of penises. Though some inches, we know, are bigger than other inches. You'd think to be honest they'd have standardized penis length measurement on centimetres, what with it being bigger numbers and all.

My computer handily tells me seven inches is 0.19 yards or a whopping 18 cm (and possibly a slight exaggeration). That said, anyone who slings around such a vital statistic using yards must be a force to be reckoned with. That's self-confidence.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: canny colin on 08 September, 2020, 06:21:34 pm
I find when doing building quotes . I have to include a tangible measurement . IE . 

Dear
        Deputy head to construct new footpath  900 mm wide x 12 m long   ( approximately  3 ft x 40 ft )    ect

  PS It is the same width as the path to the music block and the length of a 53 seater coach .

The penny would drop with the last bit . I normal include imperial measurements a  lot more costumers understand  6 ft ,& say 10 ft  than 1.82m & 3m .   
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 September, 2020, 06:28:42 pm
That there is a transporter bridge in that France, that they have now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 08 September, 2020, 06:35:29 pm
On a sat nav in one car I drove, it could,in common with all of them I guess, be toggled between metric and imperial units. Oddly though it could display height in yards, which just felt wrong. Feet for both length and height, yards for length only.
Not quite right, shirley.
Feet are what aeroplanes fly at.
Yards are what you use to recon the distance to the horizon.
(Or the next left turn).
No?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 September, 2020, 06:45:52 pm
I generally think that I'd replaced the metric and imperial systems with something based around the size, weight, and volume of a blue whale.

Yards, I would imagine be necessary, to express that certain anatomical length for the male of species (for the record, Google tells me it's 3 yards, though there's some disagreement based around the lack of volunteers willing to don a scuba gear and a tape measure to make the measurement while the whales are in flagrante delicto). Honestly, it's like these marine biologists don't know what PhD students are for.

If I recall from Moby Dick, a popular use of the outer skin of a penis was for an apron. Not the sort of pinny you'd buy your gran.

Still, I can add that dinner-time conversational bank the fact that a happy male whale splashes out 1,500 litres (330 gallons, imperialistas). You'd need an apron, boots, and a sturdy umbrella if you were in the vicinity of that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 September, 2020, 07:02:56 pm
I don't think I've ever encountered yards in the wild,
That's quite a frightening thing to say when you've been cycling and driving in the UK for decades. Though I suppose it's normal.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 08 September, 2020, 07:10:26 pm
That's just not cricket.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 08 September, 2020, 07:35:25 pm
I never understood the anti-metric thing. It's a few minutes to learn that there's about two pounds in a kilo and the better part of two pints in a litre. Job done, you've learned a set of simple and easy-to-use units, rather than cubic bloody hogsheads per furlong.

It's almost like they're the province of the really fucking stupid.

In principle yes - BUT actually visualising, say 15cm, is harder for us older folk that grew up with feet and inches . . .I'm getting better at it now - just need to work on my understanding of the new decimal currency  ;D ;D ;D

That said with metric - I worked in the printing industry in the 60s and 70s and it was a fairly early adopter of metric measurements and the A sizes for work, as well as the "grammes per square metre" method of describing paper weight (that's "gsm" or more correctly "gm2") - before that there were arcane paper sizes that signified the weight in lbs (pounds) for 500 sheets (e.g. Large Post 21 lbs; Demy 17 lbs ... and the classic size - reserved for drawing paper/plans of Double Elephant ... that's 27 x 40 inches)


BTW - it's 10 chains to the furlong (a chain being 22 yards and the length of a cricket pitch) :thumbsup:    Hogsheads were a measure of beer, among other things.

More more correctly gm-2 or g/m2 surely?

I'll bow to your superior figure . . .  in the second of your fomats

You're right - but typewriters back then didn't have an option for superior, or inferior, figures.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 September, 2020, 07:42:42 pm
I don't think I've ever encountered yards in the wild,
That's quite a frightening thing to say when you've been cycling and driving in the UK for decades. Though I suppose it's normal.

I've never driven in the UK though, only the US. That may or may not be less frightening, I think they use yards, but I can't be sure. Road signs r fur shootin'

I did, when googling the matter, discover this source of prime gammon (http://bwma.org.uk). Metric martyrs. I will happily adopt the term if there's genuine killing to be done.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 September, 2020, 07:46:37 pm
USAnians generally use feet for any distance under a mile.  They don’t have fortnights either, and find the word hysterically funny.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 September, 2020, 07:51:17 pm
Yards sound like the sort of unit they'd use in Boston and nowhere else. It's a brewery in Philly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 September, 2020, 08:34:21 pm
I don't think I've ever encountered yards in the wild,
That's quite a frightening thing to say when you've been cycling and driving in the UK for decades. Though I suppose it's normal.

I've never driven in the UK though, only the US. That may or may not be less frightening, I think they use yards, but I can't be sure. Road signs r fur shootin'
Okay, I don't know what they have in the US (although I have cycled in LA, but it was a long time ago) but yards are on all sorts of UK road signs. Admittedly being told that a hazard is 100m off isn't terribly urgent at cyclist speed. And yeah, even in Somerset road signs get shot at.

Quote
I did, when googling the matter, discover this source of prime gammon (http://bwma.org.uk). Metric martyrs. I will happily adopt the term if there's genuine killing to be done.
It's all there. Compulsory... Illegal... Conspiracy... Disruptive... Disaster... Without consumers knowing... EC directive... Not a UK government decision...
There must be a loonjob conspiracy template with all these terms on and the loonjob conspiratists just fill in the guff of their choice, whether it's lizard people, 5G or metric martyrdom.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 September, 2020, 08:43:58 pm
I have learned that there is a social media "thing" called nextdoor.  I have also learned that it is not worth my time and effort to join it due to the inane drivel and petty bickering that pervades it's pages.

Thank you YACF for saving me from this.   Are there any more of these social media dumpsters lurking that I should be aware of and carefully avoid please?    🙂

LinkedIn: Spamming system for recruitment types.

LinkedIn: Like Facebook but all your friends work in recruitment and you don't care if they die (knicked off of the wireless)
Pipt: Ever more desperate ways to look inventive with fonts.

(I've no idea what it is but I've seen an advert on the back of a bus, wherein it is written Pipt)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 September, 2020, 08:45:48 pm
I've honestly never noticed yards on British road signs, but I'm not terribly observant. I'm mostly on the lookout for warning about giant hedgehogs. My favourite roadsigns at the moment (and everyone should have a few) are the 'adverse camber' one by Titsey (I always pretend to fall out of the car and my wife laughs so hard that her amusement is imperceptible to normal humans) and the 'hidden dip' near Edenbridge. A dip so hidden we've never yet found it. That's a disappointing one, you're expecting a roller coaster and you get precisely nothing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 08 September, 2020, 08:45:55 pm
I never understood the anti-metric thing. It's a few minutes to learn that there's about two pounds in a kilo and the better part of two pints in a litre. Job done, you've learned a set of simple and easy-to-use units, rather than cubic bloody hogsheads per furlong.

It's almost like they're the province of the really fucking stupid.

In principle yes - BUT actually visualising, say 15cm, is harder for us older folk that grew up with feet and inches . . .I'm getting better at it now - just need to work on my understanding of the new decimal currency  ;D ;D ;D

That said with metric - I worked in the printing industry in the 60s and 70s and it was a fairly early adopter of metric measurements and the A sizes for work, as well as the "grammes per square metre" method of describing paper weight (that's "gsm" or more correctly "gm2") - before that there were arcane paper sizes that signified the weight in lbs (pounds) for 500 sheets (e.g. Large Post 21 lbs; Demy 17 lbs ... and the classic size - reserved for drawing paper/plans of Double Elephant ... that's 27 x 40 inches)


BTW - it's 10 chains to the furlong (a chain being 22 yards and the length of a cricket pitch) :thumbsup:    Hogsheads were a measure of beer, among other things.

More more correctly gm-2 or g/m2 surely?

Ugh, that's just brought back memories...

As a young Ms NotPingu, just fallen out of school and into a job in a lab, I was making up solutions in units of mg/l.
4 months later and I enrolled in my ONC Chemistry where they lectured in mg dm-3

Young Ms NotPingu said 'what the everlasting feck is a cubic decimeter'. Pretty sure I didn't see it in my HNC or the degree conversion and defo not in the real lab.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 08 September, 2020, 09:10:13 pm
That there is a transporter bridge in that France, that they have now.
Where?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 08 September, 2020, 09:11:35 pm
paper weight (that's "gsm" or more correctly "gm2")


More more correctly gm-2 or g/m2 surely?

I'll bow to your superior figure . . .  in the second of your fomats

You're right - but typewriters back then didn't have an option for superior, or inferior, figures.

No, it's not the superscript that's the issue, it's the lack of division. To my mathematical brain ignoring the lack of superscript, gm2 means grammes multiplied by square metres, which is not the same as grammes per square metre.

(I think Double Elephant should be a sort of beer...)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 08 September, 2020, 09:15:36 pm
That there is a transporter bridge in that France, that they have now.
Where?

https://the-french-atlantic-coast.com/2016/04/07/rocheforts-transporter-bridge-the-last-of-its-kind-in-france/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 September, 2020, 09:16:07 pm
Moles aren't the furry kind.

I found a difficult adjustment.

To this day though, I still call it the avocado constant. And I'm pleased to see that if you google it, it says do you mean Avogadro.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 08 September, 2020, 09:16:58 pm
Thanks LW&B. A trip to Rochefort seems in order, ideally for its fete.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 08 September, 2020, 09:17:49 pm
paper weight (that's "gsm" or more correctly "gm2")


More more correctly gm-2 or g/m2 surely?

I'll bow to your superior figure . . .  in the second of your fomats

You're right - but typewriters back then didn't have an option for superior, or inferior, figures.

No, it's not the superscript that's the issue, it's the lack of division. To my mathematical brain ignoring the lack of superscript, gm2 means grammes multiplied by square metres, which is not the same as grammes per square metre.

(I think Double Elephant should be a sort of beer...)
Double Elephant Indian Pale Ale can be had from hand pumps at a number of hostelries in the west country.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 September, 2020, 09:31:17 pm
USAnians generally use feet for any distance under a mile.  They don’t have fortnights either, and find the word hysterically funny.

I was double-digits years and about seven rounds of grommets old when I learned that they weren't actually 'forknights'.  (I assume it's from 'fourteen', which is much less stabby.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 September, 2020, 09:33:31 pm
Thanks LW&B. A trip to Rochefort seems in order, ideally for its fete.

They went past it on today’s stage.  Not sure if it made the highlights prog.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 08 September, 2020, 09:36:47 pm
USAnians generally use feet for any distance under a mile.  They don’t have fortnights either, and find the word hysterically funny.

I was double-digits years and about seven rounds of grommets old when I learned that they weren't actually 'forknights'.  (I assume it's from 'fourteen', which is much less stabby.)
Don't Les Serapu[/shed]the French call a forknight "quinze jours"? A bonus day just to make sure, presumably.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 09 September, 2020, 12:00:26 am
USAnians generally use feet for any distance under a mile.  They don’t have fortnights either, and find the word hysterically funny.

I was double-digits years and about seven rounds of grommets old when I learned that they weren't actually 'forknights'.  (I assume it's from 'fourteen', which is much less stabby.)
Don't Les Serapu[/shed]the French call a forknight "quinze jours"? A bonus day just to make sure, presumably.

Yes.  There are fourteen nights  between fifteen days....However, sennight is an archaic English word for week. I assume that it's a contraction of seven nights, which would imply that, if we follow the French, a week would have eight days.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: quixoticgeek on 09 September, 2020, 12:11:25 am
Thanks LW&B. A trip to Rochefort seems in order, ideally for its fete.

They went past it on today’s stage.  Not sure if it made the highlights prog.

Rochefort is in Belgium I thought...

J
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 09 September, 2020, 05:56:27 am
Quote from: quixoticgeek
Quote from: ian
I never understood the anti-metric thing. ...

Because of my parents I grew up using imperial at home, and metric at school, and then to the exasperation of the woodwork workshop technician, the two together.

I suspect that's true for a lot of boomers, certainly is for me.  I been happily mixing measurement systems for 50 odd years now.  I generally pick the measuring system that gives me the smallest number of units to work with or is most convenient and easy to visualise for the task at hand.  F'rinstance a model aeroplane will always have a span measured in inches ('cos small _whole_ number) and a weight measured to the nearest gramme ('cos easier than fractional ounces) and the components for it will likewise be measured in a mixture of imperial and metric units.  As for yards and metres?  A metre is just a yard with a superiority complex. :)

P.S.
It's also extremely good fun to wind the youngsters up by using terms *they* find incomprehensible.  Makes a very pleasant change to turn the tables on them.  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 09 September, 2020, 08:59:28 am
I never understood the anti-metric thing. It's a few minutes to learn that there's about two pounds in a kilo and the better part of two pints in a litre. Job done, you've learned a set of simple and easy-to-use units, rather than cubic bloody hogsheads per furlong.

It's almost like they're the province of the really fucking stupid.

Because of my parents I grew up using imperial at home, and metric at school, and then to the exasperation of the woodwork workshop technician, the two together*.

I still find it easier to say "it's 200 yards" for when giving rough distances such as in directions "How far's the pub?" "couple hundred yards!". When a Dutch friend asked wtf a yard is, I just said it's a small meter.

I went full metric when I worked at ESA, Mars polar orbiter taught me the importance.

My main bugbear tho is that the metric terms are more of a mouthful. "1 mile" vs "1 keel oh meet er", tho some pronounce it "clometer". "Ten k" is a bit easier to say. But 6 inches is still easier to say than 150 mil...

I tend to use the engineering subset of SI units, km, m, mm, µm, I find it offers a certain level of error checking to what you've written down. If you are cutting wood for a shelf and it's marked as 1m x 200{m x 10|m, and the bit in front of the m has been smudged out, or it's a noisy phone line, you can infer a certain to a certain amount what was intended. 1m x 20m seems a bit big for a shelf, 1m x 200cm could work, but then that's still a weird shape for a shelf... 1m x 200mm that seems about right for a shelf, so next up thickness. 10µm seems... complicated in wood... so maybe 10mm, bingo 1m x 200mm x 10mm, that looks like sensible size for a shelf. Built in error checking...

J

*For a project I sent in a cutting list that included one part that was 3" x 10cm x 12mm...

would definitely be important at ESA. "was it 3m or 3ft we needed?"

In my industry people still work in archaic units and mixed units, but most of what I need to produce for them is in metric tonnes of GHG, so my first question is always about UOM and my fist step is always to convert to metric before I do anything else.  The factors are pretty much ingrained in my head these days such as 1 scm (standard cubic meter) = 35.3 scf, but then there is the question which "standard" are we talking about? The US one in imperial units, or the real one in SI units? People look at me as if I'm crazy when I point out the difference.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 09 September, 2020, 09:00:00 am
Thanks LW&B. A trip to Rochefort seems in order, ideally for its fete.

They went past it on today’s stage.  Not sure if it made the highlights prog.

Rochefort is in Belgium I thought...

J
Not that Rochefort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochefort,_Belgium). This Rochefort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochefort,_Charente-Maritime).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 September, 2020, 09:37:08 am
'forknights'. 
Forknights and spoondays. Spending far too long in Brexiteer's pub barns, probably as a result of orkdaxing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: quixoticgeek on 09 September, 2020, 01:19:52 pm

I suspect that's true for a lot of boomers, certainly is for me.  I been happily mixing measurement systems for 50 odd years now.  I generally pick the measuring system that gives me the smallest number of units to work with or is most convenient and easy to visualise for the task at hand.  F'rinstance a model aeroplane will always have a span measured in inches ('cos small _whole_ number) and a weight measured to the nearest gramme ('cos easier than fractional ounces) and the components for it will likewise be measured in a mixture of imperial and metric units.  As for yards and metres?  A metre is just a yard with a superiority complex. :)

Except I'm not a boomer. I'm the very tail end of Gen X... And *NOT* a millennial!!!

Quote
P.S.
It's also extremely good fun to wind the youngsters up by using terms *they* find incomprehensible.  Makes a very pleasant change to turn the tables on them.  :)

I can do that much the same with continentals...

When they express confusion at the imperial system, I go into a rant. It works something like this:

"There's 3 barleycorns in an inch, 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 22 yards in a chain, 10 chains in a furlong 8 furlongs in a mile, 3 miles in a league, it's really not fucking difficult!!!"

Said at speed, tends to come as a shock...

J
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 09 September, 2020, 06:53:43 pm
And yet, QG, you're not a fan of the harmless gear inch?  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 09 September, 2020, 09:47:45 pm
Thanks LW&B. A trip to Rochefort seems in order, ideally for its fete.

They went past it on today’s stage.  Not sure if it made the highlights prog.

Would have been ace if they'd gone over it 😀
How far ahead would the break need to be to get a massive time bonus?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 September, 2020, 10:23:08 pm
Thanks LW&B. A trip to Rochefort seems in order, ideally for its fete.

They went past it on today’s stage.  Not sure if it made the highlights prog.

Would have been ace if they'd gone over it 😀
How far ahead would the break need to be to get a massive time bonus?

I think the pelican was back together by the time they got there, possibly minus a few crash victims.  Pity.  It'd have been fun watching Crazy P trying to jump the gap as the bridge set off :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: quixoticgeek on 09 September, 2020, 11:48:58 pm
And yet, QG, you're not a fan of the harmless gear inch?  :demon:

Of course not, it's a bloody stupid system, why would I compare my safety bike with an ordinary?

J
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 September, 2020, 12:00:21 am
I like to express gearing in cubits of development.  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 September, 2020, 12:43:03 am
What's wrong with furlongs per fortnights at a steady 73 rpm?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 10 September, 2020, 06:02:37 am
As a side note on the amusing discussion of measurement systems something I learnt a couple of weeks ago (not  today so OT sorry, not sorry) is that the USAnians have two definitions of the foot. They are almost exactly, but not quite, the same length.  There is the international foot as used by the rest of the world and a *cough* special one that is used by surveyors which is the tiniest fraction longer.  As one might imagine this cause all sorts of fun and games at big (i.e. surveyor) scales.

In a recent(ish) outburst of sanity, it won't last I tell you, the U.S. Survey Foot is to be withdrawn.  Predictably there are groups protesting against this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/science/foot-surveying-metrology-dennis.html

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 10 September, 2020, 08:27:48 am
something I learnt a couple of weeks ago (not  today so OT sorry, not sorry) is that the USAnians have two definitions of the foot. They are almost exactly, but not quite, the same length.

That's mad. But strangely fascinating.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 10 September, 2020, 09:33:22 am
I'd always assumed that all American units varied in some strange way and couldn't be trusted. I'd not assumed they varied amongst themselves. I'm surprised they've not aligned themselves along political boundaries.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 September, 2020, 09:39:21 am
The Texan foot is a whole 16 inches. Some of the New England states have a piddling little foot barely 10 inches.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 10 September, 2020, 10:01:38 am
Speaking of Texans, proper cowboys traditionally wore a range of hats, most commonly bowler hats*. The iconic Stetson wasn't invented till 1865 (and in its original incarnation looked more like an Amish hat) and didn't gain popularity till the very end of the 19th century.

*Billy the Kid favoured a top hat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 September, 2020, 10:09:09 am
Googling "amish hat" brings up "stetson" as well.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 10 September, 2020, 10:29:52 am
Googling "amish hat" brings up "stetson" as well.

They're similar, but the 'modern' Stetson has the exaggerated brim and the big dent in the top. Amish hats are a more conservative affair, as would be expected.

Americans, by the by, call a bowler hat a derby. I'm assuming they pronounce it like they do Kentucky, but I didn't encounter a lot of bowler hats when I lived there, it not being the 19th century, not even in Virginia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 September, 2020, 10:48:22 am
And yet, QG, you're not a fan of the harmless gear inch?  :demon:

Of course not, it's a bloody stupid system, why would I compare my safety bike with an ordinary?

J

'Ear 'ear!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 10 September, 2020, 11:11:26 am
Quote from: Cudzoziemiec
The Texan foot is a whole 16 inches. Some of the New England states have a piddling little foot barely 10 inches.
Not in the least surprised by this.  Do you know if they are statutory measures or merely hang-overs retained because of custom and practice from a less regulated time?
Title: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 10 September, 2020, 08:58:05 pm
Speaking of Texans, proper cowboys traditionally wore a range of hats, most commonly bowler hats*. The iconic Stetson wasn't invented till 1865 (and in its original incarnation looked more like an Amish hat) and didn't gain popularity till the very end of the 19th century.

*Billy the Kid favoured a top hat.

In the cowboys & injuns stories I read as a nipper they always wore 10-gallon hats. I just looked up the origin of this term and it appears to be a mistranslation thing. (They were originally 8-gallon hats, but that got metricated to 38-litre hats, and rounded up for the conversion to US gallons.)

Not sure what the difference is between a 10-gallon hat and a Stetson.

I do know, however, that in France a bowler is called a melon hat, as in Chapeau Melon Et Bottes De Cuir, which is what they call The Avengers (as in John Steed and Emma Peel RIP, not Iron Man and co).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 September, 2020, 09:06:11 pm
Quote
Most experts argue that the name “10-gallon hat” is actually an import from south of the border. Cattle drivers and ranchers in Texas and the Southwest often crossed paths with Mexican vaqueros who sported braided hatbands—called “galóns” in Spanish—on their sombreros. A “10 galón” sombrero was a hat with a large enough crown that it could hold 10 hatbands, but American cowboys may have anglicized the word to “gallon” and started referring to their own sombrero-inspired headgear as “10-gallon hats.” Yet another linguistic theory argues that the name is a corruption of the Spanish phrase “tan galán” —roughly translated as “very gallant” or “really handsome”—which may have been used to describe the majestic image of a hat-wearing cowboy in the saddle.

Whatever its origin, the 10-gallon hat wasn’t even the preferred headgear for most people in the Wild West—top hats and bowlers were more common. The nickname didn’t enter the popular lexicon until the 1920s, when silent film stars like Tom Mix and Tim McCoy helped popularize the oversized hat in Hollywood Westerns. The 10-gallon hat went on to earn a place as a quintessential piece of the frontier wardrobe, and presidents like Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson would later use them to cultivate a rustic image while serving as commander in chief.
https://www.history.com/news/why-do-we-call-it-a-10-gallon-hat

A handsome hat.  :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 10 September, 2020, 09:18:53 pm
iirc the real life Butch and Sundance wore bowlers, so the film is inaccurate in this sartorial respect. Or maybe they did wear bowlers in the film as well. I can't remember. But my mental image is of Newman and Redford in stetsons.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 September, 2020, 09:23:19 pm
My mental image is of straw boaters, but that seems unlikely!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 10 September, 2020, 09:26:27 pm
Thinking about it some more, I have a vague feeling they wore a range of different outfits through the film, so it's possible they included straw boaters in their repertoire.

Definitely no bicycle helmets though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 10 September, 2020, 09:39:52 pm
The iconic photo of Billy the Kid has him in a large top hat. He does look like the sort of chap you'd cross the street to avoid though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 10 September, 2020, 09:54:26 pm
The iconic photo of Billy the Kid has him in a large top hat. He does look like the sort of chap you'd cross the street to avoid though.

I know the one you mean. He looks like he's from Swindon.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 September, 2020, 10:19:24 pm
 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 September, 2020, 10:22:07 pm
That'd be this one?
(http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2010/top10_bandits/billy_kid.jpg)
If not Swindon, then Devizes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 September, 2020, 03:03:06 am
The iconic photo of Billy the Kid has him in a large top hat. He does look like the sort of chap you'd cross the street to avoid though.

I have read that Mr The Kid had syphilis and shot most of his victims in the back.  Even by USAnian standards this makes him an unlikely choice for a hero.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 11 September, 2020, 07:48:41 am
The iconic photo of Billy the Kid has him in a large top hat. He does look like the sort of chap you'd cross the street to avoid though.

I have read that Mr The Kid had syphilis and shot most of his victims in the back.  Even by USAnian standards this makes him an unlikely choice for a hero.
Also surprising were his great friendship with Socrates and his ability to deal with the oddity of time travel with the greatest of ease.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 September, 2020, 07:59:26 am
IIRC the bowler was invented by some lord or other for his gamekeepers & outdoor staff, the idea being that the hard dome afforded a measure of protection from falling objects such as poachers' bludgeons.  Crooks the world over adopted it - witness the City of London.

(https://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/04929c8590bd6fc9f494a5873190fd590f8e7a73.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 11 September, 2020, 08:11:48 am
Quote from: citoyen
Quote from: Mr Larrington
Quote from: ian
The iconic photo of Billy the Kid has him in a large top hat. He does look like the sort of chap you'd cross the street to avoid though.

I have read that Mr The Kid had syphilis and shot most of his victims in the back.  Even by USAnian standards this makes him an unlikely choice for a hero.
Also surprising ... his great friendship with Socrates...
Oh I don't know.  They were both quite anti-authority / anti-social in their view of society.  More to the point they were both hardened criminals.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 11 September, 2020, 08:30:58 am
That'd be this one?
(http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2010/top10_bandits/billy_kid.jpg)
If not Swindon, then Devizes.
Sunderland style.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 11 September, 2020, 09:36:59 am
The iconic photo of Billy the Kid has him in a large top hat. He does look like the sort of chap you'd cross the street to avoid though.

I have read that Mr The Kid had syphilis and shot most of his victims in the back.  Even by USAnian standards this makes him an unlikely choice for a hero.

I think everyone had syphillis back then. So pretty much like Swindon today.

I've never been to Swindon, I may be doing the people a great disservice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 11 September, 2020, 09:48:30 am
That'd be this one?
(http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2010/top10_bandits/billy_kid.jpg)
If not Swindon, then Devizes.

That's half the denizens of the Fens, brings to life NFN
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 11 September, 2020, 03:12:57 pm
That'd be this one?
(http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2010/top10_bandits/billy_kid.jpg)
If not Swindon, then Devizes.

That's half the denizens of the Fens, brings to life NFN
Only half?  And I have the webbed feet and a Yellerbelly to prove it..........
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 September, 2020, 10:42:04 pm
Alec Guinness once played the role of Adolf Hitler.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 13 September, 2020, 11:20:05 am
IIRC the bowler was invented by some lord or other for his gamekeepers & outdoor staff, the idea being that the hard dome afforded a measure of protection from falling objects such as poachers' bludgeons.  Crooks the world over adopted it - witness the City of London.

(https://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/04929c8590bd6fc9f494a5873190fd590f8e7a73.jpg)

Supervisors in shipyards took to them because it was not unknown for rivetters to drop rivets when working at speed.  Rivets were heated up before use, too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 13 September, 2020, 04:11:10 pm
I don't think I've ever encountered yards in the wild,
That's quite a frightening thing to say when you've been cycling and driving in the UK for decades. Though I suppose it's normal.

I've never driven in the UK though, only the US. That may or may not be less frightening, I think they use yards, but I can't be sure. Road signs r fur shootin'
Okay, I don't know what they have in the US (although I have cycled in LA, but it was a long time ago) but yards are on all sorts of UK road signs. Admittedly being told that a hazard is 100m off isn't terribly urgent at cyclist speed. And yeah, even in Somerset road signs get shot at.

Quote
I did, when googling the matter, discover this source of prime gammon (http://bwma.org.uk). Metric martyrs. I will happily adopt the term if there's genuine killing to be done.
It's all there. Compulsory... Illegal... Conspiracy... Disruptive... Disaster... Without consumers knowing... EC directive... Not a UK government decision...
There must be a loonjob conspiracy template with all these terms on and the loonjob conspiratists just fill in the guff of their choice, whether it's lizard people, 5G or metric martyrdom.

The patron of this lunacy? Kate Hoey

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 September, 2020, 04:40:46 pm
That you're not supposed to use cling film in the microwave.  Upon learning the which, I used the ordinary cover and transformed my recipe* for swift and succulent spare ribs into one for jerky with bones. :'(

* someone else's, purloined
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 13 September, 2020, 04:47:49 pm
That you're not supposed to use cling film in the microwave.

Why ever not? It shouldn’t be in contact with the food, but otherwise it’s ok.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 September, 2020, 10:30:52 pm
Barry Cryer's cover of “The Purple People Eater” was a #1 hit in Finland.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 September, 2020, 10:35:43 pm
That you're not supposed to use cling film in the microwave.

Why ever not? It shouldn’t be in contact with the food, but otherwise it’s ok.

Wait, what?

*googles*

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5mKq06jg32zpzwBTR1sYQp8/is-it-safe-to-use-cling-film-in-the-microwave

I assume unsafe cling film is another one of those brexit dividends that we can look forward to...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 September, 2020, 10:49:16 pm
I knew about the transfer to fats, but I would have thought a potential problem with microwaving cling film, let alone using it in a conventional oven, was the risk of it melting.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 September, 2020, 10:59:38 pm
IME the main problem with microwaving cling film (which I do all the time, somehow having missed this advice) is that you can end up with it stretching to contain a bubble of superheated steam, which will squirt directly at the fingers of whoever is stupid enough to try un-peeling it in that state.  A mistake that I make with tedious regularity.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 14 September, 2020, 09:33:39 am
Clingfilm puts chemicals in food. Oh no, chemicals.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 14 September, 2020, 09:34:55 am
"I'm never going to eat anything with chemicals in." I'm sure someone in the US must have said that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 September, 2020, 10:04:41 am
It was marked on the box of the film I used.  "Unsuitable" (ne convient pas or some such) was the wording.

Any time I've cooked with it I've put a few holes in it to bleed off steam pressure. That avoids melt'n'sag while conserving the bulk of the juices. I suppose it acts as a condenser, so that extra dethly chemikazis can leach out and recycle into the sauce.  I'll have another go this lunchtime and bring ye word again if I change sex before tomorrow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 14 September, 2020, 10:19:12 am
If you ever cook in a pan then your food will be laced with metal ions, the fluorinated non-stick coating, and the burnt carcinogenic residues of previous cooking attempts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 September, 2020, 10:53:33 am
"Oh goody, let's have lots." - Connie Sachs
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 September, 2020, 11:13:33 am
"I'm never going to eat anything with chemicals in." I'm sure someone in the US must have said that.

Gwyneth Paltrow, probably.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 14 September, 2020, 05:50:30 pm
"Oh goody, let's have lots." - Connie Sachs
I hope, when I go to my grave after a few years of dribbling and worse, I shall still remember this milestone in the evolution of the televisual experience in the English-speaking world.  I thought the original series was simply life-changing, and the remake almost as good. I thank you T42 for reminding me.  I thank you JLeC for changing my world.  I thank you George Smiley, Control and the rest.  Simply stunning.

Ranks up there with the attack ships on the shoulder of Orion.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 14 September, 2020, 07:52:51 pm
"I'm never going to eat anything with chemicals in." I'm sure someone in the US must have said that.
Well given chlorinated chicken and Hershey's "chocolate"  that's probably the only safe attitude to have in the US.  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 September, 2020, 08:43:29 pm
It's certainly been said in the UK (https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/E_for_Additives.html)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 14 September, 2020, 09:21:39 pm
It's certainly been said in the UK (https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/E_for_Additives.html)

That link just gets me the Google Books splash page.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 September, 2020, 10:15:25 pm
It's certainly been said in the UK (https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/E_for_Additives.html)

That link just gets me the Google Books splash page.
Sorry. Try this. (https://www.waterstones.com/book/e-for-additives/maurice-hanssen/9780722515624)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 September, 2020, 08:28:58 am
"Oh goody, let's have lots." - Connie Sachs
I hope, when I go to my grave after a few years of dribbling and worse, I shall still remember this milestone in the evolution of the televisual experience in the English-speaking world.  I thought the original series was simply life-changing, and the remake almost as good. I thank you T42 for reminding me.  I thank you JLeC for changing my world.  I thank you George Smiley, Control and the rest.  Simply stunning.

Ranks up there with the attack ships on the shoulder of Orion.

We aim too, please. ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 16 September, 2020, 10:53:56 am
That the KEF Coda III speakers I bought are much bigger than they looked in the pictures on eBay. I really should have looked up the dimensions ....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 September, 2020, 06:23:43 pm
Pope Francis used to be a bouncer in a Buenos Aires nightclub.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: thebicyclist on 18 September, 2020, 09:51:28 am
In Scotland they have 421 words for "snow".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 20 September, 2020, 06:54:08 am
That Fenix (the lamp manufacturer) is pronounced Phoenix, and not Fen-ix
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 20 September, 2020, 07:11:16 am
Pope Francis used to be a bouncer in a Buenos Aires nightclub.
Also..... He only has one lung.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 20 September, 2020, 09:08:01 am
That Butlins still exists.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 20 September, 2020, 02:40:11 pm
That the second largest single use plastic waste culprit is car tyre erosion. Half a million tonnes in Europe alone.  Clever gismo invented by Students to stop this and recover the waste for recycling.
https://www.euronews.com/living/2020/09/20/student-s-invention-to-stop-microplastic-pollution-wins-dyson-award (https://www.euronews.com/living/2020/09/20/student-s-invention-to-stop-microplastic-pollution-wins-dyson-award)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 September, 2020, 03:28:06 pm
The river that flows through Paris and continues to Le Havre should really be called the Yonne.  At Montéreau-Fault-Yonne, where the Seine and Yonne meet, the flow of the Yonne is greater than that of the Seine, which is therefore a tributary and should end there.

I've been through Montéreau-Fault-Yonne three times & been rained on every time.  Miserable hole.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 September, 2020, 03:53:48 pm
The river that flows through Paris and continues to Le Havre should really be called the Yonne.  At Montéreau-Fault-Yonne, where the Seine and Yonne meet, the flow of the Yonne is greater than that of the Seine, which is therefore a tributary and should end there.

I've been through Montéreau-Fault-Yonne three times & been rained on every time.  Miserable hole.

Similar thing with the Mighty Mississippi.  The Ohio River has the greater flow at Cairo* IL, which is also a miserable hole, at least according to Illinois native Pokey LaFarge.

Also, the Fairly Mighty Missouri is longer above its confluence with the Mississippi.

* pronounced “Kay-ro”
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 September, 2020, 04:05:57 pm
The whole North & South thing, that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 20 September, 2020, 04:15:09 pm
That the second largest single use plastic waste culprit is car tyres. Half a million tonnes in Europe alone.  Clever gismo invented by Students to stop this and recover the waste for recycling.
https://www.euronews.com/living/2020/09/20/student-s-invention-to-stop-microplastic-pollution-wins-dyson-award (https://www.euronews.com/living/2020/09/20/student-s-invention-to-stop-microplastic-pollution-wins-dyson-award)

Interesting concept, and definitely a problem that needs solving. What about roads with mud, snow, gravel and other debris on them? Unpaved roads with massive holes in them? I could definitely see this being applied first to large vehicles that stay on paved roads, and spreading from there.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 20 September, 2020, 04:54:14 pm
The river that flows through Paris and continues to Le Havre should really be called the Yonne.  At Montéreau-Fault-Yonne, where the Seine and Yonne meet, the flow of the Yonne is greater than that of the Seine, which is therefore a tributary and should end there.

I've been through Montéreau-Fault-Yonne three times & been rained on every time.  Miserable hole.

Yeahbut.  That would ruin the "In Seine" joke.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 September, 2020, 05:09:20 pm
The river that flows through Paris and continues to Le Havre should really be called the Yonne.  At Montéreau-Fault-Yonne, where the Seine and Yonne meet, the flow of the Yonne is greater than that of the Seine, which is therefore a tributary and should end there.

I've been through Montéreau-Fault-Yonne three times & been rained on every time.  Miserable hole.

Yeahbut.  That would ruin the "In Seine" joke.

If you pronounce it properly it's already buggered.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: philip on 20 September, 2020, 05:09:57 pm
Today will be the first time the Tour de France has been won on a Colnago that is visibly a Colnago -- their only other wins were when rebranded as some other make.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 20 September, 2020, 07:20:28 pm
The river that flows through Paris and continues to Le Havre should really be called the Yonne.  At Montéreau-Fault-Yonne, where the Seine and Yonne meet, the flow of the Yonne is greater than that of the Seine, which is therefore a tributary and should end there.

I've been through Montéreau-Fault-Yonne three times & been rained on every time.  Miserable hole.

Yeahbut.  That would ruin the "In Seine" joke.

If you pronounce it properly it's already buggered.

But we're Brittons.  We don't let silly foreign stuff like correct pronunciation worry us.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: quixoticgeek on 20 September, 2020, 09:40:05 pm
The whole North & South thing, that.

Cartographers for social equality would agree...

J
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Chris S on 24 September, 2020, 09:26:46 pm
I thought I knew things, when it came to Weather.

Then I saw scenes from Iowa recently, and I learnt the word Derecho. Never heard of it before. Looks fucking terrifying.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 September, 2020, 09:28:08 pm
The whole North & South thing, that.

Cartographers for social equality would agree...

J
As would Elizabeth Gaskell (though IMO she might as fittingly have called it Town and Country).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Andrij on 25 September, 2020, 08:05:00 am
I thought I knew things, when it came to Weather.

Then I saw scenes from Iowa recently, and I learnt the word Derecho. Never heard of it before. Looks fucking terrifying.

I grew up in the US, and (relatively) not too far from that part of the country, and I only just learned that word a few weeks ago.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 September, 2020, 08:28:37 am
The river that flows through Paris and continues to Le Havre should really be called the Yonne.  At Montéreau-Fault-Yonne, where the Seine and Yonne meet, the flow of the Yonne is greater than that of the Seine, which is therefore a tributary and should end there.

I've been through Montéreau-Fault-Yonne three times & been rained on every time.  Miserable hole.

Yeahbut.  That would ruin the "In Seine" joke.

If you pronounce it properly it's already buggered.

But we're Brittons.  We don't let silly foreign stuff like correct pronunciation worry us.

Just as well. You won't be allowed to want to after 31st December.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 25 September, 2020, 08:29:23 am
I thought I knew things, when it came to Weather.

Then I saw scenes from Iowa recently, and I learnt the word Derecho. Never heard of it before. Looks fucking terrifying.
Fucking hell! Looks like something done with implausible CGI in a disaster movie.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 25 September, 2020, 09:44:04 am
I thought I knew things, when it came to Weather.

Then I saw scenes from Iowa recently, and I learnt the word Derecho. Never heard of it before. Looks fucking terrifying.
Fucking hell! Looks like something done with implausible CGI in a disaster movie.

The Americans do proper weather, especially in the middle and south bits. Mostly they build trailer parks and wooden houses to tempt them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 September, 2020, 10:48:39 am
I thought I knew things, when it came to Weather.

Then I saw scenes from Iowa recently, and I learnt the word Derecho. Never heard of it before. Looks fucking terrifying.
Fucking hell! Looks like something done with implausible CGI in a disaster movie.

The Americans do proper weather, especially in the middle and south bits. Mostly they build trailer parks and wooden houses to tempt them.

The Ile d'Oléron had a stab at Real Weather™ yesterday:  https://youtu.be/XSWgz3rq6Go

A rather peely-wally effort, though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 September, 2020, 01:03:00 pm
The world 'allocution'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 September, 2020, 08:17:05 pm
That the French word for a BIIINNN – poubelle – comes from Eugène-René Poubelle, who as Préfet of the département of Seine decreed that all property owners must provide BIIINNNSSS for the residents thereof.

And also that Mike Batt and Neville Southall used to be binmen.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 30 September, 2020, 08:22:10 pm
Not today, but on a recent ride I learned that if you go too far east of Carventry, the bins have sportsballs on them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 30 September, 2020, 08:27:52 pm
The world 'allocution'.
My new word of the day is ‘emunctory’.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 October, 2020, 09:12:43 am
The world 'allocution'.
My new word of the day is ‘emunctory’.

You're one-up on Chambers, then. Me too, come to that.  Did you look up the etymology?  Ultimately from mungere, meaning to milk.

All together now, one two three puke!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 01 October, 2020, 10:20:19 am
Did you look up the etymology?  Ultimately from mungere, meaning to milk.

Yes, it's a properly interesting word. The version I saw suggested it's from the Latin meaning to blow your nose, but I suppose you can see how that might in turn be derived from the word meaning to milk.

It was used in a piece written by a non-native English speaker (French) so I wonder if it's been translated literally from something in French that sounds similar. Can't think what that would be though.

Sort of word I might imagine coming across in Fielding or Swift.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 October, 2020, 10:33:19 am
Did you look up the etymology?  Ultimately from mungere, meaning to milk.

Yes, it's a properly interesting word. The version I saw suggested it's from the Latin meaning to blow your nose, but I suppose you can see how that might in turn be derived from the word meaning to milk.

It was used in a piece written by a non-native English speaker (French) so I wonder if it's been translated literally from something in French that sounds similar. Can't think what that would be though.

Sort of word I might imagine coming across in Fielding or Swift.

Yes, I went via ex mungere and looked up mungere on its own.  I just looked up emunctory in French, too: émonctoire, with the same meaning as in English.  I've never run across it and more to the point neither has MrsT, who was a medical translator for years.

I can imagine Rabelais using it with glee.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 01 October, 2020, 10:44:33 am
I just looked up emunctory in French, too: émonctoire, with the same meaning as in English.

There you go, exactly as I thought! If you're interested, the context is a product description for a supplement to support the function of the 'emunctory organs' (kidneys, liver) - an area of healthcare for which I know the French have a special fondness (crise de foie being a favourite ailment).

Quote
I can imagine Rabelais using it with glee.

Oh yes, definitely!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 October, 2020, 10:58:12 am
I just looked up emunctory in French, too: émonctoire, with the same meaning as in English.

There you go, exactly as I thought! If you're interested, the context is a product description for a supplement to support the function of the 'emunctory organs' (kidneys, liver) - an area of healthcare for which I know the French have a special fondness (crise de foie being a favourite ailment).


Oh, it is in England too, only it's known as "God, how many pints did I have last night?"  The French, rather more analytical, localized the seat of the problem long ago, although their approach to causes is less laudable. "Si on boit une bouteille de whiskey et on mange un carré de chocolat on aura une crise de foie. Je crois que c'est le chocolat."

It has amused me for years that ailment is a trivial anagram of aliment
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 01 October, 2020, 11:05:19 am
That the French word for a BIIINNN – poubelle – comes from Eugène-René Poubelle, who as Préfet of the département of Seine decreed that all property owners must provide BIIINNNSSS for the residents thereof.

And also that Mike Batt and Neville Southall used to be binmen.

Mon père est une poubelle de table.
It is one of the (many) delights of the Semaine Federale that garnered us this info. Well, obviously we knew it as true before then, but that nos frères francaises had a perfect phrase for it was the highpoint of that week.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 01 October, 2020, 11:16:24 am
Oh, it is in England too, only it's known as "God, how many pints did I have last night?"  The French, rather more analytical, localized the seat of the problem long ago, although their approach to causes is less laudable. "Si on boit une bouteille de whiskey et on mange un carré de chocolat on aura une crise de foie. Je crois que c'est le chocolat."

It has amused me for years that ailment is a trivial anagram of aliment.

I have long assumed that crise de foie was an existentialist pun on crise de foi, but I may be overthinking it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 01 October, 2020, 11:25:55 am
Thing I learned a couple of weeks ago - a professional TT bike is heavier than a pro road bike. This make sense once explained. Our TT bike is the lightest bike I've ever ridden therefore I had assumed that TT bikes are always lighter then road bikes!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 01 October, 2020, 11:41:17 am
Oh, it is in England too, only it's known as "God, how many pints did I have last night?"  The French, rather more analytical, localized the seat of the problem long ago, although their approach to causes is less laudable. "Si on boit une bouteille de whiskey et on mange un carré de chocolat on aura une crise de foie. Je crois que c'est le chocolat."

It has amused me for years that ailment is a trivial anagram of aliment.

I have long assumed that crise de foie was an existentialist pun on crise de foi, but I may be overthinking it.

Some things work better on paper, n'est-ce pas?!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 October, 2020, 01:07:33 pm
I just looked up emunctory in French, too: émonctoire, with the same meaning as in English.

There you go, exactly as I thought! If you're interested, the context is a product description for a supplement to support the function of the 'emunctory organs' (kidneys, liver) - an area of healthcare for which I know the French have a special fondness (crise de foie being a favourite ailment).

Quote
I can imagine Rabelais using it with glee.

Oh yes, definitely!

Just now I had a thought (it happens), viz that the other derivatives of mungere should also exist in English; so I looked up emunction and found that it means blowing one's nose.  So a bad cold might be called extreme emunction.  Isn't that delightful?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 October, 2020, 01:09:51 pm
That the French word for a BIIINNN – poubelle – comes from Eugène-René Poubelle, who as Préfet of the département of Seine decreed that all property owners must provide BIIINNNSSS for the residents thereof.

And also that Mike Batt and Neville Southall used to be binmen.

Mon père est une poubelle de table.
It is one of the (many) delights of the Semaine Federale that garnered us this info. Well, obviously we knew it as true before then, but that nos frères francaises had a perfect phrase for it was the highpoint of that week.

The word is also slang for car - c'est ça, ta poubelle?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 October, 2020, 11:48:07 am
After the Iran-Contra business, Oliver North's secretary Fawn “Shredder” Hall married Danny Sugerman, the former manager of The Doors.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 October, 2020, 04:25:04 pm
That when the very first Nobel for literature was awarded to Sully Prudhomme rather than Tolstoy, against public expectations, members of the committee wrote to the old man apologising for this. He replied that he was glad, because doubtless the prize money would have encouraged him to do something stupid.

And that in 1968 the Polish secret police were pressing through a contact in the committee for the prize to go to Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert. They seem to have been worried it would be won by another Polish writer, playwright Witold Gombrowicz, who was politically out of favour. In the end it was awarded to Yasunari Kawabate from Japan.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 08 October, 2020, 10:53:27 pm
In 1988 the UK lost the Eurovision song contest by 1 point. The song was called Go, and was written by Bruce Forsyth's daughter. The winners were Switzerland, who were represented by a Canadian. The Canadian was Celine Dion. Why do I have no recollection of this?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 09 October, 2020, 06:54:27 am
Rather sadly, I knew all that...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 October, 2020, 06:52:44 pm
Remember the SheWee? Turns out to be not so recent. Gunter Grass mentions a very similar device in The Flounder. 1977. Back then it cost DM19.80 and fastened by a suction cup. (I expect it's centuries old.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 October, 2020, 06:56:21 pm
Remember the SheWee? Turns out to be not so recent. Gunter Grass mentions a very similar device in The Flounder. 1977. Back then it cost DM19.80 and fastened by a suction cup.

*raises eyebrow*
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 October, 2020, 07:09:23 pm
The novel is heavily historical but completely fictionalized, including the many identifiable historical figures, so I wouldn't place too much stress on the actuality, let alone practicality, of the details.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 11 October, 2020, 09:58:22 pm
St Moritz, the ski resort in Switzerland. Turns out St Moritz was a Roman soldier from the border of Sudan/Egypt who got martyred while refusing to persecute Christians in the area. Whitest part of Europe, named after a black guy.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 12 October, 2020, 06:04:35 pm
That one of the more famous examples of apophenia, Pink Floyd's "Echoes" as a soundtrack to the "Jupiter and Beyond The Infinite" act from "2001 - A Space Odyssey" is pleasant enough but there's no real synchronicity.  Same length* and the mood of the song vaguely matches some scenes, but no "wow" moments.

Try it: https://youtu.be/rn7MmS3vazU

*not on a R2 DVD, which is always 4% too fast
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 12 October, 2020, 10:53:00 pm
St Moritz, the ski resort in Switzerland. Turns out St Moritz was a Roman soldier from the border of Sudan/Egypt who got martyred while refusing to persecute Christians in the area. Whitest part of Europe, named after a black guy.
It was one of the least welcoming looking places I visited in Switzerland, I had 30 minutes between trains, I think I did 't leave the ststion car park.



My discovery of the day
Someone who's spent twice the amount of their life as me working in healthcare IT had never learnt that medics should never be given the need to click more than once or ever touch a scroll bar lest they have a hissy fit.
Said colleague expressed surprise at a function of the system we're writing requiring 3 mouse clicks should be recorded as a "show stopper" UAT issue...

To be fair, he was previously in charge of the intranet sites development, only adminy types have time to use that.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 October, 2020, 11:18:21 pm
Someone who's spent twice the amount of their life as me working in healthcare IT had never learnt that medics should never be given the need to click more than once or ever touch a scroll bar lest they have a hissy fit.
Said colleague expressed surprise at a function of the system we're writing requiring 3 mouse clicks should be recorded as a "show stopper" UAT issue...

A lesson that should apply well beyond healthcare.

If I had my way, application developers would have their mice confiscated for one day a week on general principle.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 October, 2020, 08:45:03 am
Someone who's spent twice the amount of their life as me working in healthcare IT had never learnt that medics should never be given the need to click more than once or ever touch a scroll bar lest they have a hissy fit.
Said colleague expressed surprise at a function of the system we're writing requiring 3 mouse clicks should be recorded as a "show stopper" UAT issue...

A lesson that should apply well beyond healthcare.

If I had my way, application developers would have their mice confiscated for one day a week on general principle.

I suppose medics etc. could even enjoy tabbing between buttons & memorizing CTRL codes.  We could make the machines play early 80s rock at the same time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 13 October, 2020, 09:04:42 am
That one of the more famous examples of apophenia, Pink Floyd's "Echoes" as a soundtrack to the "Jupiter and Beyond The Infinite" act from "2001 - A Space Odyssey" is pleasant enough but there's no real synchronicity.  Same length* and the mood of the song vaguely matches some scenes, but no "wow" moments.

Try it: https://youtu.be/rn7MmS3vazU

*not on a R2 DVD, which is always 4% too fast
There's a similar rumour linking The Floyd's Dark side of the Moon with the film of The Wizard of Oz.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 13 October, 2020, 10:28:09 am
St Moritz, the ski resort in Switzerland. Turns out St Moritz was a Roman soldier from the border of Sudan/Egypt who got martyred while refusing to persecute Christians in the area. Whitest part of Europe, named after a black guy.
Well, St George was from (what is now) Turkey, which is ironic given that the mouth-breathers hanging his flag from their upstairs windows probably voted Brexit in case Muslamic Turkey joined the EU.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 October, 2020, 10:33:42 am
That one of the more famous examples of apophenia, Pink Floyd's "Echoes" as a soundtrack to the "Jupiter and Beyond The Infinite" act from "2001 - A Space Odyssey" is pleasant enough but there's no real synchronicity.  Same length* and the mood of the song vaguely matches some scenes, but no "wow" moments.

Try it: https://youtu.be/rn7MmS3vazU

*not on a R2 DVD, which is always 4% too fast
There's a similar rumour linking The Floyd's Dark side of the Moon with the film of The Wizard of Oz.

And the gap in the Watergate tapes with “Alice's Restaurant”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 15 October, 2020, 06:26:57 pm
Today I learnt that some people refer to the poles of a magnet as "positive" and "negative". How long has this been going on? What's wrong with North and South?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 October, 2020, 07:02:41 pm
Today I learnt that some people refer to the poles of a magnet as "positive" and "negative". How long has this been going on? What's wrong with North and South?

That way lies madness.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 15 October, 2020, 07:09:31 pm
Today I learnt that some people refer to the poles of a magnet as "positive" and "negative". How long has this been going on? What's wrong with North and South?

That way lies madness.
The Poles weren't involved.
They were too busy fighting the Germans.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 15 October, 2020, 10:48:36 pm
Today I learnt that some people refer to the poles of a magnet as "positive" and "negative". How long has this been going on? What's wrong with North and South?
That’s a bit of a loded question.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 20 October, 2020, 01:19:35 pm
Today I learned what a Forstner bit (https://www.rockler.com/learn/value-of-forstner-bits) is.

I'm resizing a kitchen cupboard door - the new fitted oven is larger than the old one, so the shelf above it had to be shifted upwards and a few cm trimmed off the door. This also entails moving the position of the hinge, which means drilling a 35mm flat-bottomed hole to accommodate it. I'm aware of auger bits for drilling wide holes, and self-feed bits for very wide holes, but I've not come across Forstner bits before - they are perfect for this job.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 20 October, 2020, 01:34:27 pm
Today I learned what a Forstner bit (https://www.rockler.com/learn/value-of-forstner-bits) is.

I'm resizing a kitchen cupboard door - the new fitted oven is larger than the old one, so the shelf above it had to be shifted upwards and a few cm trimmed off the door. This also entails moving the position of the hinge, which means drilling a 35mm flat-bottomed hole to accommodate it. I'm aware of auger bits for drilling wide holes, and self-feed bits for very wide holes, but I've not come across Forstner bits before - they are perfect for this job.

Indeed - I have about ten in differing sizes - and if you're talking about Blum hinges* then there's a nifty jig you can get to ensure holes are in the right place for the hinges to work.

The Forstners really come into their own if you use them in a drill press rather than a portable drill.

* Using the word Blum (which is a brand) for the style of hinge
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 20 October, 2020, 02:13:45 pm
What he ^^ said.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 October, 2020, 02:45:52 pm
Fisch wave-cutter Forstners are particularly good.  At least, that's what Fisch say.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 20 October, 2020, 02:51:43 pm
if you're talking about Blum hinges

Indeed I am (and that's another bit of terminology I have learned today, thanks!).

Getting the positioning correct was the part of the job that worried me most, but I was careful with my measuring - besides which, the bracket the hinge attaches to allows a small amount of vertical leeway to spare any blushes.

Quote
The Forstners really come into their own if you use them in a drill press rather than a portable drill.

This is precisely the thought that crossed my mind as soon as I started drilling...

I bought a cheap set of 5 bits from Screwfix for £7.99. They were fine for the job but annoyingly they have a protruding central guide point, which seems to me to rather defeat the object - I had to be very careful not to drill too deep so the point came through the other side. I note that more expensive models have no guide point and are fitted with a depth gauge. Probably not something I'm going to use often enough to make it worth investing in more expensive parts though.

Anyway, job done, door refitted - and I must say I'm pleased with the job. It even closes properly after making some small adjustments to the hinges. If you're looking very carefully, you can just about tell the cut edge of the door isn't perfectly straight. I'll take that.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 20 October, 2020, 03:13:00 pm
if you're talking about Blum hinges

Indeed I am (and that's another bit of terminology I have learned today, thanks!).

Getting the positioning correct was the part of the job that worried me most, but I was careful with my measuring - besides which, the bracket the hinge attaches to allows a small amount of vertical leeway to spare any blushes.

Quote
The Forstners really come into their own if you use them in a drill press rather than a portable drill.

This is precisely the thought that crossed my mind as soon as I started drilling...

I bought a cheap set of 5 bits from Screwfix for £7.99. They were fine for the job but annoyingly they have a protruding central guide point, which seems to me to rather defeat the object - I had to be very careful not to drill too deep so the point came through the other side. I note that more expensive models have no guide point and are fitted with a depth gauge. Probably not something I'm going to use often enough to make it worth investing in more expensive parts though.

Anyway, job done, door refitted - and I must say I'm pleased with the job. It even closes properly after making some small adjustments to the hinges. If you're looking very carefully, you can just about tell the cut edge of the door isn't perfectly straight. I'll take that.  ;D

Have a look at this for stuff on drill bits -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey7crpai5ng    (Forstner is at around 5:30 - but it's all interesting)
- almost all Forstners have a point as that locates the centre of the hole - it's the length of the point below the cutting edge (straight or wavy) that's the key issue for drilling "blind" holes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 20 October, 2020, 03:22:20 pm
- almost all Forstners have a point as that locates the centre of the hole - it's the length of the point below the cutting edge (straight or wavy) that's the key issue for drilling "blind" holes.

Yes - the point on the screwfix ones protrudes more than is ideal for this job.

Some others I was looking at earlier had no point. They looked much better quality, but a) they were expensive, and b) I would have had to wait a few days for delivery and I wanted to get the job done today.

Quote
Have a look at this for stuff on drill bits -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey7crpai5ng

A video about drill bits, eh? That sounds very... boring. ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 20 October, 2020, 05:52:15 pm
- almost all Forstners have a point as that locates the centre of the hole - it's the length of the point below the cutting edge (straight or wavy) that's the key issue for drilling "blind" holes.

Yes - the point on the screwfix ones protrudes more than is ideal for this job.

Some others I was looking at earlier had no point. They looked much better quality, but a) they were expensive, and b) I would have had to wait a few days for delivery and I wanted to get the job done today.

Quote
Have a look at this for stuff on drill bits -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey7crpai5ng

A video about drill bits, eh? That sounds very... boring. ;)

... ah but it augers well . . .   IGMC


Seriously - James a.k.a. Stumpy Nubs in the video does have some very good info on tools and woodwork techniques
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 20 October, 2020, 07:32:54 pm
The song, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" or "Mbube", to give it its original title, was written by a South African in the 1920s.  It's about Shaka the Lion, Warrior King of the Zulus, who fought the armies of the european colonizers.  He, like King Arthur, is supposed not to be dead but only sleeping and will one day awaken and return to lead his people.

Have a listen - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrrQT4WkbNE
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 20 October, 2020, 09:15:19 pm
Was not the original author unacknowledged and therefore denied royalities?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 October, 2020, 11:15:36 am
Continuing the musical theme I learned that former 13th Floor Elevators front man and Austin's answer to Mad Jack McMad Roky Erickson died in May 2019 and I somehow missed it :'(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 21 October, 2020, 02:13:26 pm
- almost all Forstners have a point as that locates the centre of the hole - it's the length of the point below the cutting edge (straight or wavy) that's the key issue for drilling "blind" holes.

Yes - the point on the screwfix ones protrudes more than is ideal for this job.

Some others I was looking at earlier had no point. They looked much better quality, but a) they were expensive, and b) I would have had to wait a few days for delivery and I wanted to get the job done today.

Quote
Have a look at this for stuff on drill bits -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey7crpai5ng

A video about drill bits, eh? That sounds very... boring. ;)
Was that you that the nice Mr Keavney just name checked? Middle Aged Shoutout, Forstner bit fun.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 21 October, 2020, 02:15:59 pm
Was that you that the nice Mr Keavney just name checked? Middle Aged Shoutout, Forstner bit fun.

Might have been.  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 24 October, 2020, 09:05:46 am
That the glass in my oven door isn't tinted. It was just dirty. Student dirty. Mr Muscle could only do so much. I had to take a stanley knife blade to it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nobby on 24 October, 2020, 12:52:58 pm
I've had a letter from 23andme telling me that unlike 83% of their customers I have Neanderthal DNA.
Not sure how I feel about that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 24 October, 2020, 02:06:07 pm
I've had a letter from 23andme telling me that unlike 83% of their customers I have Neanderthal DNA.
Not sure how I feel about that.
Huh ?  :-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 24 October, 2020, 02:47:09 pm
That the glass in my oven door isn't tinted. It was just dirty. Student dirty. Mr Muscle could only do so much. I had to take a stanley knife blade to it.

I bet you feel brilliant now though :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nobby on 24 October, 2020, 04:10:26 pm
I've had a letter from 23andme telling me that unlike 83% of their customers I have Neanderthal DNA.
Not sure how I feel about that.
Huh ?  :-)
Exactly.
Should I be able to ride a bike?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 24 October, 2020, 04:24:40 pm
That the glass in my oven door isn't tinted. It was just dirty. Student dirty. Mr Muscle could only do so much. I had to take a stanley knife blade to it.

I bet you feel brilliant now though :)

Smug, in fact.
 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 24 October, 2020, 05:30:51 pm
Thanks to today's Grauniad prize crossword I've learnt what a snollygoster is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 October, 2020, 06:16:56 pm
Thanks to today's Grauniad prize crossword I've learnt what a snollygoster is.

It's a word specifically forbidden to TV's *** Boulting. (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=112629.msg2412337;topicseen#msg2412337)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cycleman on 24 October, 2020, 06:44:17 pm
I've had a letter from 23andme telling me that unlike 83% of their customers I have Neanderthal DNA.
Not sure how I feel about that.
Huh ?  :-)
Exactly.
Should I be able to ride a bike?
Yes but hunched 😉
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 October, 2020, 10:38:07 am
That women served in the front line on both sides of the 1918-20 Polish-Bolshevik War but, on the Polish side at least, the only items of military uniform made available were boots in smaller sizes. They made do with a mixture of men's jackets etc and civilian clothing. Some fought in skirts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 28 October, 2020, 08:06:18 pm
That Julia Hartley-Brewer isn't a comedian doing a parody act (honestly, she'd almost indistinguishable from the marvellously funny Rosie Holt).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 October, 2020, 11:52:56 pm
Writes for the Daily Fail.  'nuff said.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 29 October, 2020, 12:42:20 am
Someone who's spent twice the amount of their life as me working in healthcare IT had never learnt that medics should never be given the need to click more than once or ever touch a scroll bar lest they have a hissy fit.
Said colleague expressed surprise at a function of the system we're writing requiring 3 mouse clicks should be recorded as a "show stopper" UAT issue...

A lesson that should apply well beyond healthcare.

If I had my way, application developers would have their mice confiscated for one day a week on general principle.

I suppose medics etc. could even enjoy tabbing between buttons & memorizing CTRL codes.  We could make the machines play early 80s rock at the same time.
Forgot I'd posted in here and dingied it.
It's really about writing a decent flowing ui structure.

All they really need is for the form to be componentised ideally saving and moving them onto the next input component with reasonable fanfare followed by a save and a sign off option.

But I suspect that would go down as well as my suggestion that a file with 3000 lines of coldfusion markup isn't clever* and  was the cause of subversion merge hell.

It briefly went down to 2700 lines when I did a bit of refactoring to extract functions to other files for stuff I was changing, but then someone went and wrote new functions to do those things putting the file up to 3250 loc**.

* that's the polite version
** today I found 9 different alert box definitions in one file that all show the same message...

I think I'm just going to have to Boss the merge request approve button when I get us onto git.

This is the rant about colleagues thread yeah?

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fuaran on 30 October, 2020, 03:13:43 pm
That women served in the front line on both sides of the 1918-20 Polish-Bolshevik War but, on the Polish side at least, the only items of military uniform made available were boots in smaller sizes. They made do with a mixture of men's jackets etc and civilian clothing. Some fought in skirts.
Just learnt about the 'Night Witches', an all female bomber regiment in the Soviet Air Force, during WW2. Apparently similar issue with jackets and boots that didn't fit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hbunnet on 30 October, 2020, 03:59:33 pm
My MP's name is David Duguid, one of the 6  in Scotland.
Speaking to a farmer today I learned his surname is pronounced "jewkit" which fits well into local speak. 

I've lived here for > 40 years and would claim to understand the local tongue fairly well.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 October, 2020, 06:44:04 pm
That women served in the front line on both sides of the 1918-20 Polish-Bolshevik War but, on the Polish side at least, the only items of military uniform made available were boots in smaller sizes. They made do with a mixture of men's jackets etc and civilian clothing. Some fought in skirts.
Just learnt about the 'Night Witches', an all female bomber regiment in the Soviet Air Force, during WW2. Apparently similar issue with jackets and boots that didn't fit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches
Quote
Mechanics Raisa Kharitonova and Tamara Frolova were sentenced to ten years of imprisonment for dismantling a flare (used by navigators to illuminate bombing targets) and using the small silk parachute to sew undergarments.
!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 02 November, 2020, 03:09:34 pm
"Some of the same genes that cause prostate cancer are shared with breast cancer. If you have a mother or sister with breast cancer, it does increase your risk of prostate cancer. So you can actually inherit a gene from your mother that increases your risk of a male cancer."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 02 November, 2020, 03:29:48 pm
"Some of the same genes that cause prostate cancer are shared with breast cancer. If you have a mother or sister with breast cancer, it does increase your risk of prostate cancer. So you can actually inherit a gene from your mother that increases your risk of a male cancer."

To be fair, you inherit half your genes for everything from your mother.

These two genes are BRCA1 and BRCA2 (they produce two unrelated proteins involved in chromosomal and DNA repair). When faulty they cause a high risk of developing certain cancers in certain tissues, yet it's not absolute, and the mystery is why generally there's only a risk of specific cancer. Why not a general effect? If have a BRCA fault, it doesn't increase your risk for bowel or blood or lung cancer.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 02 November, 2020, 04:09:26 pm
I read somewhere recently that most* men these days die with prostate cancer - one of the side effects of an ageing population, and the risk of prostate cancer being high enough that it will get all of us eventually. But obviously that's not the same as dying from prostate cancer.


*might not actually have been <most>, but it was <significant number>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 02 November, 2020, 04:21:32 pm
Yes, we're mostly riddled with cancers, fortunately, the majority of them sit around and do much other than slowly reproduce themselves (generally, a cancer cell is one that's not doing a good job of following the rules). By the age of 80, over 80% of men will have cancerous cells in their prostate. Generally, if you look for cancerous cells, you will find them. This is of significant clinical relevance, especially in the context of screening, because it may lead to medical interventions – serious medical interventions like surgery – that are not actually necessary. Or drug treatments that kill these slow and dull cancerous cells and leave behind the aggressive and metatastic cells. These then have free rein.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 02 November, 2020, 04:58:03 pm
That the UK police have their own air force.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 02 November, 2020, 05:25:10 pm
That the phrase "in the offing" has a nautical origin. The offing is the part of the sea that can be seen from the land but excluding the nearmost part. So if a ship was in the offing then it would be arriving soonish but not immediately.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 02 November, 2020, 05:46:39 pm
Here's a few more - https://www.crewseekers.net/notices/three-sheets-wind-nautical-slang-common-usage/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 November, 2020, 06:20:39 pm
That the Nazis banned the novels of Sax Rohmer* because they assumed he was Jewish.

* born Arthur Ward, in Birmingham, to Irish parents
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 02 November, 2020, 11:04:43 pm
* born Arthur Ward, in Birmingham, to Irish parents
Him, me and Dan Martin.
Select.
 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 03 November, 2020, 09:39:23 pm
My MP's name is David Duguid, one of the 6  in Scotland.
Speaking to a farmer today I learned his surname is pronounced "jewkit" which fits well into local speak. 

I've lived here for > 40 years and would claim to understand the local tongue fairly well.

I could've told you that  :) I wonder if he remembers the ghastly school song  :hand:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hbunnet on 03 November, 2020, 10:01:32 pm
My MP's name is David Duguid, one of the 6  in Scotland.
Speaking to a farmer today I learned his surname is pronounced "jewkit" which fits well into local speak. 

I've lived here for > 40 years and would claim to understand the local tongue fairly well.

I could've told you that  :) I wonder if he remembers the ghastly school song  :hand:

I had heard the local name I just hadn't connected the two alternative pronunciations with the same person. I've been chuckling about my mistake all weekend.
I dread to think of which school but probably not Phd Academy
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 03 November, 2020, 11:06:45 pm
My MP's name is David Duguid, one of the 6  in Scotland.
Speaking to a farmer today I learned his surname is pronounced "jewkit" which fits well into local speak. 

I've lived here for > 40 years and would claim to understand the local tongue fairly well.

I could've told you that  :) I wonder if he remembers the ghastly school song  :hand:

I had heard the local name I just hadn't connected the two alternative pronunciations with the same person. I've been chuckling about my mistake all weekend.
I dread to think of which school but probably not Phd Academy

It's on his Wikinaccurate page. https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=55969.msg1145034#msg1145034 also refers*.






*First hit when I used a FISE.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hbunnet on 04 November, 2020, 09:55:56 am
Thanks Pingu, I'm not sure my life has been enhanced.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: darkpoint on 04 November, 2020, 02:19:29 pm
Sharks are older than trees!

Apparently there where sharks 450 million years ago, and trees have only been about for 350 million years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 04 November, 2020, 03:07:20 pm
From another thread:
Outwith is a perfectly cromulent word.

My memory is playing tricks on me. I could have sworn "It's a perfectly cromulent word" was from the dictionary episode in Blackadder the Third, but I looked it up to check and it turns out the line was first used in an episode of The Simpsons in 1996, and was coined for an in-joke among the show runners, along with "embiggen".

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/what-does-cromulent-mean

Never really been into the Simpsons so that's not an episode I've knowingly seen.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Greenbank on 04 November, 2020, 03:15:31 pm
...I could have sworn "It's a perfectly cromulent word" was from the dictionary episode in Blackadder the Third,...

https://blackadderquotes.com/blackadder-series-3-episode-2-ink-and-incapability-full-script
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 04 November, 2020, 03:16:08 pm
From another thread:
Outwith is a perfectly cromulent word.

My memory is playing tricks on me. I could have sworn "It's a perfectly cromulent word" was from the dictionary episode in Blackadder the Third, but I looked it up to check and it turns out the line was first used in an episode of The Simpsons in 1996, and was coined for an in-joke among the show runners, along with "embiggen".

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/what-does-cromulent-mean

Never really been into the Simpsons so that's not an episode I've knowingly seen.

I think we did the same bit of web based research. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 November, 2020, 07:11:04 pm
That Chumbawamba stole the chorus of “Timebomb” off a Buffalo Springfield track :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 06 November, 2020, 10:37:34 pm
That Drax is in North Yorkshire.
Always (lazily it turns out) assumed it was borderline East/West
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 09 November, 2020, 10:34:09 am
Kamala is one of many sanskrit names for a Lotus. 

From : http://jayarava.blogspot.com/2018/02/lotus-synonyms-in-sanskrit.html

"The word padma is probably the most generic name for the lotus. It simply means lotus. Etymologically, it probably derives from √pad, "step", with the suffix -ma (Cf. dharma from √dhṛ + ma). Kamala is also frequently used but, strictly speaking, means "pale-red" (i.e., pink) or "rose-coloured". Clearly, it comes from the varying pinkness of the flower."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 09 November, 2020, 03:53:46 pm
That Drax is in North Yorkshire.
Always (lazily it turns out) assumed it was borderline East/West

That surprises me... But that's partly because I was getting Drax and Ferrybridge mixed up in my mind... the cooling towers at Ferrybridge are what I used to see as we came off the M1 on the way to visit my gran in Pontefract. IIRC, Drax was the one you could see from the train en route for a day trip from Pontefract to Bridlington.

Looking at the map, I'm still surprised to learn Drax is in North Yorkshire. It's further south than Leeds! That's messing with my head.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 November, 2020, 08:02:17 pm
As anyone who's ever cycled the seemingly endless road up from Thorne into a wet againsterly knows, Drax isn't so much a place as a state of mind.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 09 November, 2020, 08:21:26 pm
As anyone who's ever cycled the seemingly endless road up from Thorne into a wet againsterly knows, Drax isn't so much a place as a state of mind.

I got as far as Goole services before I turned round and rode back the other way.

Admittedly, this was planned, being the route of the Flatlands 600. And actually, come to think of it, that didn't go through Thorne but passed somewhere nearer Scunthorpe IIRC.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 10 November, 2020, 09:59:38 am
That Beck and Call derives from 14th Century Beckon and Call and that Beck is only used in this singular context.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2020, 10:25:06 pm
That just as criminals in the Christian world used to be able to claim sanctuary in a church, so runaway slaves in the Roman empire could claim asylum by holding on to the statue of a god or emperor
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 November, 2020, 11:01:11 am
Canson 70 g/m² tracing paper works in a laser printer. Ouf. I was half expecting the good old crackle'n'crumple, followed by a hot niff and maybe a wisp of smoke.

The toner stays on the paper, too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 November, 2020, 12:43:35 pm
Canson 70 g/m² tracing paper works in a laser printer. Ouf. I was half expecting the good old crackle'n'crumple, followed by a hot niff and maybe a wisp of smoke.

The toner stays on the paper, too.

*files this factoid away at back of brain for the day it becomes useful*
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 November, 2020, 01:10:27 pm
Canson 70 g/m² tracing paper works in a laser printer. Ouf. I was half expecting the good old crackle'n'crumple, followed by a hot niff and maybe a wisp of smoke.

The toner stays on the paper, too.

*files this factoid away at back of brain for the day it becomes useful*

YMMV & no responsibility accepted.  My printer is an HP LaserJet Pro MFP M127fn.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 13 November, 2020, 07:16:08 am
"Dog and pony show" is a colloquial term which has come to mean a highly promoted, often over-staged performance, presentation, or event designed to sway or convince opinion for political, or less often, commercial ends.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 13 November, 2020, 07:22:32 am
Drax is the Anglicised form of dreich.

Dreich - Wet, dull, gloomy, dismal, dreary or any combination of these. Scottish weather at its most miserable. The “ch” is pronounced as in Scots loch or German ac
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 13 November, 2020, 07:56:14 am
Dreich - Wet, dull, gloomy, dismal, dreary or any combination of these. Scottish weather at its most miserable. The “ch” is pronounced as in Scots loch or German ac
Also epitomised on any wet Sunday afternoon in mid November in Blaenau Ffestiniog, surrounded by the dark grey slate tips.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 November, 2020, 08:02:53 am
Drax is the Anglicised form of dreich.

Dreich - Wet, dull, gloomy, dismal, dreary or any combination of these. Scottish weather at its most miserable. The “ch” is pronounced as in Scots loch or German ac

It certainly looks that way: https://opendomesday.org/place/SE6726/drax/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 13 November, 2020, 09:19:53 am
"Dog and pony show" is a colloquial term which has come to mean a highly promoted, often over-staged performance, presentation, or event designed to sway or convince opinion for political, or less often, commercial ends.

....featuring large in my, and I dare say Ian's, day to day work life as well as any other unfortunate soul who has acquired "thought leader" somewhere in their title.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 13 November, 2020, 10:02:54 am
Trust me, it's not improved now I wear a hat that reads Product Strategy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 13 November, 2020, 11:28:07 am
'Thought leader' is not the kind of role I would like to hold, but I wouldn't mind being a "Thought manager". I just did a quick google to see if such a job exists, and I found a blog about how managers should aspire to be "Thought partners" rather than micro-managers...  :sick:

http://thecontextofthings.com/2017/03/14/thought-partner/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 13 November, 2020, 11:44:51 am
'Thought leader' is not the kind of role I would like to hold,

You know what it means, do you? Please tell me, coz I don't

srsly, I have no idea, it is a title I blagged to help maintain my favoured position of nominally in charge of my own destiny with the next corporate slash and burn which, with fabulous timing as ever, has just been declared. It is a sign of the times that the (partial) news is tucked away towards the bottom of The Register's front page.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 13 November, 2020, 11:46:18 am
'Thought leader' is not the kind of role I would like to hold, but I wouldn't mind being a "Thought manager". I just did a quick google to see if such a job exists, and I found a blog about how managers should aspire to be "Thought partners" rather than micro-managers...  :sick:

http://thecontextofthings.com/2017/03/14/thought-partner/

"Your mind to my mind... your thoughts to my thoughts..."

Urgh, nope.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 13 November, 2020, 11:53:49 am
You know what it means, do you? Please tell me, coz I don't

Well, I can't claim to know but I've long assumed it was just a modish way of describing a kind of role that has existed for a long time, that might previously have gone under other titles such as "Creative director" or "Editorial consultant" (make up your own job title to suit the context).

Job titles are rarely meaningful, I find.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 November, 2020, 11:56:50 am
I have just learned that the first deployment of the USAF's F-22 fighters from Hawaii to Okinawa had to turn back when the aircraft’s software proved incapable of changing gear when crossing the International Date Line :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 13 November, 2020, 11:58:14 am
I liked being a Thought Leader, I got to write papers and make pretty infographics of complicated things (that weren't very exciting), and flutter around the world with a generous expense account talking to people and presenting at conferences and meetings. I reported to no one in particular and had no targets. Unfortunately, it's one of those roles that didn't directly make money. Why can't the salespeople do that? they'd bleat on the mothership bridge. Because they're salespeople, I imagine.

So they started to clamp down on budgets and approvals, until it became a bit pointless since I couldn't do much. Basically, they evicted me from the role with strategic frustration. I got tired of arguing about it. Cunning. Alas, I'm was too expensive for redundancy, so they gave me a new hat and a pay rise, and thus now I work in Strategic Product Command. I still have Tidy Hair™ though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 13 November, 2020, 12:47:19 pm
That 10% of the Population were slaves at the time of the Doomsday survey.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 November, 2020, 12:56:52 pm
That 10% of the Population were slaves at the time of the Doomsday survey.

Is that in addition to serfs or counting serfs as slaves?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 13 November, 2020, 12:58:20 pm
Slaves as slaves methinks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 13 November, 2020, 04:03:29 pm
Who Mr Prawo Jazdy is.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7899171.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7899171.stm)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 November, 2020, 04:27:36 pm
Who Mr Prawo Jazdy is.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7899171.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7899171.stm)
That's given me a laugh!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 13 November, 2020, 05:20:09 pm
As anyone who's ever cycled the seemingly endless road up from Thorne into a wet againsterly knows, Drax isn't so much a place as a state of mind.

I got as far as Goole services before I turned round and rode back the other way.

Admittedly, this was planned, being the route of the Flatlands 600. And actually, come to think of it, that didn't go through Thorne but passed somewhere nearer Scunthorpe IIRC.

misread that as Google Services

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 November, 2020, 12:49:55 pm
Quote from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teanu_(island)
The latitude and longitude coordinates of the virtual cycling world of Watopia on the Zwift cycling platform coincide with this island, and websites such as Strava therefore show Zwift rides overlain on a map of Teanu even though Teanu has no roads and rides seem to frequently cross between water and land.

I had wondered what was going on with the weird maps of people's computer game rides.  They should have used the complex plane or something.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 15 November, 2020, 03:15:23 pm
That The Guardian has a chocolate column.
This could be expensive both financially and calorifically.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 15 November, 2020, 03:28:57 pm
That The Guardian has a chocolate column.
This could be expensive both financially and calorifically.

Coincidentally, my wife commented that she never reads the Chocolate column (which has been running for a while). Neither do I.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 15 November, 2020, 04:03:14 pm
That The Guardian has a chocolate column.
This could be expensive both financially and calorifically.

Is that the same as the US politics column?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 15 November, 2020, 05:11:11 pm
Quote from: Ham
Quote from: Mrs Pingu
That The Guardian has a chocolate column.
This could be expensive both financially and calorifically.

Is that the same as the US politics column?
That would be the Chocolate Fireguard column.  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mllePB on 15 November, 2020, 07:03:42 pm
This week I learnt that fly grazing is a thing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 15 November, 2020, 07:10:26 pm
That the porters at Lloyd’s of London are called waiters, in a nod to the origins of the insurance business in a coffee house.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 16 November, 2020, 09:05:24 pm
Putting a fly sticker strategically on a urinal can cut toilet cleaning costs by 8%, due to the reduced spillage when men have something to aim at. I can only assume places like Australia where there can be plenty of flies in toilets, the cost of toilet cleaning is higer due to the massive number of targets of opportunity
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 16 November, 2020, 09:44:38 pm
At the weekend rather than today: The spoingy socket on a fluorescent light fitting is referred to as a "tombstone".

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 16 November, 2020, 09:59:55 pm
Putting a fly sticker strategically on a urinal can cut toilet cleaning costs by 8%, due to the reduced spillage when men have something to aim at. I can only assume places like Australia where there can be plenty of flies in toilets, the cost of toilet cleaning is higer due to the massive number of targets of opportunity


The urinals in the Victorian toilet in The Hayes (Cardiff) had targets (painted on before glazing) at the point of least splashage.

Some urinals of the same era had pictures of bees under the glaze; the Latin word for bee is apis... such wit!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 17 November, 2020, 07:40:48 am
If you happen to go to/through Garstang in Lancashire call  into Barton Grange Garden Centre - the ultimate urinal destination.

See  https://live.staticflickr.com/8546/8668399302_54b4685321_b.jpg   (Google "Barton Grange" and select images and you'll see a whole range - washbasins too in the same styles)

My daughter advised making a visit to the gents . ..  (I assume on information from her husband?)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 November, 2020, 08:08:09 am
Putting a fly sticker strategically on a urinal can cut toilet cleaning costs by 8%, due to the reduced spillage when men have something to aim at. I can only assume places like Australia where there can be plenty of flies in toilets, the cost of toilet cleaning is higer due to the massive number of targets of opportunity


The urinals in the Victorian toilet in The Hayes (Cardiff) had targets (painted on before glazing) at the point of least splashage.

Some urinals of the same era had pictures of bees under the glaze; the Latin word for bee is apis... such wit!

And the glaze on the target is usually thicker than elsewhere.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 17 November, 2020, 06:45:11 pm
The reason why there was no Jaguar A-type or B-Type...

Quote from: Mr Larrington
The C-type was officially the XK120-C, where “C” stands for “Competition”.

I knew the first part, just didn't know the C actually stood for something!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 18 November, 2020, 02:12:29 pm
My father took his old Anglia van to a mate's garage to have some work done. He came back in car - XK120! Couldn't shut the garage door as the rear end stuck out. Neighbours stopped talking to us (not all of them) then were shamefaced 2 days later when the Anglia appeared.
I didn't have a ride in the Jag as dad hardly dared to use it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: darkpoint on 19 November, 2020, 01:44:19 pm
My father took his old Anglia van to a mate's garage to have some work done. He came back in car - XK120! Couldn't shut the garage door as the rear end stuck out. Neighbours stopped talking to us (not all of them) then were shamefaced 2 days later when the Anglia appeared.
I didn't have a ride in the Jag as dad hardly dared to use it.

I have sat in a XK120, I always thought they looked awesome.  (particularly liked the headlights)  Driving them is apparently interesting as visibility is compromised.
The one I was in sounded like a box of spanners being shaken about, no idea if that is standard.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 19 November, 2020, 02:37:50 pm
"Dog and pony show" is a colloquial term which has come to mean a highly promoted, often over-staged performance, presentation, or event designed to sway or convince opinion for political, or less often, commercial ends.
Originally, I believe, a dismissive term for a travelling circus whose advertised animal acts did not live up to expectations.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 November, 2020, 12:22:58 pm
From a van belonging to a supplier of windows I learned that “Dovey* is gay LOL”.

* Or possibly Davey.  The author's finger-writing was not exactly the stuff of illuminated manuscripts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 20 November, 2020, 05:42:18 pm
A sloth is in the same family of mammals as anteaters and armadillos, and not as I had previously thought a lazy monkey (or the hippy variant of a monkey)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 20 November, 2020, 06:55:33 pm
Another mammal fact for you: all the different species of porcupines aren't even vaguely related. Cuts down on the wedding invites.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 21 November, 2020, 09:13:40 am
Another mammal fact for you: all the different species of porcupines aren't even vaguely related. Cuts down on the wedding invites invitations.
"We don't invite those pricks..."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 23 November, 2020, 10:32:12 pm
If you happen to go to/through Garstang in Lancashire call  into Barton Grange Garden Centre - the ultimate urinal destination.

See  https://live.staticflickr.com/8546/8668399302_54b4685321_b.jpg   (Google "Barton Grange" and select images and you'll see a whole range - washbasins too in the same styles)

My daughter advised making a visit to the gents . ..  (I assume on information from her husband?)

Dobbie's Garden Centre, Furryboottoon:

(https://live.staticflickr.com/3926/14687653611_6ed5953a70_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/onU4H6)
IMG_3571 (https://flic.kr/p/onU4H6) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 23 November, 2020, 10:45:02 pm
Aha! Florinals.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 November, 2020, 11:18:05 pm
Aha! Florinals.
:D :D :D :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 24 November, 2020, 07:46:01 am
If you happen to go to/through Garstang in Lancashire call  into Barton Grange Garden Centre - the ultimate urinal destination.

See  https://live.staticflickr.com/8546/8668399302_54b4685321_b.jpg   (Google "Barton Grange" and select images and you'll see a whole range - washbasins too in the same styles)

My daughter advised making a visit to the gents . ..  (I assume on information from her husband?)

Dobbie's Garden Centre, Furryboottoon:

(https://live.staticflickr.com/3926/14687653611_6ed5953a70_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/onU4H6)
IMG_3571 (https://flic.kr/p/onU4H6) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr

Ah, that's worth a visit (I had to Google to find out that it was Aberdeen . .  and in the process found a website with the nicknames of lots of Scottish towns and cities)

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 24 November, 2020, 07:59:33 am
My father took his old Anglia van to a mate's garage to have some work done. He came back in car - XK120! Couldn't shut the garage door as the rear end stuck out. Neighbours stopped talking to us (not all of them) then were shamefaced 2 days later when the Anglia appeared.
I didn't have a ride in the Jag as dad hardly dared to use it.

I have sat in a XK120, I always thought they looked awesome.  (particularly liked the headlights)  Driving them is apparently interesting as visibility is compromised.
The one I was in sounded like a box of spanners being shaken about, no idea if that is standard.

Don't say that, the XK 120 is my dream car, I just love those curves.

Or you could persuade me for a Daimler Dart
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 November, 2020, 08:47:58 am
If you happen to go to/through Garstang in Lancashire call  into Barton Grange Garden Centre - the ultimate urinal destination.

See  https://live.staticflickr.com/8546/8668399302_54b4685321_b.jpg   (Google "Barton Grange" and select images and you'll see a whole range - washbasins too in the same styles)

My daughter advised making a visit to the gents . ..  (I assume on information from her husband?)

Dobbie's Garden Centre, Furryboottoon:

(https://live.staticflickr.com/3926/14687653611_6ed5953a70_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/onU4H6)
IMG_3571 (https://flic.kr/p/onU4H6) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr

The autoflush needs attention.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 November, 2020, 08:53:36 am
Meanwhile I have learnt that the US pronunciation of oregano, which has always made me wince, is closer to its oríginal Spanish, Latin and ancient Greek pronunciation than ours.  Not that I'm going to change, though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 November, 2020, 09:14:45 am
Meanwhile I have learnt that the US pronunciation of oregano, which has always made me wince, is closer to its oríginal Spanish, Latin and ancient Greek pronunciation than ours.  Not that I'm going to change, though.
I have a feeling this is often the case. Perhaps due to USanians thinking imported words are foreign whereas we Ukanians think because we're using them in English, they're English? We've surely had a thread on this...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 November, 2020, 10:05:11 am
Meanwhile I have learnt that the US pronunciation of oregano, which has always made me wince, is closer to its oríginal Spanish, Latin and ancient Greek pronunciation than ours.  Not that I'm going to change, though.
I have a feeling this is often the case. Perhaps due to USanians thinking imported words are foreign whereas we Ukanians think because we're using them in English, they're English? We've surely had a thread on this...

Or the USAnians having large populations of Italians and Hispanics to put them right.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 24 November, 2020, 11:40:49 am
My MP's name is David Duguid, one of the 6  in Scotland.
Speaking to a farmer today I learned his surname is pronounced "jewkit" which fits well into local speak. 

I've lived here for > 40 years and would claim to understand the local tongue fairly well.
Ye need tae gie the caledonia bank a ca'

https://youtu.be/m1832rkuNis

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 24 November, 2020, 05:36:37 pm
Who (what) David Agnew was.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 25 November, 2020, 08:35:33 pm
The origin of the word tyre.  (Sorry if I am the only person not to have realised this.)

The iron band around the wheel that tied it together.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 November, 2020, 11:36:29 am
That “Wild Side Of Life” was not an original by teh Mitey QUO at all, after DJ Random played a version at me by a Ms J Joplin.  Ms Joplin was already dead well before teh QUO's version broke cover.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 26 November, 2020, 12:50:28 pm
The origin of the word tyre.  (Sorry if I am the only person not to have realised this.)

The iron band around the wheel that tied it together.

Never heard that one before. Just looked it up* - apparently etymologically linked to 'attire'. Would never have guessed that!


*whenever I read an interesting fact on the internet, even if I trust the person quoting it, I look for an independent source for verification. It's so easy to get caught out otherwise...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 26 November, 2020, 03:56:02 pm
The origin of the word tyre.  (Sorry if I am the only person not to have realised this.)

The iron band around the wheel that tied it together.

So, you watched The Repair Shop too? 

- being pedantic the wheelmake bloke's use of the bandsaw wasn't too good, the upper bearing on the blade should be just above the surface of the work-piece . . . he had a good 3 or 4" of space - not lethal but reduces stability on the blade.  Just saying.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 November, 2020, 08:56:37 am
Moth fur is acoustic camouflage to hide them from bat sonar.  Thus readeth out MrsT from summat on her computer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 27 November, 2020, 08:58:27 am
The origin of the word tyre.  (Sorry if I am the only person not to have realised this.)

The iron band around the wheel that tied it together.

So, you watched The Repair Shop too? 

- being pedantic the wheelmake bloke's use of the bandsaw wasn't too good, the upper bearing on the blade should be just above the surface of the work-piece . . . he had a good 3 or 4" of space - not lethal but reduces stability on the blade.  Just saying.
Being an avid viewer of Engels Coach Shop on YT, and seeing how much specialist kit he has to build a wheel, I was surprised that they could attempt to build a wheel in the Repair Shop.  I think they had some outside kit too that we didn't see - like the tenoning machine they need to put the tenons on the spokes, and the dividing head to put the mortices in the hub.

Whatever, RS has to be the best programme for years.  Long may it continue.  If only for my weekly fix of Suzie......
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 27 November, 2020, 09:39:05 am
  If only for my weekly fix of Suzie......

I think that belongs in the "You know you're middle aged when..." thread  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 27 November, 2020, 10:43:01 am
The origin of the word tyre.  (Sorry if I am the only person not to have realised this.)

The iron band around the wheel that tied it together.

So, you watched The Repair Shop too? 

- being pedantic the wheelmake bloke's use of the bandsaw wasn't too good, the upper bearing on the blade should be just above the surface of the work-piece . . . he had a good 3 or 4" of space - not lethal but reduces stability on the blade.  Just saying.
Being an avid viewer of Engels Coach Shop on YT, and seeing how much specialist kit he has to build a wheel, I was surprised that they could attempt to build a wheel in the Repair Shop.  I think they had some outside kit too that we didn't see - like the tenoning machine they need to put the tenons on the spokes, and the dividing head to put the mortices in the hub.

Whatever, RS has to be the best programme for years.  Long may it continue.  If only for my weekly fix of Suzie......
The Engels Coach Shop steel tyre (or tire) heating up gadget is the best. Two oxyacetylene(?) torches playing on a slowly rotating steel tyre, powered by goodness knows what, while Mr Engels wanders around doing other stuffs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 27 November, 2020, 11:53:37 am
I  have learned about Martin "Sinker" mahogany

https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/news/140610/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 November, 2020, 02:22:36 pm
I  have learned about Martin "Sinker" mahogany

https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/news/140610/
I was expecting something like pernambuco!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 November, 2020, 06:47:48 pm
I learned that Tom of Finland was the art director at the Helsinki office of McCann Erickson long after his homoerotic art became [famous|notorious].
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 27 November, 2020, 08:24:56 pm
  If only for my weekly fix of Suzie......

I think that belongs in the "You know you're middle aged when..." thread  ;)
;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 27 November, 2020, 10:49:20 pm
I learned that someone else has heard of Tom of Finland.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 28 November, 2020, 09:03:27 pm
That Monopoly is far older than I thought, and was deigned to teach of the evils of capitalism

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-history-monopoly-capitalist-game-leftwing-origins (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-history-monopoly-capitalist-game-leftwing-origins)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 28 November, 2020, 11:16:14 pm
That explains why every game ends in conflict - I've always hated it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 November, 2020, 10:25:42 am
Nick Lowe's middle name is Drain :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 30 November, 2020, 11:05:51 pm
I've been a massive fan of Stereolab for many years. But until today it never even occurred to me to wonder who - or what - Jenny Ondioline is or was...

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

Presumably the song was so called because they used one on the recording, right? Er...

Quote
English-French band Stereolab, known for their use of early analogue synthesizers, recorded a song called "Jenny Ondioline", which was released on the 1993 album Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements, as well as the 1993 EP Jenny Ondioline. However, the song's lyrics have nothing to do with the Ondioline or Georges Jenny, and the band does not use an Ondioline on the track (or elsewhere on the album).

Jean-Jacques Perrey was apparently the world's foremost ondioline virtuoso - you can hear his playing on this utterly charming Charles Trénet track:
https://jean-jacquesperrey.bandcamp.com/track/l-me-des-po-tes
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 December, 2020, 06:41:33 pm
The intricate subdivisions of the pre-decimal Cypriot pound.
Quote
Initially the Cyprus pound was divided into 20 shillings, in common with its United Kingdom counterpart. However, unlike the United Kingdom shilling, the Cyprus shilling was divided into 9 piastres, thus establishing a nomenclature link to the earlier Ottoman currency. The piastre was itself divided into 40 para (like the kuruş). The para denomination did not appear on any coins or banknotes but was used on postage stamps.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 04 December, 2020, 05:13:43 pm
That “relief rainfall” is properly “orographic rainfall”. That’ll stand me in good stead.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 December, 2020, 06:08:05 pm
That Manon Lescaut is a novel as well as an opera. I expect there's a whole subcategory of 'operas based on novels'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 04 December, 2020, 06:22:42 pm
For reasons I can't recall I went to see the opera, and then, about two years later at Uni (where I was reading nuts and bolts and stuff), was able to seriously impress a rather lovely lady who was reading French by being able to discuss the plot of her current study piece.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 December, 2020, 06:30:12 pm
There was a boy at my school whose surname was Paccini, so it took me years to see Puccini as not a weird spelling.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 December, 2020, 06:32:53 pm
Apparently there are three operas all based on the same novel! The other two by people I've never heard of.  :-\
Quote
Manon Lescaut is an opera or opéra comique in 3 acts by Daniel Auber to a libretto by Eugène Scribe, and, like Puccini's Manon Lescaut and Massenet's Manon, is based on the Abbé Prévost's novel Manon Lescaut (1731). Auber's version is nowadays the least-performed of the three.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manon_Lescaut_(Auber)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 12 December, 2020, 09:30:27 pm
That it is possible to sufficiently deplete the O2 in a room by closing door such that the flame on my cooker can go from blue to yellow/orange. Wife was cooking, I was chopping, kitchen door closed to coral No1 Son.

I'd never seen that before and thinking it might be a problem with the CV of the supply or something called the gas emergency number. Chappy turned up, had a natter and said it was not unusual, and that another source of the same issue is excess odorant in the system. 

Logical once explained, but even having done bits of work in that industry it had never ocurred to me

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 December, 2020, 09:44:29 pm
I've managed to do that by applying ultra-violence to a nearly-empty container of salt in order to get to the dregs that weren't finding the hole in the lid.  Put enough salt dust into the air that the cooker flame went sodium orange.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 12 December, 2020, 09:56:59 pm
This wasn't just the "I've nudged a burner out of alignment" it was all burners, and ongoing which made me call. I don't fuck around with either gas or electric.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 13 December, 2020, 06:03:24 pm
There is a cheese called Pavé Cobble. Ideal for lovers of the classic races. Must get some for Xmas.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 13 December, 2020, 08:08:53 pm
That explains why every game ends in conflict - I've always hated it.

We never played Monopoly for long enough to reach the end.  It's too boring.

Today from google I learned that on Zwift I'll know when I am drafting someone when my avatar sits up.  News to me, I am still getting the hang of drafting in a virtual world.

This wasn't just the "I've nudged a burner out of alignment" it was all burners, and ongoing which made me call. I don't fuck around with either gas or electric.

Our gas cooker is slowly ceasing to work.  It is incredibly ancient and pre-decimal so now we have to buy an entire new kitchen because nothing now available will fit in the space it occupies.  Just as well I bought the turbo trainer before that happened.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 December, 2020, 11:12:59 am
In 2011, former Iron Maiden singer Paul Di'Anno got eight months for benefit fraud.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 16 December, 2020, 01:10:44 pm
That there is a website called Cheese.com

It is about cheese, cheese and wine parings and all dairy comestibles.

That's my afternoon gone!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TimC on 16 December, 2020, 01:18:05 pm
Never pare wine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 16 December, 2020, 02:28:37 pm
That for most of 1811 and 1812 my Royal Marine great great great grandfather James Entwistle* served on the same ship (HMS Briseis) as future polar explorer James Clerk Ross, then 12 years old. He (Ross) currently has 4 places in the Arctic named after him, as well as 4 in the Antarctic, a seal, a gull, a ship and a mountain. And a crater on the Moon.

*For reasons I'm yet to discover, three of the marines on HMS Briseis (out of about 20) were called James Entwistle. None has anything named after him as far as I am aware.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 16 December, 2020, 08:28:28 pm
That there is a font typeface yclept 'year supply of fairycakes' (sic).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 December, 2020, 05:13:46 pm
During WW2 Maidenform made bras for paratroopers to carry pigeons in.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The French Tandem on 20 December, 2020, 05:40:02 pm
That for most of 1811 and 1812 my Royal Marine great great great grandfather James Entwistle* served on the same ship (HMS Briseis) as future polar explorer James Clerk Ross, then 12 years old. He (Ross) currently has 4 places in the Arctic named after him, as well as 4 in the Antarctic, a seal, a gull, a ship and a mountain. And a crater on the Moon.

That in 1811, it was acceptable for a 12 years old to serve on a Royal Marine ship  :( :(

A
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 20 December, 2020, 06:15:31 pm
That mushrooms are high in monosodium glutamate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 20 December, 2020, 06:23:19 pm
Many things are, it's just a posh name for glutamic acid. Glutamates are basically what gives things an umami taste – think porcini. Cheese has plenty, and obviously stuff like Marmite and anything yeasty.

I inadvertently bought a 10 kg bag some time bag (note to self, look at the actual amount – but it was a bargain).

The myth of why a lot of people think MSG is bad for you is an interesting one, google Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, but basically started with a hoax letter in the NEJM.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 20 December, 2020, 11:46:26 pm
That there is a website called Cheese.com

It is about cheese, cheese and wine parings and all dairy comestibles.

That's my afternoon gone!

A belated Petril!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 December, 2020, 12:05:14 am
That early humans might have hibernated.
Quote
Early humans may have hibernated to weather harsh winters, say researchers
Academics admit their hypothesis might sound like ‘science fiction’
Science fiction? It's a thoroughly modern practice!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/early-humans-hibernation-winter-atapuerca-spain-b1776824.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 21 December, 2020, 07:06:13 pm
That Mark Fuckerberg bears a resemblance to H P Lovecraft.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 21 December, 2020, 07:11:39 pm
That Mark Fuckerberg bears a resemblance to H P Lovecraft.

That might explain a lot about how Facebook has played a role in eroding the sanity of millions...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 23 December, 2020, 01:49:52 pm
Neanderthals are so named because the first remains were discovered in the Neander Valley.

Well I knew that bit.

What I didn't know was the Neander Valley was named after Joachim Neander, a Calvinist theologian and hymn writer whose best known work is probably Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren/ Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, King of Creation.

Where Neanderthals fit in the whole creation thing is another question.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 23 December, 2020, 02:13:18 pm
what a wonderful Christmas Quiz question
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Redlight on 23 December, 2020, 02:17:26 pm
I have learned that assuming a month was sufficient time to keep your old broadband service going while your new one is installed is being far too optimistic about the competence of your new provider.

(I may be disappearing from here for a week or two...)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 23 December, 2020, 02:24:06 pm
That for most of 1811 and 1812 my Royal Marine great great great grandfather James Entwistle* served on the same ship (HMS Briseis) as future polar explorer James Clerk Ross, then 12 years old. He (Ross) currently has 4 places in the Arctic named after him, as well as 4 in the Antarctic, a seal, a gull, a ship and a mountain. And a crater on the Moon.

That in 1811, it was acceptable for a 12 years old to serve on a Royal Marine ship  :( :(

A
Another great great great grandfather of mine John Wilkin was born in 1802 and first went to sea in 1814, but he was a merchant seaman. His son also went to sea at the age of 12 (with his dad) but didn't like it and became a blacksmith.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 23 December, 2020, 03:10:20 pm
Neanderthals are so named because the first remains were discovered in the Neander Valley.

Well I knew that bit.

What I didn't know was the Neander Valley was named after Joachim Neander, a Calvinist theologian and hymn writer whose best known work is probably Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren/ Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, King of Creation.

Where Neanderthals fit in the whole creation thing is another question.

More than that, the name apparently means 'New man'. How coincidental is that?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 23 December, 2020, 09:25:19 pm
That early humans might have hibernated.
Quote
Early humans may have hibernated to weather harsh winters, say researchers
Academics admit their hypothesis might sound like ‘science fiction’
Science fiction? It's a thoroughly modern practice!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/early-humans-hibernation-winter-atapuerca-spain-b1776824.html

A few years ago, I read in 'The Discovery of France* (https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-discovery-of-france-by-graham-robb-464235.html)' that certain communities endured the winter by simply remaining in bed.  Possibly pre-Napoleon but not much further back.

France was largely forest with huge numbers of tracks linking isolated communities.  There was no common language and there were no maps.  Travel was of course very precarious. 

* the author explored the country the best way possible - by bicycle.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 December, 2020, 09:32:44 pm
That early humans might have hibernated.
Quote
Early humans may have hibernated to weather harsh winters, say researchers
Academics admit their hypothesis might sound like ‘science fiction’
Science fiction? It's a thoroughly modern practice!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/early-humans-hibernation-winter-atapuerca-spain-b1776824.html

A few years ago, I read in 'The Discovery of France* (https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-discovery-of-france-by-graham-robb-464235.html)' that certain communities endured the winter by simply remaining in bed.  Possibly pre-Napoleon but not much further back.

France was largely forest with huge numbers of tracks linking isolated communities.  There was no common language and there were no maps.  Travel was of course very precarious. 

* the author explored the country the best way possible - by bicycle.

Vague recollection of this being mentioned on “QI” too, so it must be trufax.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 24 December, 2020, 09:37:14 am
Neanderthals are so named because the first remains were discovered in the Neander Valley.

Well I knew that bit.

What I didn't know was the Neander Valley was named after Joachim Neander, a Calvinist theologian and hymn writer whose best known work is probably Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren/ Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, King of Creation.

Where Neanderthals fit in the whole creation thing is another question.

More than that, the name apparently means 'New man'. How coincidental is that?
The family name was originally Neumann, but it was the fashion to have a Latin or Greek sounding name, so it became Neander (Gk ne=new, ander=man)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 December, 2020, 01:20:10 am
Today I are learning that the geographical centre of Croatia is in Bosnia & Herzgovina.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 25 December, 2020, 09:20:40 am
What Kelly take-offs are.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 25 December, 2020, 12:15:19 pm
What Kelly take-offs are.

I learned that a few days ago.  Sounds like a BOAT[1].


[1] In the detectorists sense.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 25 December, 2020, 12:38:44 pm
Today I are learning that the geographical centre of Croatia is in Bosnia & Herzgovina.

Tangentially, I was musing about where was equidistant from my home and those of my two remaining brothers, for putative equal-expense meetings in the future.  Turns out to be in the North Sea, somewhere off Grimsby.  Sort of suits the year our family has had!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 25 December, 2020, 02:10:13 pm
That Wellingtons column in Liverpool has a set of brass strips giving imperial measures built into and around the base.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 December, 2020, 09:45:01 pm
That some of everyone's favourite Lancashire cycle components are made in Gloucestershire.
Quote
Hope does get by with a little help from its friends when it comes to completing the build: “The dropouts and several connections are titanium 3D-printed, and this is done by Renishaw [a leading scientific and engineering company, who also specialise in 3D metal printing]. The bars and forks are supplied by Lotus.”
https://www.renishaw.com
I think Renishaw also make a point of employing disabled people, though possibly I'm mixing them up with some other firm in the same area.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 28 December, 2020, 08:09:55 am
That some of everyone's favourite Lancashire cycle components are made in Gloucestershire.
Quote
Hope does get by with a little help from its friends when it comes to completing the build: “The dropouts and several connections are titanium 3D-printed, and this is done by Renishaw [a leading scientific and engineering company, who also specialise in 3D metal printing]. The bars and forks are supplied by Lotus.”
https://www.renishaw.com
I think Renishaw also make a point of employing disabled people, though possibly I'm mixing them up with some other firm in the same area.

I think you might mean Remploy?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Rod Marton on 28 December, 2020, 08:59:32 am
That some of everyone's favourite Lancashire cycle components are made in Gloucestershire.
Quote
Hope does get by with a little help from its friends when it comes to completing the build: “The dropouts and several connections are titanium 3D-printed, and this is done by Renishaw [a leading scientific and engineering company, who also specialise in 3D metal printing]. The bars and forks are supplied by Lotus.”
https://www.renishaw.com
I think Renishaw also make a point of employing disabled people, though possibly I'm mixing them up with some other firm in the same area.

I think you might mean Remploy?
Don't remember this from my time at Renishaw, but things may have changed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 December, 2020, 11:33:53 pm
Definitely not thinking of Remploy but might well not be Renishaw either.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 31 December, 2020, 02:25:22 pm
The most produced Volkswagen part is Part no 199 398 500 A

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The French Tandem on 03 January, 2021, 12:40:09 pm
The most produced Volkswagen part is Part no 199 398 500 A

(click to show/hide)

... and in VW dealerships in Germany, customers are treated with free samples of said part, while in all other countries, customers just get useless junk like pens, lighters, etc.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 03 January, 2021, 12:56:29 pm
The most produced Volkswagen part is Part no 199 398 500 A

(click to show/hide)

... and in VW dealerships in Germany, customers are treated with free samples of said part, while in all other countries, customers just get useless junk like pens, lighters, etc.

You can buy them in the UK from The Sausage Man (https://sausageman.co.uk)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 03 January, 2021, 01:41:59 pm
What Kelly take-offs are.

I was curious as I thought they'd be related to a Kelly Drive, so wondering why they'd be referenced here, but they are not at all related

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_drive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_drive)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 03 January, 2021, 03:54:40 pm
What Kelly take-offs are.

I was curious as I thought they'd be related to a Kelly Drive, so wondering why they'd be referenced here, but they are not at all related

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_drive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_drive)

Ah, the Kelly deck, home to the three-fingered roughneck.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 January, 2021, 06:19:01 pm
The most produced Volkswagen part is Part no 199 398 500 A

(click to show/hide)

... and in VW dealerships in Germany, customers are treated with free samples of said part, while in all other countries, customers just get useless junk like pens, lighters, etc.

You can buy them in the UK from The Sausage Man (https://sausageman.co.uk)

How long before the Brexit bonus means they – and all their other exotic FOREIGN sossidges – are replaced with domestically-produced tubes of unicorn offal?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 03 January, 2021, 08:13:14 pm
* Minimum 5% unicorn.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 January, 2021, 08:15:09 pm
Narwhal sausages now we've taken control of our fishing fleet. (May contain traces of tusk.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 04 January, 2021, 03:26:08 pm
There I was, looking for uses for inner tubes...
https://www.instructables.com/inner-tube-gimp-mask/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 07 January, 2021, 12:24:44 pm
Alaska is the Northern most US state. It's also the Western most US state (I knew both of those already).

It's also the Eastern most US state. (That one I wasn't aware of). 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 07 January, 2021, 12:30:07 pm
more so than hawaii? I'm off to check on a globe
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 07 January, 2021, 12:33:01 pm
You need to check where the International date line passes through the Aleutian islands.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: darkpoint on 07 January, 2021, 01:39:13 pm
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/animals/2020/11/we-knew-platypuses-were-incredible-now-we-know-they-glow-too

Platypuses emit UV light.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 January, 2021, 05:05:55 pm
Ripe kakis have just as much tannin as unripe ones, but once the seeds appear the tannin is transformed into an insoluble form so we can't taste it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 14 January, 2021, 04:00:38 pm
The reason why a piggy bank is called a piggy bank:
https://twitter.com/AshmoleanMuseum/status/1349696793873940480
Quote
but these vessels were made out of clay, which was referred to as 'pygg' in the Middle Ages. The pronunciation eventually evolved to 'pig', and the shapes of the vessels followed suit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 15 January, 2021, 06:44:19 pm

There is No limit to the benefits of exercise in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease (https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-01-14-no-limit-benefits-exercise-reducing-risk-cardiovascular-disease#).

Good news for us, I guess.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mllePB on 15 January, 2021, 08:04:11 pm
Early discovery of the all-pervasive levels of lead pollution in the mid 20th century came through a phd student trying to study a meteorite to estimate the age of the earth. His investigations were being disrupted by contamination that he struggled to remove.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 15 January, 2021, 08:27:34 pm
The quote at the end of that Wikipedia article is excellent.

Quote
“I’m a little child,” Patterson would say. “You know the emperor’s new clothes? I can see the naked emperor, just because I’m a little child-minded person. I’m not smart. I mean, good scientists are like that. They have the minds of children, to see through all this façade.”

I remember the controversy over lead in automobile fuels. It turns out that a lot of the crime and anti-social behavior in American inner cities was caused at least in part by lead poisoning.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 January, 2021, 09:07:46 pm
The quote at the end of that Wikipedia article is excellent.

Quote
“I’m a little child,” Patterson would say. “You know the emperor’s new clothes? I can see the naked emperor, just because I’m a little child-minded person. I’m not smart. I mean, good scientists are like that. They have the minds of children, to see through all this façade.”

I remember the controversy over lead in automobile fuels. It turns out that a lot of the crime and anti-social behavior in American inner cities was caused at least in part by lead poisoning.

Take a bow, Thomas Midgley Jr. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.). Played a significant role in both the development of tetraethyl lead as a fuel additive and chlorofluorocarbons as a refrigerant.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 15 January, 2021, 09:19:25 pm
The hypothesis of lead and violent crime is a case study of correlation versus causation though.

But on balance, you still shouldn't eat lead.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 January, 2021, 09:25:52 pm
It's probably not as dangerous as that white goo in the middle of golf balls, though, or indeed even as dangerous as most woo espoused by Gwyneth Paltrow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 15 January, 2021, 11:39:34 pm
Ms Paltrow is indeed dangerous.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 15 January, 2021, 11:42:56 pm
She certainly gets on one’s wick.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 17 January, 2021, 10:16:18 pm
That there is a word - sparko - and it means to be in a deep sleep.

My dear wife had heard the word before. I have attempted - unsuccessfully - to research its etymology but have drawn a blank. There's a suggestion that it dates from the 1960s but where and why was not explained.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 17 January, 2021, 10:16:59 pm
Sounds WW2ish to me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 January, 2021, 01:07:24 am
That there is a word - sparko - and it means to be in a deep sleep.

My dear wife had heard the word before. I have attempted - unsuccessfully - to research its etymology but have drawn a blank. There's a suggestion that it dates from the 1960s but where and why was not explained.

Shortened – quite possibly by the Australians – version of “sparked out” as in a dead fire, according to that The Internet, that they have now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: RichForrest on 18 January, 2021, 01:34:07 am
Have heard it used in a fighting context "Knocked Out sparko!" and when someone has passed out when drunk.
Deep sleep, "never heard a thing I was sparko".

This one reckons its British slang https://thorne_slang.enacademic.com/6188/sparko
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 January, 2021, 01:41:49 am
I just guessed Australian as they have a habit of forming diminutives with an -o suffix — garbo, smoko and so on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 18 January, 2021, 07:29:09 am
I certainly knew the expression "spark out" in common parlance (something my parents would have said), and the contraction "sparko", but that tended to be pronounced "spark-o". For what that's worth.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peat on 18 January, 2021, 10:45:44 am
I have learned that 'Tyre Wipers' were/are a thing.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/zRvsHNbcPS-NfiMwAerpN8kf1LWTpmzke8--zNFmnCb6a3AYfUZUQoS4xa66DM6XkNEK0isHiAVn2Yk3B027o7jfNnqvaPYTzMPrZcW-alcbhhG4NoO--6h-KIJ3E1gYWeRRgyu4_U9B9qpvKVY)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Flite on 18 January, 2021, 11:27:25 am
The ISBN for "The Greatest" - the newish book about Beryl Burton, has the last 3 digits 531
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 January, 2021, 11:36:31 am

There is No limit to the benefits of exercise in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease (https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-01-14-no-limit-benefits-exercise-reducing-risk-cardiovascular-disease#).

Good news for us, I guess.

My cardiologist reckons that it adds about 10 years of  life on average.  Mind you, most of the people he sees are already afflicted.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 18 January, 2021, 01:58:50 pm
I have learned that 'Tyre Wipers' were/are a thing.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/zRvsHNbcPS-NfiMwAerpN8kf1LWTpmzke8--zNFmnCb6a3AYfUZUQoS4xa66DM6XkNEK0isHiAVn2Yk3B027o7jfNnqvaPYTzMPrZcW-alcbhhG4NoO--6h-KIJ3E1gYWeRRgyu4_U9B9qpvKVY)

Are you saying that people don't use them???       

I had one on my fixie until about 3 years go .... only really works on slick-ish tyres (hopefully preventing mini-flints getting into the tyre casing)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 18 January, 2021, 02:58:11 pm

There is No limit to the benefits of exercise in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease (https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-01-14-no-limit-benefits-exercise-reducing-risk-cardiovascular-disease#).

Good news for us, I guess.

My cardiologist reckons that it adds about 10 years of  life on average.  Mind you, most of the people he sees are already afflicted.

I saw that one myself - a good counter argument to "are you going out in the bike AGAIN!"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 January, 2021, 11:04:38 am
That the term 'conscientious objector' was first used, not in WWI or any previous war, but for those who refused smallpox vaccinations under the 1898 Vaccination Act.
https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/britain-allows-exemptions
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 January, 2021, 01:56:32 pm
Molsidomine will indeed give you a headache. Even after two espressos. :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 January, 2021, 12:32:31 pm
That the nosewheel on the Trident was offset two feet to the left of the aircraft’s centre line and retracted sideways.  Something pilots often forgot when trying to avoid running over hedgehogs*.

* Lie
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: eckagain on 21 January, 2021, 12:37:00 pm
That if we move our sofa about a meter forward, we don't actually need a bigger telly.  :thumbsup: ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 January, 2021, 10:48:04 pm
That the Queen Bitch of Bowie's song was Lou Reed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 January, 2021, 11:14:18 am
That there is a genetic condition, Williams-Beuren syndrome, one of the effects of which is to make people overly gregarious; people with it treat everyone they meet as a friend. It's a very rare disorder in humans but apparently dogs show many of the genetic changes common to WBS.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 January, 2021, 02:12:52 pm
That there is a genetic condition, Williams-Beuren syndrome, one of the effects of which is to make people overly gregarious;

Makes people gather in bakeries.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 January, 2021, 02:19:04 pm
That there is a genetic condition, Williams-Beuren syndrome, one of the effects of which is to make people overly gregarious;

Makes people gather in bakeries.
;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 22 January, 2021, 05:33:38 pm
That the nosewheel on the Trident was offset two feet to the left of the aircraft’s centre line and retracted sideways.
Then you may also be pleased to learn, if you don't already know it, that the B-52 main undercarriage is steerable (to 20 degrees either side of centre line) allegedly so that it can be landed in cross-winds.  A bodge fix made necessary by its relatively undersized rudder.  Rumour has it that the small rudder was to prevent high stress load damaging the airframe which (AIUI) is limited to +2g.  I don't know for certain, but I very much doubt it has a -ve g rating.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 January, 2021, 06:31:58 pm
I already knew that. The B52 at Duxford, if you look at it, has rippled skin, much like an ancient land rover, I'm not sure if that's from sheer weight or just the length of the panels.

The A10 apparently was designed to be able to land wheels up after  jettisoning all stores
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TimC on 22 January, 2021, 07:06:07 pm
It's not unusual for flat panels on large aircraft to appear rippled when the aircraft is at rest. There's a considerable amount of flexibility built into them, and the skin will give it away in some configurations. It's a characteristic that's a bit more obvious on Boeing products than most others. The B52 has been completely reskinned at least once, and has had several partial reskinning programmes.

The normal G envelope for large aircraft is -1 to +2.5g, and is stipulated for passenger aircraft by international regulation. This accommodates the likely worst that severe turbulence will incur, rather than any ambitious manoeuvre capability. I'd be surprised if the B52 is significantly different from that. The extremely manoeuvrable C130 that I used to fly years ago has a slightly wider G envelope than that, but not much.

The B52's weird undercarriage configuration was a hangover from the B47 design from which it was derived. The high-set and very thin wing mitigated against conventional wing-mounted gear. The flexibility of the wing and its large size (for the time) meant that there was rather less scope for the 'wing-down' crosswind technique than was ideal, and so they hit on the idea of castoring all of the four main gear legs to allow a flat, drift-offset landing technique. The B737 has a similar castoring capability because of its very low-set engines, though the main gear isn't steerable.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wobbly John on 22 January, 2021, 09:24:48 pm
When I was in the Air Cadets (mid '70s), we got a tour of a B52 when they were at Marham RAF base. They told us about the wheels being 'steerable' and also that, on take off, the tips of the wings rise 17ft higher than when at rest!  :o
 I can't remember which of the crew's ejector seats, eject downwards...   :-\
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 January, 2021, 09:39:15 pm
When I was in the Air Cadets (mid '70s), we got a tour of a B52 when they were at Marham RAF base. They told us about the wheels being 'steerable' and also that, on take off, the tips of the wings rise 17ft higher than when at rest!  :o
 I can't remember which of the crew's ejector seats, eject downwards...   :-\

I've been sat over wing on an A380, and you can watch the wing take off before the rest of the aeroplane. Watching the flex by about 3m is quite bizarre, but at the same time awesome in terms of materials engineering
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TimC on 22 January, 2021, 10:09:33 pm
When I was in the Air Cadets (mid '70s), we got a tour of a B52 when they were at Marham RAF base. They told us about the wheels being 'steerable' and also that, on take off, the tips of the wings rise 17ft higher than when at rest!  :o
 I can't remember which of the crew's ejector seats, eject downwards...   :-\

The flight deck on the B52 is a double-deck affair. The crew on the lower deck eject downwards. Their titles have changed several times over the years, and I can't remember what they are anyway, but essentially the bomb-aimer and one other. It was arguably a better arrangement than teh RAF had on the V-Force aircraft, where the back seaters had no ejection facility.

I've been sat over wing on an A380, and you can watch the wing take off before the rest of the aeroplane. Watching the flex by about 3m is quite bizarre, but at the same time awesome in terms of materials engineering

Airbuses are relatively stiff. The A340-600 which I flew had about a 2 -3m flex at the wingtip, depending on weight and fuel distribution. The 747 (which I flew in the last century), with an almost identical wingspan had probably a 4m flex. The 787 has something ridiculous, and with a 5-10m shorter wing has a wing flex range of probably twice the A340. The A380 is a bit stiffer than the A340, but the wingspan is a good bit longer, so the flex is about the same or a bit more.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 January, 2021, 11:51:50 pm
I flew to Canuckistan on a 787 a few years ago and it was quite a surprise to a Mr Larrington raised on non-bendy* æroplanes to have to crane upwards to see the wingtip in flight.

* or at least not noticeably bendy, before anyone sets the ghost of Sir Henry Royce** on my donkey
** “Every engineering material behaves more or less like rubber and if approached with a lighted match will expand”
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 January, 2021, 08:33:45 am
I flew to Canuckistan on a 787 a few years ago and it was quite a surprise to a Mr Larrington raised on non-bendy* æroplanes to have to crane upwards to see the wingtip in flight.

* or at least not noticeably bendy, before anyone sets the ghost of Sir Henry Royce** on my donkey
** “Every engineering material behaves more or less like rubber and if approached with a lighted match will expand”

Kinda telling that Charlie Rolls got his name up front in the partnership when he was just the salesman. Still, he learnt all about the fallibility of engineering materials in 1910.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 January, 2021, 10:15:40 am
I flew to Canuckistan on a 787 a few years ago and it was quite a surprise to a Mr Larrington raised on non-bendy* æroplanes to have to crane upwards to see the wingtip in flight.

* or at least not noticeably bendy, before anyone sets the ghost of Sir Henry Royce** on my donkey
** “Every engineering material behaves more or less like rubber and if approached with a lighted match will expand”

Kinda telling that Charlie Rolls got his name up front in the partnership when he was just the salesman. Still, he learnt all about the fallibility of engineering materials in 1910.

Well, he was a toff.  Pater a Lord, Eton & Cambridge, ect and, moreover, ect and not an unlettered oaf from Peterborough.  Also, people might have thought Royce-Rolls referred to some kind of bread-based food product.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 23 January, 2021, 11:06:45 am
I learnt about the Jewish concept of Mesirah.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 27 January, 2021, 02:44:52 pm
What a "getter" is, and what one is used for - "gettering"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 January, 2021, 08:38:52 pm
That one of the world's first steam railway fatalities, and still the world's most fatal railway boiler explosion, happened in Philadelphia, County Durham, way back in 1815. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1815_Philadelphia_train_accident
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 28 January, 2021, 08:58:44 pm
Well, yesterday in fact.

Claudette Colvin should really receive the accolades in place of Rosa Parkes.  Amazing how the civil rights movement in the USA looked beyond her.

Biden has a Rosa Parkes bust in the Oval Office.  Somebody should bring him up to date.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 29 January, 2021, 04:29:21 pm
Well, yesterday in fact.

Claudette Colvin should really receive the accolades in place of Rosa Parkes.  Amazing how the civil rights movement in the USA looked beyond her.

Biden has a Rosa Parkes bust in the Oval Office.  Somebody should bring him up to date.

Pretty common for a lot of political campaigns, they didn't always pick the "first" but deliberately had to choose a "media friendly individual" who couldn't be undermined by "moral failings" which would be used to undermine the entire marginalised group or whatever.

In fact I had a chat about something exactly the same with activist lawyers today on "media friendly strategic litigation" activism...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 29 January, 2021, 05:16:15 pm
Given that there was an active civil disobedience campaign for many decades (right back to the slavery era itself, for that matter), the majority of which went unremarked other than for, I expect, a good olde fashioned beating, it seems a bit pointless to argue about 'who went first' since I'm sure it wasn't either of them. It just matters that people did.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 29 January, 2021, 05:37:21 pm
Wombats poo cubes.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/29/box-seat-scientists-solve-the-mystery-of-why-wombats-have-cube-shaped-poo

Science isn't dull.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 29 January, 2021, 07:31:13 pm
Wombats poo cubes.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/29/box-seat-scientists-solve-the-mystery-of-why-wombats-have-cube-shaped-poo

Science isn't dull.

I seem to remember seeing something about that a while back.  Which brings to mind the old joke

The oooh-aaah bird is distinguished by being the only species to lay square eggs
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 31 January, 2021, 08:03:25 pm
The lyrics to Ça Plane Pour Moi weren't sung by Plastic Bertrand, but by someone called Lou Deprijck.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 February, 2021, 12:25:27 am
That the word 'inoculation' has its roots in the Latin for eye:
Quote
Vaccination was a mode of inoculation, the latter word borrowed from horticulture – the grafting of a bud, or ‘eye’ (oculus), to propagate a plant.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n03/steven-shapin/a-pox-on-the-poor
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 01 February, 2021, 08:30:12 am
That, according to figures I saw on the BBC website, I am in the smallest grouping of those waiting vaccination - 60-64 year olds make up a group of just 1.8 million. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Zipperhead on 04 February, 2021, 01:52:09 pm
Tim Rice, Elton John & Graham Nash were backing singers on "Lily The Pink" (ask your grandparents). Also, Jack Bruce played bass on it.

Bonus what I learnt - the SS Windrush was originally a German ship that was taken as reparations. When it caught fire on its final voyage the paint peeled off one of the funnels revealing the swastika underneath.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 February, 2021, 06:56:29 pm
That Big Bird from Sesame St is different colours in some different countries. For instance blue in the Netherlands, orange in Portugal, green in Mexico. In some countries he's* made to represent real birds (parrot-like in Mexico and Brazil, seagull in France). But why?

*Is Big Bird a he?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 05 February, 2021, 08:06:28 pm
Some facts about “black-grass”, stubble burning, and ergot.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 February, 2021, 08:10:57 pm
That Big Bird from Sesame St is different colours in some different countries. For instance blue in the Netherlands, orange in Portugal, green in Mexico. In some countries he's* made to represent real birds (parrot-like in Mexico and Brazil, seagull in France). But why?

From the department of wrong answers only:  "They rolled out colour television at different times."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 05 February, 2021, 08:14:34 pm
That in lithographs, the ink sticks to the greasy drawing, rather than to the un-greased stone. I always imagined the reverse.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 05 February, 2021, 08:14:35 pm
That Jackie Weaver has no authority on Handwortb parish council.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 06 February, 2021, 07:59:36 am
That in lithographs, the ink sticks to the greasy drawing, rather than to the un-greased stone. I always imagined the reverse.

The "non-image" areas of the lithographic plate (nowadays aluminium or plastic, was stone in days of yore) have a very finely grained surface that has a miniscule coating of water that repels the ink that, as you say, adheres to the image and transfers to the paper being printed.

[Week 1 of my 3 year attendance at the London College of Printing, September 1963  :thumbsup: ]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 06 February, 2021, 08:40:51 am
That Big Bird from Sesame St is different colours in some different countries. For instance blue in the Netherlands, orange in Portugal, green in Mexico. In some countries he's* made to represent real birds (parrot-like in Mexico and Brazil, seagull in France). But why?

From the department of wrong answers only:  "They rolled out colour television at different times."
Are we sure it's not due to Doppler shift?  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 06 February, 2021, 09:18:32 am
That Big Bird from Sesame St is different colours in some different countries. For instance blue in the Netherlands, orange in Portugal, green in Mexico. In some countries he's* made to represent real birds (parrot-like in Mexico and Brazil, seagull in France). But why?

From the department of wrong answers only:  "They rolled out colour television at different times."
Are we sure it's not due to Doppler shift?  :)

NTSC
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 06 February, 2021, 10:05:05 am
That Big Bird from Sesame St is different colours in some different countries. For instance blue in the Netherlands, orange in Portugal, green in Mexico. In some countries he's* made to represent real birds (parrot-like in Mexico and Brazil, seagull in France). But why?

From the department of wrong answers only:  "They rolled out colour television at different times."
Are we sure it's not due to Doppler shift?  :)

NTSC
Never The Same Colo(u)r.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 06 February, 2021, 03:41:00 pm
That Vikings commonly traded Narwhal tusks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 February, 2021, 08:12:53 pm
The top foopball team in Bandar Abbas, Iran, rejoices in the name of “Aluminium Hormozgan F.C.”
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 February, 2021, 08:42:11 pm
That's not uncommon I think. For instance Shaktar Donetsk, shaktar = miner. Or closer to your part of the world Thames Ironworks FC, now known as West Ham Untied.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 06 February, 2021, 08:47:54 pm
Not to be confused with Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Football Club...... whose current name is self-evidently wrong.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 February, 2021, 10:10:56 pm
Not to be confused with Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Football Club...... whose current name is self-evidently wrong.

Oldham Athletic?

[“No.” – Ed.]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 07 February, 2021, 12:20:57 pm
Ennead as a group of nine.
81 people arrested at a French orgy suggesting “9 carnal enneads”
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 07 February, 2021, 12:31:47 pm
Not to be confused with Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Football Club...... whose current name is self-evidently wrong.

Oldham Athletic?

[“No.” – Ed.]

 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andyoxon on 07 February, 2021, 09:26:13 pm
3-in-One oil says "Shake well before use".  I never knew that.  Teach me not to read the oil "how to use" :o ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 February, 2021, 05:27:26 pm
3-in-One oil says "Shake well before use".  I never knew that.  Teach me not to read the oil "how to use" :o ;D

I remember being amused that squirty cream used to say "Remove from fridge" as the first step of the instructions.  However it fails to mention that squirting cream makes noise, which is important if you're Deaf and sneakily eating it straight from the can in the middle of the night.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 February, 2021, 08:47:14 pm
That in Cameroon there is a brand of cigarette called Bastos, named after a district of Yaounde where many diplomats and ex-pats live. A bit like the (former? present?) brand Mayfair, I suppose.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 14 February, 2021, 10:28:57 pm
That old English is actually more closely associated with Friese (sp?) as in Friesland and not old German (Saxon) as previously thought. More widely spoken in days of old in the Netherlands, northern Germany and southern Denmark until Charlemagne or thereabouts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 February, 2021, 10:40:16 pm
That in Cameroon there is a brand of cigarette called Bastos, named after a district of Yaounde where many diplomats and ex-pats live. A bit like the (former? present?) brand Mayfair, I suppose.

Wikinaccurate claims they’re:
a) originally Spanish, and
b) named after Juan Bastos, who founded the company in 1838

I always thought they were French, mind.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 18 February, 2021, 11:57:12 am
That the word cliché has a probable onomatopoeic origin.  And the word 'boudoir' has a possible onomatopoeic origin.

 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 February, 2021, 11:59:54 am
That in Cameroon there is a brand of cigarette called Bastos, named after a district of Yaounde where many diplomats and ex-pats live. A bit like the (former? present?) brand Mayfair, I suppose.

Wikinaccurate claims they’re:
a) originally Spanish, and
b) named after Juan Bastos, who founded the company in 1838

I always thought they were French, mind.
Okay! Must be just coincidence then. Unless the district was named after the cigarette, but that would be silly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 18 February, 2021, 10:25:57 pm
That you can spend exceedingly large amounts of money on a record player cartridge/needle.

A Grado Lineage Epoch moving magnet coil cartridge for £10,800 anyone ?

I bought an Audio Technica AT-VM95E moving magnet cartridge for for £39

 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 18 February, 2021, 10:33:47 pm
I learned which joke was voted the funniest one-liner in cinematographical history, and where the film writers got it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 February, 2021, 03:33:36 pm
Tea is better at removing rubbed-off skin grease and gunk from melamine desk-tops than Cif (Jif in the UK).  Doesn't stink, either.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 20 February, 2021, 03:46:13 pm
Pretty sure it's Cif over here now. Or at least it was, if they haven't changed it back again (this is clearly a comment on how often I purchase such cleaning products).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 February, 2021, 10:01:32 pm
That Augustus Owsley Stanley III, in addition to his contribution to, ah, underground chemistry was The Grateful Dead's sound man when he wasn’t in prison, and also founded bass/guitar manufacturer Alembic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 23 February, 2021, 10:45:01 am
That an Eddy Merckx Strada OS frame can take a minimum chainring size of only 52T.  Bollocks.  I wanted to use a 50T.  It will accommodate a 58T!

I have an adaptor plate that slope gave me for the Moulton, but which isn't needed on that as I run it as a 1 x 9.  Will dig it out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 23 February, 2021, 11:04:39 am
IRD used to sell a CD braze-on double front derailleur with a deeper body to solve that very problem but it seems to have been discontinued. https://www.interlocracing.com/shop/product/60110-ird-front-derailleur-sub-c-braze-on-2351 seems to be something similar, intended for smaller rings but with a 50t maximum chainring size.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 23 February, 2021, 11:32:02 am
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50971860683_4df3d95060_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2kEd7mc)20210223_105707 (https://flic.kr/p/2kEd7mc) by rogerzilla (https://www.flickr.com/photos/41286375@N07/), on Flickr

It puts the mech about 10mm further back so the curvature isn't such a good match, but I'll see how it shifts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TimC on 23 February, 2021, 01:52:02 pm
7600? That is very pretty! Shame you need the block.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 23 February, 2021, 02:00:06 pm
Might be 7700.  It's before they changed the front cable pull (again), I know that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 23 February, 2021, 02:47:21 pm
Were it me, I'd try and match the finish of the adapter to that of the Shimano casting. A buff with some Solvol Autosol.
Applied using a Dremel with a polishing mop, it wouldn't take too long.
A coat of clear varnish and Robert is your Mother's brother.

ETA - If you haven't got a Dremel, stick the adapter in the post to me and I'll do it for you. I think you have my postal addy.
ETFA - I'd also radius all the square edges of the adapter slightly, to soften them and bring it aesthetically closer to the Shimano casting.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 February, 2021, 05:44:44 pm
I expect that's on the agenda for after it's proven to work.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 23 February, 2021, 06:10:20 pm
I expect that's on the agenda for after it's proven to work.
F'course.
Maybe.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 February, 2021, 01:28:22 pm
That in 1940 HMG were offering a bounty of 2/6d for live hedgehogs.  This according to Virginia Wolff, who found one that had drowned in her garden pool and tried to resuscitate it to mercenary ends.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 February, 2021, 02:13:52 pm
That in 1940 HMG were offering a bounty of 2/6d for live hedgehogs.

What were they planning to do with them?  I'm imagining them being parachuted behind enemy lines to sabotage the Nazi slug effort...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 February, 2021, 03:40:41 pm
That in 1940 HMG were offering a bounty of 2/6d for live hedgehogs.

What were they planning to do with them?  I'm imagining them being parachuted behind enemy lines to sabotage the Nazi slug effort...

No idea, and VW doesn't let on.  Can't find any reference to it on Google.  Could be that they wanted them to be preserved as a source of protein. 2/6d is a hell of a bounty, though - when I was a nipper the reward for a grey-squirrel tail was 1s.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 24 February, 2021, 03:59:03 pm
Probably a cocktail stick shortage.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 24 February, 2021, 04:18:26 pm
perforating holes in camouflage nets
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 February, 2021, 04:18:34 pm
Hedgehog parachuters is totally a thing.
(https://i.etsystatic.com/9425169/r/il/a1ade5/1588098288/il_794xN.1588098288_mxp6.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 25 February, 2021, 07:59:59 am
The first thing sold on eBay was broken.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 February, 2021, 08:07:33 am
Hedgehog parachuters is totally a thing.

Now I'm wondering if the WW2 Ministry of Crack-Brained Schemes didn't want to infect them with something narsty and drop them out of a Lanc over Germany.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 25 February, 2021, 09:39:37 am
Karachi has a special rollerblading police unit with 10 men and 10 women in it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 25 February, 2021, 06:41:32 pm
That Anusol has a very distinctive smell.

That Billy Bragg pilfered
Quote
I was twenty one years when I wrote this song
I'm twenty two now, but I won't be for long
from the opening lines of Simon and Garfunkel's The Leaves That Are Green.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 02 March, 2021, 12:08:06 pm
That in Mossley, not at all far from Stalybridge, there is a terrace of houses yclept "Bottom's Fold".

https://goo.gl/maps/1KemNBfsiuKprtiL9 refers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 02 March, 2021, 12:17:22 pm
Sitting on a live horse is OK whether the horse likes it or not.

Sitting on a dead one that couldn't care less anymore is apparently a terrible thing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 02 March, 2021, 01:12:50 pm
Sitting on a live horse is OK whether the horse likes it or not.

Sitting on a dead one that couldn't care less anymore is apparently a terrible thing.

I thought that. We ignore horse welfare when they're alive but if they're dead we care they're "sat on" as disrespectful, despite the way they're treated in life.

Manufactured outrage...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 02 March, 2021, 01:56:58 pm
Yup, it's ok to stand in a dead animal's skin (on your feet), but not sit on a dead animal. Weird.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 02 March, 2021, 02:21:50 pm
A 'Frank Beard' is a little known fact that everyone knows.

This came up because Lauren Laverne played Labi Siffre's I Got The on the radio and afterwards mentioned the 'Frank Beard' about Chas & Dave playing as session musicians on that record. One of those bits of music trivia that people like to show off about knowing, but in fact everyone knows it already.

It's called a Frank Beard after the little known fact that everyone knows about Frank Beard being the only member of ZZ Top without a beard.

I knew both these facts already, which is kind of the point. But I don't think I've heard 'Frank Beard' being used in that way before though. I like it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 March, 2021, 02:47:41 pm
ZZ Top before the beards (https://www.considerable.com/entertainment/retronaut/zz-top-before-the-beards/).

Today I learned that Mickey Mouse was once banned in Romania, though not for being a horrible twee product of a horrible twee organisation.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Somnolent on 02 March, 2021, 03:47:03 pm
What I learned today...

How to get what you want by offending your local MP.

Today I got my letter inviting me to visit the NHS website to book my Covid jab..... this means I am old :facepalm:
Per the website: nearest vaccination centre - a 45 minute drive (or 1h45min ride) away.
Must be some mistake shirley?   No, it is confirmed by a call to the 119 Covid helpline.

Further digging on NHS.gov.uk and I find a list of all vaccination centres, searchable by postcode, with no less than 17 closer locations and including one less than a mile away from home !

Cue email to said MP
Who responded very quickly taking exception to my use of the word "shambles" because he apparently spent a day recently working as a volunteer at that same local vaccination centre.
However he did forward my email to both the my local GP and to the vaccination centre and I was called minutes later to book my appointment ! 

Whilst he could work out which centre it was from my address which I provided (MPs generally don't respond without that) I have absolutely no idea how he came by the information as to which GP I am registered with.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 02 March, 2021, 04:26:52 pm
What I learned today...

How to get what you want by offending your local MP.

Today I got my letter inviting me to visit the NHS website to book my Covid jab..... this means I am old :facepalm:
Per the website: nearest vaccination centre - a 45 minute drive (or 1h45min ride) away.
Must be some mistake shirley?   No, it is confirmed by a call to the 119 Covid helpline.

Further digging on NHS.gov.uk and I find a list of all vaccination centres, searchable by postcode, with no less than 17 closer locations and including one less than a mile away from home !

Cue email to said MP
Who responded very quickly taking exception to my use of the word "shambles" because he apparently spent a day recently working as a volunteer at that same local vaccination centre.
However he did forward my email to both the my local GP and to the vaccination centre and I was called minutes later to book my appointment ! 

Whilst he could work out which centre it was from my address which I provided (MPs generally don't respond without that) I have absolutely no idea how he came by the information as to which GP I am registered with.

The GP call was probably pure chance . . .

I got the NHS letter on a Saturday* - booked for the following Thursday at 1130 at a "mass centre" not that far away (nearest of 5 offered)

Tuesday morning a letter from the GP Surgery saying I could phone for an appt - did that 0900 Thursday so cancelled the first one

Thursday came and I went (walked!) to the small local hospital and with a very efficient process had my jab (Pfizer)

When I got back home I got a phone call from the hospital where I was a customer for some fairly major surgery and am still uner one the consultants - saying they had some spare jab capacity and would I like to go that day or the following.

It all sounds like confusion BUT in the circumstances I thought the whole thing was encouraging.    I can perhaps understand the GP being keen as I think they get paid £12.50 a go for the jabs.

* quite a few weeks ago so I'm REALLY OLD!

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 03 March, 2021, 01:21:37 pm
There were no medium sized (100 to 1000kg) dinosaurs.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2269288-weve-finally-figured-out-why-there-were-no-medium-sized-dinosaurs/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 March, 2021, 06:24:16 pm
Following the Daily Heil takeover that’ll be changed to read “HOW MEDIUM-SIZED IMMIGRANT DINOSAURS GAVE OUR CAVE PRICES CANCER”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 March, 2021, 06:52:42 pm
"HARDWORKING FLINTSTONE DAD ESCAPES UNFAIR DRIVING BAN AFTER ACCIDENTALLY RUNNING OVER MEDIUM-SIZED IMMIGRANT DINOSAUR ON BENEFITS, DUE TO NEEDING CAR TO TAKE DIABETIC CHILD TO WITCH DOCTOR"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 05 March, 2021, 09:18:42 am
That there's an area of Stoke called Dresden.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 March, 2021, 12:46:36 pm
If there’s an area of Dresden called Stoke it’s probably one that was deliberately left as it was on February 14th 1945.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 March, 2021, 12:49:23 pm
That there's an area of Stoke called Dresden.
Makes sense. Maybe an area called Faenza would make sense too, but I dunno how you'd say that in Stoke!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 06 March, 2021, 11:51:54 am
The Perseverance mars rover is designed to drive backwards much better than forwards*. They drive it forwards so that if it gets into trouble they have a better chance of reversing out of it. The kind of thought that is blindingly obvious once someone else has thought of it.

* In as much as forwards and backwards apply to the rover.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 06 March, 2021, 12:03:06 pm
Hmmm. Every car I've ever owned has a lower reverse gear than 1st. Is that the same principle I wonder ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 March, 2021, 12:07:15 pm
I once drove a Volvo equipped with the DAF Variomatic transmission, on which the range of “gear” ratios was the same irrespective of direction of travel.  Those wacky Cloggies used to race DAFs backwards 4 teh LOLZ0RZ.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 07 March, 2021, 08:14:15 am
Hmmm. Every car I've ever owned has a lower reverse gear than 1st. Is that the same principle I wonder ?
No, it's so you can crank it up the face of Extremely Steep sandy slopes, should one be obstructing you. So far in teh history of teh world only Dear Johnny Mills has needed such a facility.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 March, 2021, 08:45:18 am
A uni chum of mine had a Light Fifteen with a dodgy battery.  One Saturday night he parked it nose-on to the kerb in a street with a steep camber. Next morning it wouldn't start so "we'll crank it back and push it". Har har we couldn't get the starting handle in. Ever tried pushing a ton of car up a slope when you've got a hangover? And guess who had to push the bloody thing to get it started once we'd done that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 07 March, 2021, 11:07:12 am
That there's an area of Stoke called Dresden.
Makes sense.

Except Dresden china doesn't come from Dresden, but from Meissen. (I went on a tour of the Meissen factory in 1977. It  produced traditional porcelain for export, and pottery decorated in the socialist realism style for the home market.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 March, 2021, 11:36:15 am
In my mind I see a teapot with Lenin pointing forward to the spout. "The futures is tea and biscuits for the proletariat of the world".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 07 March, 2021, 11:40:20 am
Hmmm. Every car I've ever owned has a lower reverse gear than 1st. Is that the same principle I wonder ?
No, it's so you can crank it up the face of Extremely Steep sandy slopes, should one be obstructing you. So far in teh history of teh world only Dear Johnny Mills has needed such a facility.
But don't let go of the handle.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 March, 2021, 11:47:41 am
In my mind I see a teapot with Lenin pointing forward to the spout. "The futures is tea and biscuits for the proletariat of the world".

Proper tea...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 March, 2021, 11:52:40 am
Ah, you're confusing communists with anarchists now!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 March, 2021, 12:20:19 pm
Prouhon probably drank coffee, what would he know about it?

Anyway, I was thinking of Lenin's Green Label.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 07 March, 2021, 12:29:18 pm
Hmmm. Every car I've ever owned has a lower reverse gear than 1st. Is that the same principle I wonder ?
No, it's so you can crank it up the face of Extremely Steep sandy slopes, should one be obstructing you. So far in teh history of teh world only Dear Johnny Mills has needed such a facility.

They tested it in an episode of Hollywood SCIENCE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPIL9V92ypM), which I'm mentioning because Hollywood SCIENCE was awesome, and they should make some more[1] episodes.


[1] On any theme apart from whether the human digestive tract can cope with ingesting large quantities of protein.  That's been exhaustively covered in the existing series.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 March, 2021, 12:42:26 pm
Prouhon probably drank coffee, what would he know about it?

Anyway, I was thinking of Lenin's Green Label.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/8624/16576909097_7d0636ccb9_o.png) (https://flic.kr/p/rfQZxx)
Proper Tea... (https://flic.kr/p/rfQZxx) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 08 March, 2021, 03:19:03 pm
Never arrange for deliveries to be made to a house on which you haven't completed! In my naivety, I'd assumed that an agreed completion date of last Friday would be the go ahead to get things sent there, but I hadn't counted on the incompetence/chicanery of those in the process. Cue much rearranging!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: madcow on 08 March, 2021, 03:30:45 pm
We were selling a house and a guy knocked on the door and said he'd been sent to measure up the bedrooms for fitted wardrobes.
Who asked for the quote? The gentleman that was allegedly buying the house.
We hadn't even exchanged at that time and never did because he dropped out a few weeks later.
Maybe the bedroom furniture was a deal breaker.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 08 March, 2021, 04:49:51 pm
This is a new build without a chain, funds in place and no good reason why we are where we are, but that's covered in another, swearier thread!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 08 March, 2021, 05:22:47 pm
Never arrange for deliveries to be made to a house on which you haven't completed! In my naivety, I'd assumed that an agreed completion date of last Friday would be the go ahead to get things sent there, but I hadn't counted on the incompetence/chicanery of those in the process. Cue much rearranging!

Ah - the moral of the story is that EVERYONE in the process is a liar . . . . until the fat lady sings NOTHING is certain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 09 March, 2021, 08:43:06 am
Hmmm. Every car I've ever owned has a lower reverse gear than 1st. Is that the same principle I wonder ?
No, it's so you can crank it up the face of Extremely Steep sandy slopes, should one be obstructing you. So far in teh history of teh world only Dear Johnny Mills has needed such a facility.

Not quite. The ne'er-do-wells in Steinbeck's "Cannery Row" also had to crank a car backwards up a Very Steep hill.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 09 March, 2021, 09:00:00 am
Hmmm. Every car I've ever owned has a lower reverse gear than 1st. Is that the same principle I wonder ?
No, it's so you can crank it up the face of Extremely Steep sandy slopes, should one be obstructing you. So far in teh history of teh world only Dear Johnny Mills has needed such a facility.

Not quite. The ne'er-do-wells in Steinbeck's "Cannery Row" also had to crank a car backwards up a Very Steep hill.

Many years ago I had a mini (proper one, 1965) and had to reverse up the hill at Symonds Yat as a) the road was wet and covered in leaves, b) the car was front wheel drive, c) there were several crates of beer in the boot, d) there were four hefty people in the vehicle ..... just not enough front wheel traction or gear low enough.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: tiermat on 09 March, 2021, 10:09:05 am
Meanwhile I have learnt that Dizzee Rascal is an MBE!!!!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 09 March, 2021, 10:48:02 am
Hmmm. Every car I've ever owned has a lower reverse gear than 1st. Is that the same principle I wonder ?
No, it's so you can crank it up the face of Extremely Steep sandy slopes, should one be obstructing you. So far in teh history of teh world only Dear Johnny Mills has needed such a facility.

Not quite. The ne'er-do-wells in Steinbeck's "Cannery Row" also had to crank a car backwards up a Very Steep hill.

Reversing up hills was standard practice with Model T Fords, something to do with the positioning of the fuel tank relative to the engine. A log time resident of Colorado told me once that reversing cars up Loveland Pass was common practice in the late 1940s through the early '50s. His father was very proud of himself when he acquired a car that was powerful enough and geared low enough to drive over said pass pointed in the proper direction.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 March, 2021, 11:32:03 am
Certain 21st century rental cars of my acquaintance have still struggled in that part of the Rockies.  My fault for hiring it in Florida, where they don’t do Up.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 09 March, 2021, 11:46:53 am
Many moons ago I had a sidevalve 105E van that used as much oil as fuel and had to reverse up anything more than a molehill. On one notable occasion with about 6 of us in the said vehicle, it ran out of steam on a long stretch of incline on the A1 in county durham at about 2am....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 March, 2021, 12:07:54 pm
The green waste bin lorry always reverses up the hill outside. Then gets stuck because it usually can't get around the corner so beats a retreat. The normal bin lorry is made of tougher stuff and can both get up the hill forwards and get around the corner. Assuming it can defeat the bad parking on the street below and get this far, which is getting rarer, even in the time we've lived here, the street below has got more bodged with cars especially at pinch points. I'd drive through them, but that's why they don't let me drive bin lorries. My grandad was a dustman*.

*he was a miner, then the pit fell on his head and snapped him in half. So they put the spare bone from the bottom of his leg into his back along with an LP-sized metal plate that he could make go bong to gross-out unruly grandchildren – I'm minded the surgeon was having a bit of a laugh – and of course, what job do you do after you've broken your spine? Heave full dustbins into the back of a lorry, that's what.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 March, 2021, 12:25:00 pm
When my grate frend gNick lived in a narrow and bendy cul-de-sac in Ashford (Middx) I used sometimes to be rudely awakened by the dustmen and asked to move my motor-car* so they could reach the far end.  Not fun when you’re too overhung to put your contact lenses in.

* because my 14’ long trailer was occupying the driveway
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 March, 2021, 12:44:29 pm
If they're blocked, they usually just leave. It's a tight t-junction between the hill outside a lunar-surfaced lane that constitutes the street behind us. The green waste lorry appears unable to turn corners (they bought a new lorry, the old one was fine). I grinked about this once to Biffa and the chirpy 'waste collection executive' said 'oh no, that's not a new lorry, it's the one we have always used' so I sent her a nice picture of a brand new, shiny lorry with this year's plates (I looked them up) visibly wedged in the junction (it was there for four hours, so I didn't have to hurry). In the spirit of customer service, she never replied and I figured it was their problem. Mostly it reverses up the road, stops, and then drives back down. Comes back the next day. Repeats.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 09 March, 2021, 05:19:20 pm
<wrong thread, moved>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 March, 2021, 08:32:19 pm
Don't worry, we never saw it, Pingu-prime. It clashed with the usual soiree.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 09 March, 2021, 09:27:24 pm
It is well-known that J. S. Bach liked to mess about with numbers and other patterns in his music. There are several instances in which he has spelt his own surname using notes, bearing in mind that in the German scale, what we call B flat was known as B, and B natural as H, so B-A-C-H becomes quite possible.

What I didn't realise until this evening was that Bach was born on 21st March 1685.

21/3/85.

A B C D E F G H
1 2 3  4 5 6 7 8

Now, what do the first 4 digits of his date of birth spell?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 10 March, 2021, 12:10:17 am
If they're blocked, they usually just leave. It's a tight t-junction between the hill outside a lunar-surfaced lane that constitutes the street behind us. The green waste lorry appears unable to turn corners (they bought a new lorry, the old one was fine). I grinked about this once to Biffa and the chirpy 'waste collection executive' said 'oh no, that's not a new lorry, it's the one we have always used' so I sent her a nice picture of a brand new, shiny lorry with this year's plates (I looked them up) visibly wedged in the junction (it was there for four hours, so I didn't have to hurry). In the spirit of customer service, she never replied and I figured it was their problem. Mostly it reverses up the road, stops, and then drives back down. Comes back the next day. Repeats.

You grinked about a green waste lorry  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 March, 2021, 01:11:00 am
It is well-known that J. S. Bach liked to mess about with numbers and other patterns in his music. There are several instances in which he has spelt his own surname using notes, bearing in mind that in the German scale, what we call B flat was known as B, and B natural as H, so B-A-C-H becomes quite possible.

What I didn't realise until this evening was that Bach was born on 21st March 1685.

21/3/85.

A B C D E F G H
1 2 3  4 5 6 7 8

Now, what do the first 4 digits of his date of birth spell?

Yebbut that seems to have been before Leipzig and the Surrounding Spaces adopted the Gregorian Calendar ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 10 March, 2021, 03:04:22 am
Hmmm. Every car I've ever owned has a lower reverse gear than 1st. Is that the same principle I wonder ?
No, it's so you can crank it up the face of Extremely Steep sandy slopes, should one be obstructing you. So far in teh history of teh world only Dear Johnny Mills has needed such a facility.
I have moved a car (using forward and reverse as required) using the starting handle. It was a Rover P4 that was temporarily without its cylinder head. It need to be moved a few tens of yards for some reason that I forget now. The ground was gravel and not tarmac, so pushing it would have been difficult.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 10 March, 2021, 07:39:48 am
Hmmm. Every car I've ever owned has a lower reverse gear than 1st. Is that the same principle I wonder ?
No, it's so you can crank it up the face of Extremely Steep sandy slopes, should one be obstructing you. So far in teh history of teh world only Dear Johnny Mills has needed such a facility.
I have moved a car (using forward and reverse as required) using the starting handle. It was a Rover P4 that was temporarily without its cylinder head. It need to be moved a few tens of yards for some reason that I forget now. The ground was gravel and not tarmac, so pushing it would have been difficult.

Mention of those old P series Rovers brought back some memories - I passed my test in the bigger brother of the P4, a P5 3-litre automatic (before they changed the rules on automatic cars and driving licences)   Heavy to drive but very comfortable . .  and a bench front-seat - remember them?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 March, 2021, 12:44:30 pm
Hmmm. Every car I've ever owned has a lower reverse gear than 1st. Is that the same principle I wonder ?
No, it's so you can crank it up the face of Extremely Steep sandy slopes, should one be obstructing you. So far in teh history of teh world only Dear Johnny Mills has needed such a facility.
I have moved a car (using forward and reverse as required) using the starting handle. It was a Rover P4 that was temporarily without its cylinder head. It need to be moved a few tens of yards for some reason that I forget now. The ground was gravel and not tarmac, so pushing it would have been difficult.

Mention of those old P series Rovers brought back some memories - I passed my test in the bigger brother of the P4, a P5 3-litre automatic (before they changed the rules on automatic cars and driving licences)   Heavy to drive but very comfortable . .  and a bench front-seat - remember them?

On the rare occasions that I am obliged to stroll into the middle of Walthamstow I usually pass a healthy-looking 3 litre P5.  Battleship grey, appropriately enough.  The folks parked next to us at the caravan site in Altnaharra in the summer of 1970 had the coupé version, with the V8 engine, occasioning great car-envy in a six year old Mr Larrington.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 March, 2021, 03:07:43 pm
It is well-known that J. S. Bach liked to mess about with numbers and other patterns in his music. There are several instances in which he has spelt his own surname using notes, bearing in mind that in the German scale, what we call B flat was known as B, and B natural as H, so B-A-C-H becomes quite possible.

What I didn't realise until this evening was that Bach was born on 21st March 1685.

21/3/85.

A B C D E F G H
1 2 3  4 5 6 7 8

Now, what do the first 4 digits of his date of birth spell?
Tomorrow: Wowbagger's new career as a numerological diviner.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 March, 2021, 03:10:10 pm
Hmmm. Every car I've ever owned has a lower reverse gear than 1st. Is that the same principle I wonder ?
No, it's so you can crank it up the face of Extremely Steep sandy slopes, should one be obstructing you. So far in teh history of teh world only Dear Johnny Mills has needed such a facility.
I have moved a car (using forward and reverse as required) using the starting handle. It was a Rover P4 that was temporarily without its cylinder head. It need to be moved a few tens of yards for some reason that I forget now. The ground was gravel and not tarmac, so pushing it would have been difficult.

Mention of those old P series Rovers brought back some memories - I passed my test in the bigger brother of the P4, a P5 3-litre automatic (before they changed the rules on automatic cars and driving licences)   Heavy to drive but very comfortable . .  and a bench front-seat - remember them?

On the rare occasions that I am obliged to stroll into the middle of Walthamstow I usually pass a healthy-looking 3 litre P5.  Battleship grey, appropriately enough.  The folks parked next to us at the caravan site in Altnaharra in the summer of 1970 had the coupé version, with the V8 engine, occasioning great car-envy in a six year old Mr Larrington.
About 1985 I had a Saturday job where my boss drove a P5. He also had an AJS that was always broken down.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 10 March, 2021, 03:40:38 pm
Courtesy of one of my daughters - works in publishing . . .   

Some Endeavour (as in Morse) wordplay: one of the characters, editor of The Oxford Times, is called Dorothea Frazil - the word "frazil" is a form of partially thawed ice, and she is of course played by Abigail Thaw   (the late John Thaw and Sheila Hancock's daughter)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 10 March, 2021, 04:09:54 pm
It is well-known that J. S. Bach liked to mess about with numbers and other patterns in his music. There are several instances in which he has spelt his own surname using notes, bearing in mind that in the German scale, what we call B flat was known as B, and B natural as H, so B-A-C-H becomes quite possible.

What I didn't realise until this evening was that Bach was born on 21st March 1685.

21/3/85.

A B C D E F G H
1 2 3  4 5 6 7 8

Now, what do the first 4 digits of his date of birth spell?

Yebbut that seems to have been before Leipzig and the Surrounding Spaces adopted the Gregorian Calendar ;D
My understanding is that that had been taken into consideration when planning Bach's birthday.  :P

@Cudzo: I didn't discover this. It cropped up in a choir rehearsal yesterday evening.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 March, 2021, 05:57:16 pm
My faith in your mystical powers has been shattered.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 10 March, 2021, 06:38:34 pm
Alexa is a joker.

I asked for 'Miner for a Heart of Gold' and was told I would have to sign up for the premium service.
When I refused I got 'I still love you'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 March, 2021, 11:53:08 pm
The existence and, moreover, meaning of the word “greebling”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 March, 2021, 08:10:35 am
And now I know it too.  Betcha I forget it first.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 11 March, 2021, 10:25:31 am
Today is the Pandemic's first birthday.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 11 March, 2021, 11:17:52 am
The sportsball dugout (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Colman) was invented in Furryboottoon. I discovered a plaque for the perpetrator on a ride yesterday:

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51022658267_e9a2b6fa2c_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2kJGsGB)
Colman, Donald (https://flic.kr/p/2kJGsGB) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 March, 2021, 12:32:18 pm
Back in your technical area!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 11 March, 2021, 05:31:19 pm
That it can cost £891.20 to ship a Yaris wiper arm to South Africa  :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 11 March, 2021, 08:49:45 pm
That it can cost £891.20 to ship a Yaris wiper arm to South Africa  :o

There are 200 Toyota dealers in ZA

https://www.toyota.co.za/showroom

None of them have a Yaris wiper arm?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 12 March, 2021, 08:42:40 am
Didn't say they didn't!  I'm only interested in getting one sent to me in Staffordshire...  But I had a quick squizz down the worldwide shipping list...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 March, 2021, 12:41:30 pm
That insects – or at least, one species of insect – have gears.
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/functioning-mechanical-gears-seen-in-nature-for-the-first-time
Quote
Previously believed to be only man-made, a natural example of a functioning gear mechanism has been discovered in a common insect - showing that evolution developed interlocking cogs long before we did.

In Issus, the skeleton is used to solve a complex problem that the brain and nervous system can’t
Malcolm Burrows
The juvenile Issus - a plant-hopping insect found in gardens across Europe - has hind-leg joints with curved cog-like strips of opposing ‘teeth’ that intermesh, rotating like mechanical gears to synchronise the animal’s legs when it launches into a jump.
They seem to be fixies. The link is worth following for the great video too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 12 March, 2021, 01:43:57 pm
Didn't say they didn't!  I'm only interested in getting one sent to me in Staffordshire...  But I had a quick squizz down the worldwide shipping list...

Buy it locally.  £20.

(I just had my Yaris serviced)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 March, 2021, 01:55:36 pm
Brambles have a great affinity for woolly hats.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 14 March, 2021, 08:33:30 pm
What a “mustard well” is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 March, 2021, 08:45:35 am
Virginia Woolf had an earth closet in the loft.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 18 March, 2021, 09:11:25 pm
I learned today that when sitting with a train besotted two year old, when searching for videos on Youtube, without any content filters, it pays to ensure you type the "I" in the search term for trains.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 19 March, 2021, 08:40:19 am
Did you get crossings?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 19 March, 2021, 11:41:30 am
In civil engineering there's a thing called a king post wall. Typically vertical steel channels with horizontal mnembers such as concrete planks or sleepers between them. I knew that.

What I learnt is that in French it's called a Paroi Berlinoise or Berlin Wall.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 March, 2021, 01:18:42 pm
In 2018 the publishers of The Beano sent a Cease and Desist letter to haunted Victorian pencil Jacob Grease-Smugg requiring him to stop impersonating Walter the Softy.  https://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoners-diary/jacob-reesmogg-accused-of-being-a-big-softy-a3805351.html refers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andyoxon on 20 March, 2021, 01:35:53 pm
That I should check the top of the Sriracha ANY sauce is firmly on before shaking the bottle.  All over the floor, unit doors, worksurface...   ::-) ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 March, 2021, 03:10:42 pm
Quentin Crisp was originally named Denis Pratt.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 20 March, 2021, 03:43:11 pm
Linda McCartney Foods are based in Fakenham  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 21 March, 2021, 11:38:24 am
That the Finnish for grammar nazi is pilkunnussija, literally comma fucker.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 March, 2021, 12:25:03 pm
Remind me to share that gem with Miss von Brandenburg.  Mr von Brandenburg is half-Finnish :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jakob W on 21 March, 2021, 04:18:33 pm
The Dutch for a pedant or nit-picker is miereneuker; lit. 'ant-fucker'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Poacher on 21 March, 2021, 08:22:03 pm
SPD cleat bolts (or more correctly machine screws) are almost exactly the right size for attaching guide bushes to a Trend T5 router. I haz several spares!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jayjay on 22 March, 2021, 09:08:25 pm
The farm where my Mum began married life had drinking water delivered to a barrel by the "bin men".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 March, 2021, 08:41:11 am
The Dutch for a pedant or nit-picker is miereneuker; lit. 'ant-fucker'.

In French it's enculeur de mouches, "fly-buggerer".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 March, 2021, 12:16:22 pm
That .fun is a permitted internet domain ending. Specifically http://inside-out.fun.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 March, 2021, 12:39:47 pm
That .fun is a permitted internet domain ending. Specifically http://inside-out.fun.

So is .fail, though ICBA to try to find anywhere using it.

Sadly trashbat.co.ck appears no longer tonwork.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 30 March, 2021, 12:46:17 pm
They created a shedload of new top-level domains a couple of years ago, on the completely logical basis that it means they can sell people more domains.

This is irksome, and one of the many reasons that modern life is rubbish.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 March, 2021, 12:54:31 pm
I for one have no wish to be .compost.  Even though my own personal domain wot is owned rented by me is mostly used as a repository for tat that falls outwith the T&Cs of Flickr.  A sort of online Walsall.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 01 April, 2021, 08:23:40 am
If you don’t have a bin collection there is always Facebook.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 April, 2021, 08:37:09 am
Milwaukee is the 6th most dangerous city in the United States.

I only wanted to look at impact drivers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 02 April, 2021, 10:41:20 am
40mm waste pipe for push-fit and solvent weld are not the same size - I have a solvent welded kitchen waste into an external train and wanted to add a push-fit fitting to extend it slightly.  So, off to Screwfix - again.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 April, 2021, 06:25:38 pm
That from 1930 to 1933 the unemployment rate in Poland rose from 10.5% to 43.5%
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 09 April, 2021, 01:48:42 pm
What the Fujiwhara effect is

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/09/rare-clash-of-cyclones-off-western-australia-excites-weather-enthusiasts-across-the-globe (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/09/rare-clash-of-cyclones-off-western-australia-excites-weather-enthusiasts-across-the-globe)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 09 April, 2021, 02:21:28 pm
40mm waste pipe for push-fit and solvent weld are not the same size - I have a solvent welded kitchen waste into an external train and wanted to add a push-fit fitting to extend it slightly.  So, off to Screwfix - again.

Doesn't that tend to try and rip the sink out through the wall ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 09 April, 2021, 03:55:01 pm
40mm waste pipe for push-fit and solvent weld are not the same size - I have a solvent welded kitchen waste into an external train and wanted to add a push-fit fitting to extend it slightly.  So, off to Screwfix - again.

Doesn't that tend to try and rip the sink out through the wall ?

Verry good, I must lurn to tipe proper . . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 09 April, 2021, 05:32:53 pm
40mm waste pipe for push-fit and solvent weld are not the same size - I have a solvent welded kitchen waste into an external train and wanted to add a push-fit fitting to extend it slightly.  So, off to Screwfix - again.

Doesn't that tend to try and rip the sink out through the wall ?

Verry good, I must lurn to tipe proper . . . .

Makes a change for it not to be me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 12 April, 2021, 02:27:09 pm

France has the wealthiest billionaires In The World.

Egalite and all that



(https://thumbor.granitemedia.com/billionaires/7hh_c-NFsNvoSZP66sem2--K_iU=/632x800/filters:format(webp):quality(80)/granite-web-prod/bb/25/bb251ebafdd24722993748fdb241b58c.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 12 April, 2021, 04:53:10 pm
Appropos of billionaires, I learned recently (I think I knew, but I hadn't see it put like this) that humans naturally think about numbers logarithmically, which is why we're not truly shocked by how gargantuan (and grotesque) an amount of money it truly is and what a vast gulf there is between a 'mere' millionaire and a billionaire. Top tip, trying plotting a million and a billion on a non-logarithmic scale.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 12 April, 2021, 05:32:45 pm
France has the wealthiest billionaires (https://www.farandwide.com/s/amazing-world-maps-74d6186e6d0e414b?utm_campaign=amazingworldmaps-d7cacdd0b78445cf&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=out&aid=008d034cf1b163e30d943e921a0636ed90&utm_term=Sky+News+%28British+Sky+Broadcasting+Ltd%29&dicbo=v1-0900337d7d7648b73771934e43e7868c-008d034cf1b163e30d943e921a0636ed90-ge2tsmjwme4dkljyg5tdaljume4dgllcgzrtaljvmm2wcojrmzstayjumu) In The World.

Egalite and all that


Are you sure about that?    The tope 10 wealthiest people are (in order):

- Jeff Bezos
- Elon Musk
- Bernard Arnault
- Bill Gates
- Mark Zuckerberg
- Warren Buffett
- Larry Ellison
- Larry Page
- Sergey Brin
- Mukesh Ambani

Only one of those is French.  7/10 are American.

The US has 10 times as many billionaires as France - and China has almost 20 time as many.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 12 April, 2021, 06:02:52 pm
France has the wealthiest billionaires (https://www.farandwide.com/s/amazing-world-maps-74d6186e6d0e414b?utm_campaign=amazingworldmaps-d7cacdd0b78445cf&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=out&aid=008d034cf1b163e30d943e921a0636ed90&utm_term=Sky+News+%28British+Sky+Broadcasting+Ltd%29&dicbo=v1-0900337d7d7648b73771934e43e7868c-008d034cf1b163e30d943e921a0636ed90-ge2tsmjwme4dkljyg5tdaljume4dgllcgzrtaljvmm2wcojrmzstayjumu) In The World.

Egalite and all that


Are you sure about that?    The tope 10 wealthiest people are (in order):

- Jeff Bezos
- Elon Musk
- Bernard Arnault
- Bill Gates
- Mark Zuckerberg
- Warren Buffett
- Larry Ellison
- Larry Page
- Sergey Brin
- Mukesh Ambani

Only one of those is French.  7/10 are American.

The US has 10 times as many billionaires as France - and China has almost 20 time as many.

Examine the picto attentively and you will see it proclaims France has the wealthiest billionaires. Pro rata. US billionaires are ten a penny.


Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 12 April, 2021, 06:04:27 pm
France has the wealthiest billionaires (https://www.farandwide.com/s/amazing-world-maps-74d6186e6d0e414b?utm_campaign=amazingworldmaps-d7cacdd0b78445cf&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=out&aid=008d034cf1b163e30d943e921a0636ed90&utm_term=Sky+News+%28British+Sky+Broadcasting+Ltd%29&dicbo=v1-0900337d7d7648b73771934e43e7868c-008d034cf1b163e30d943e921a0636ed90-ge2tsmjwme4dkljyg5tdaljume4dgllcgzrtaljvmm2wcojrmzstayjumu) In The World.

Egalite and all that


Are you sure about that?    The tope 10 wealthiest people are (in order):

- Jeff Bezos
- Elon Musk
- Bernard Arnault
- Bill Gates
- Mark Zuckerberg
- Warren Buffett
- Larry Ellison
- Larry Page
- Sergey Brin
- Mukesh Ambani

Only one of those is French.  7/10 are American.

The US has 10 times as many billionaires as France - and China has almost 20 time as many.

Examine the picto attentively and you will see it proclaims France has the wealthiest billionaires. Pro rata. US billionaires are ten a penny.


Which picto?  You linked to something with 100 slides.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 April, 2021, 06:43:04 pm
A billion Venezuelan Bolivars is worth about three hundred and twenty-five quid.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 April, 2021, 06:45:35 pm
Appropos of billionaires, I learned recently (I think I knew, but I hadn't see it put like this) that humans naturally think about numbers logarithmically, which is why we're not truly shocked by how gargantuan (and grotesque) an amount of money it truly is and what a vast gulf there is between a 'mere' millionaire and a billionaire. Top tip, trying plotting a million and a billion on a non-logarithmic scale.

That explains how we can cope with computers without getting tangled up in metaphysical dichotomy whenever we have to think about gigabytes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 12 April, 2021, 07:03:33 pm
Appropos of billionaires, I learned recently (I think I knew, but I hadn't see it put like this) that humans naturally think about numbers logarithmically, which is why we're not truly shocked by how gargantuan (and grotesque) an amount of money it truly is and what a vast gulf there is between a 'mere' millionaire and a billionaire. Top tip, trying plotting a million and a billion on a non-logarithmic scale.

That explains how we can cope with computers without getting tangled up in metaphysical dichotomy whenever we have to think about gigabytes.

Yes, and in the same way, a gigabyte isn't just a bigger kilobyte.

If you set your time machine to whizz you back one million minutes, you'll be enjoying the pre-COVID world of 2019. If you inadvertently set it to one billion minutes, you can wander around the middle-east asking people with beards 'are you Jesus?'
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 April, 2021, 07:29:12 pm
Surely you'd have to ask “Yea and moreover verily, art thou Jesus, the king of the Israelites, and the Ammonites, and the Midianites, and the Simmonites, and the Canaanites, and the Jacobites, and the Levites, and the Trilobites, and the Ishmaelites, and the Sodomites, and the Adnanites, and the Megabytes, and the Qahtanites, and the Cheesibites?” i.e. in English Just Like Jesus Spoke.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 12 April, 2021, 07:35:11 pm
Surely you'd have to ask “Yea and moreover verily, art thou Jesus, the king of the Israelites, and the Ammonites, and the Midianites, and the Simmonites, and the Canaanites, and the Jacobites, and the Levites, and the Trilobites, and the Ishmaelites, and the Sodomites, and the Adnanites, and the Megabytes, and the Qahtanites, and the Cheesibites?” i.e. in English Just Like Jesus Spoke.

And thou shalt knoweth it is He, when He doth reply with benedictions unto the cheese makers...


Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 12 April, 2021, 08:06:08 pm
Appropos of billionaires, I learned recently (I think I knew, but I hadn't see it put like this) that humans naturally think about numbers logarithmically, which is why we're not truly shocked by how gargantuan (and grotesque) an amount of money it truly is and what a vast gulf there is between a 'mere' millionaire and a billionaire. Top tip, trying plotting a million and a billion on a non-logarithmic scale.

That explains how we can cope with computers without getting tangled up in metaphysical dichotomy whenever we have to think about gigabytes.

Yes, and in the same way, a gigabyte isn't just a bigger kilobyte.

If you set your time machine to whizz you back one million minutes, you'll be enjoying the pre-COVID world of 2019. If you inadvertently set it to one billion minutes, you can wander around the middle-east asking people with beards 'are you Jesus?'

Just look for someone who resembles David Essex in a nightdress.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 12 April, 2021, 08:27:59 pm
Surely you'd have to ask “Yea and moreover verily, art thou Jesus, the king of the Israelites, and the Ammonites, and the Midianites, and the Simmonites, and the Canaanites, and the Jacobites, and the Levites, and the Trilobites, and the Ishmaelites, and the Sodomites, and the Adnanites, and the Megabytes, and the Qahtanites, and the Cheesibites?” i.e. in English Just Like Jesus Spoke.

You forgot the Marmites.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 12 April, 2021, 08:29:26 pm
Surely you'd have to ask “Yea and moreover verily, art thou Jesus, the king of the Israelites, and the Ammonites, and the Midianites, and the Simmonites, and the Canaanites, and the Jacobites, and the Levites, and the Trilobites, and the Ishmaelites, and the Sodomites, and the Adnanites, and the Megabytes, and the Qahtanites, and the Cheesibites?” i.e. in English Just Like Jesus Spoke.

You forgot the Marmites.

And the Stalagmites & Stalactites.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 12 April, 2021, 08:29:50 pm
Surely you'd have to ask “Yea and moreover verily, art thou Jesus, the king of the Israelites, and the Ammonites, and the Midianites, and the Simmonites, and the Canaanites, and the Jacobites, and the Levites, and the Trilobites, and the Ishmaelites, and the Sodomites, and the Adnanites, and the Megabytes, and the Qahtanites, and the Cheesibites?” i.e. in English Just Like Jesus Spoke.

You forgot the Marmites.

Plus the Armalites and Cenobites.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 12 April, 2021, 08:31:35 pm
And the Coprolites.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 12 April, 2021, 08:35:01 pm
Vitalites...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 12 April, 2021, 08:42:11 pm
And the complete and utter shites.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 12 April, 2021, 08:48:22 pm
That the French are voting on making short haul internal flights illegal in favour of the train.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 April, 2021, 08:51:26 pm
Vitalites...
Good prompt. 007!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 April, 2021, 08:56:15 pm
And the Wonderlites (remember them?).

[“They were Wonder Lights, clot!” – Ed.]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 12 April, 2021, 08:56:50 pm
Appropos of billionaires, I learned recently (I think I knew, but I hadn't see it put like this) that humans naturally think about numbers logarithmically, which is why we're not truly shocked by how gargantuan (and grotesque) an amount of money it truly is and what a vast gulf there is between a 'mere' millionaire and a billionaire. Top tip, trying plotting a million and a billion on a non-logarithmic scale.

That explains how we can cope with computers without getting tangled up in metaphysical dichotomy whenever we have to think about gigabytes.

Yes, and in the same way, a gigabyte isn't just a bigger kilobyte.

If you set your time machine to whizz you back one million minutes, you'll be enjoying the pre-COVID world of 2019. If you inadvertently set it to one billion minutes, you can wander around the middle-east asking people with beards 'are you Jesus?'

Just look for someone who resembles David Essex in a nightdress.
Quote
It isn't Jesus. It's just a fella
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 12 April, 2021, 08:56:59 pm
And the complete and utter shites.

AKA the Bagoshites.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 12 April, 2021, 08:57:29 pm
And the Wonderlites (remember them?).

[“They were Wonder Lights, clot!” – Ed.]

Conquered and assimilated by the Maglites. ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 13 April, 2021, 06:50:31 am
Not forgetting the Chi-Lites!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 13 April, 2021, 07:13:18 am
That the French are voting on making short haul internal flights illegal in favour of the train.
Ah, the Pasdeflites?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 April, 2021, 03:38:17 pm
And then there's the Holy Order of Jenolites, who follow the Word of St. Mick and paint everything black.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 13 April, 2021, 04:30:05 pm
I see no mention of the Skatalites.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 13 April, 2021, 04:56:58 pm
Me ears are alight.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 13 April, 2021, 05:24:45 pm
If you had read the Book of Mormon, which was faithfully transcribed word for word by Mr Smith upon Heavenly Pain, you'd know that angels actually speaketh just like the King James Bible.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 13 April, 2021, 08:21:48 pm
I tried bleaching the black bits on the silicone round the shower. I learned that not only did it do next to sod all (as expected) but it also turned some of it pink as well.
Not a very successful experiment, but worth a try.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 13 April, 2021, 08:35:57 pm
I learned that recently too. I suspect it might work if you don't leave it untouched for > 5 years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 13 April, 2021, 08:48:40 pm
Once upon a time (when we moved into this place and discovered that yes, we were going to have to live here for a while before the period known as the Great Refurbishment, and it was skanky), I discovered a substance, a restorative nothing short of miraculous. It smelt of the sort of chemicals that could dispose of the bodies and scrap metal, and would send lily-livered regulators running for the hills where'd they hide and cry like scaredy little boys. A no-nonsense kick in the gametangia for any outbreak of mould smaller than an overweight hippo. I went mental and demoulded a small county. Late at night, in mould circles, the still talk about dark time when their numbers were decimated and then decimated some more (to account for pedants who will be like but decimate means..., pedants whose bodies were never found).

Then I lost the bottle somewhere (it was so effective that it dissolved its own label), probably in the garage, but it's not come to light since. I figured the easiest option was to buy another bottle. But what was this magic decoction called? I have no idea. I've bought a half dozen different bottles and they're all just dilute bleach which, as you've discovered, doesn't work.

It smelt of some kind of long-chain alkanes and party aromatics. I need to find this stuff. It's awesome and the bottom of our shower
is starting to turn and there are some things that I won't put up with and that includes mould. This is, in part, the fault of Waitrose who took the good stuff out of their shower spray. I suspect I may end up getting a man (my wife always stresses a man) to replace, though our handyman is apparently fitting a kitchen somewhere. He can do the cooker element while he's here, another job I'm unlikely to get around to. I'm more of a theory kind of guy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 13 April, 2021, 09:15:31 pm
You're probably not alliwed to buy it anymore, like paraquat or something.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 13 April, 2021, 09:38:17 pm
I have a feeling it's the same stuff as uPVC cleaner, which is in fact a mixture of solventalicious funstuff that seems approximate to my nose-derived recipe. Whether it was packaged as mould remover (I have a feeling it was) or whether it was me doing some chemical jiggery-pokery just because (I was never happier than upon receipt of a radioactive chemical labelled 'explosion hazard').

I give it 50/50 odds of dissolving silicone, of course. I'd test it on a Playboy model first and see if she strategically deflates.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 13 April, 2021, 10:00:34 pm
I see no mention of the Skatalites.
Me neither. Long overdue.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 13 April, 2021, 10:30:01 pm
But will no-one think of the clay minerals?

The Illites
The Chlorites
The Montmorillonites
And all the other-ites

These guys are seriously under-represented.



Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 April, 2021, 12:00:31 am
I'm going to have to start taking notes, just in case I ever feel the urge to launch another rant inna-KJV-stylee.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 April, 2021, 09:12:18 am
I see no mention of the Skatalites.
Me neither. Long overdue.

Skata from the Greek?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 14 April, 2021, 03:11:35 pm
Did you have to mention HRH?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 14 April, 2021, 05:09:11 pm
I see no mention of the Skatalites.
Me neither. Long overdue.

Skata from the Greek?
Ermm.  No. More this. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWSPL4ANLPY)  :)

Which leads nicely into, Saturday Night Beneath the Plastic Palm Trees (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDwMutJ-lM8)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 14 April, 2021, 08:56:18 pm
I tried bleaching the black bits on the silicone round the shower. I learned that not only did it do next to sod all (as expected) but it also turned some of it pink as well.
Not a very successful experiment, but worth a try.

Marigolds. Roll up a bit of loo roll, saturate it with bleach, press it along the affected section of silicone and leave for a day or two. Apply more bleach if it dries out. It does work.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 14 April, 2021, 09:01:16 pm
I tried that and drenched the loo roll in neat bleach and left it in place for a week, then repeated twice more.

There's still black bits.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 14 April, 2021, 09:03:52 pm
My colleague was telling me today she had great success with Cillit Bang Black Mould Remover.
I did wonder if my bleach had lost its potency as I was using it neat and the smell didn't blow my head off in the same way I remember it did the last time I used it,
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 15 April, 2021, 07:47:07 am
My colleague was telling me today she had great success with Cillit Bang Black Mould Remover.
I did wonder if my bleach had lost its potency as I was using it neat and the smell didn't blow my head off in the same way I remember it did the last time I used it,

Bleach, like Round-up weed killer, is a mere shadow of its former self nowadays - Nitro-mors paint remover is heading the same way . . . . it's all this "water based/no solvents" stuff that the H&S Gestapo is ruling on!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 April, 2021, 08:13:15 am
That there is (at least one) real place called Gotham. It's part of Nottingham.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JonBuoy on 15 April, 2021, 09:15:48 am
That there is (at least one) real place called Gotham. It's part of Nottingham.

It may be in Nottinghamshire but I wouldn't describe it as part of Nottingham.  I ride through it fairly frequently and it is more of a village than a city ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 15 April, 2021, 09:26:02 am
Ah yes, the wise men of Gotham.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 15 April, 2021, 10:29:26 am
And that is where the Batman Gotham City comes from.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 15 April, 2021, 10:30:01 am
Though I believe the locals pronounce it 'goatam'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 15 April, 2021, 10:31:53 am
From Wiki (this is delightful).

The village is most famed for the stories of the "Wise Men of Gotham".[3] These depict the people of the village as being stupid. However, the reason for the behaviour is believed to be that the villagers wished to feign madness to avoid a Royal Highway being built through the village, as they would then be expected to build and maintain this route. Madness was believed at the time to be highly contagious, and when King John's knights saw the villagers behaving as if insane, the knights swiftly withdrew and the King's road was re-routed to avoid the village.

Reminded of the foolish ingenuity of Gotham's residents, Washington Irving gave the name "Gotham" to New York City in his Salmagundi Papers (1807). In turn, Bill Finger named Batman's pastiche New York Gotham City.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 April, 2021, 10:35:56 am
From Wiki (this is delightful).

The village is most famed for the stories of the "Wise Men of Gotham".[3] These depict the people of the village as being stupid. However, the reason for the behaviour is believed to be that the villagers wished to feign madness to avoid a Royal Highway being built through the village, as they would then be expected to build and maintain this route. Madness was believed at the time to be highly contagious, and when King John's knights saw the villagers behaving as if insane, the knights swiftly withdrew and the King's road was re-routed to avoid the village.

Reminded of the foolish ingenuity of Gotham's residents, Washington Irving gave the name "Gotham" to New York City in his Salmagundi Papers (1807). In turn, Bill Finger named Batman's pastiche New York Gotham City.

Delightful is what it is all right. :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 April, 2021, 12:04:22 pm
That there is (at least one) real place called Gotham. It's part of Nottingham.

Every time I've been through it I've been overtaken by Alfred on his electric-assist Alfcycle.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 16 April, 2021, 10:14:50 am
The term ephebophilia (from an unlikely source, a Harlan Coben book) , and the associated term chronophilia (from Wikipedia).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 21 April, 2021, 10:20:54 am
But will no-one think of the clay minerals?

The Illites
The Chlorites
The Montmorillonites
And all the other-ites

These guys are seriously under-represented.
And not forgetting Pub-frontite, the generic geo-term for urban decorative cladding rocks (like Larvikite, e.g)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 21 April, 2021, 01:33:12 pm
Courtesy of the BHPC racing thread https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=113381.125 (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=113381.125) there is such a thing as padded shorts/undershorts for goalkeepers - with padding on the outside of the hips and thighs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 April, 2021, 01:38:10 pm
Update for Peppa Pig haters, who I understand are legion on this forum: "Peppa Pig World of Play" theme parks have reached Shanghai. Operated by a British company, of course.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 April, 2021, 10:35:56 am
The word taint, meaning perineum, I suppose from persons of confusion being told "'tain't that. No, 'tain't that either".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 28 April, 2021, 07:46:15 am
A bloke in the US (on a woodwork forum I follow) has built a storage unit for his "collection of telephone insulators"    [that's the glass or ceramic things that you see on the top of telegraph poles]

Not sure if there is a term for the group of collectors of such items?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 28 April, 2021, 07:47:37 am
Junk?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 28 April, 2021, 07:56:02 am
Junk?

That probably better describes the collection rather than the collector...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 April, 2021, 10:05:10 am
I think the glass ones are rather pretty. To have one at home would be a curiousity. To have more than one is getting obscure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 28 April, 2021, 10:05:54 am
OTOH, if you're going to have a collection of something, they're a sensible size and unlikely to go mouldy or explode or anything.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 April, 2021, 10:27:02 am
I've got one somewhere.  Probably still at Fort Larrington.  But it's a rather prosaic clear glass one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 28 April, 2021, 12:11:20 pm
What a "lamb mac" is.

https://www.shearwell.co.uk/protective-slip-on-lamb-macs
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 28 April, 2021, 12:13:20 pm
I've got one somewhere.  Probably still at Fort Larrington.  But it's a rather prosaic clear glass one.

I found a big pile of them in a field once. I wasn't allowed to bring them all home. Not even one of them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 April, 2021, 01:53:41 pm
On a related note, I learned on a FNRttC that the Wentlooge Levels are a mecca for pylon spotters, due to the large number of different types used there.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 28 April, 2021, 02:56:58 pm
MARRS "Pump Up The Volume" was released on 4AD.

That's like Deutche Grammophon releasing Never Mind The Bollocks!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 April, 2021, 06:28:42 pm
What a "lamb mac" is.

https://www.shearwell.co.uk/protective-slip-on-lamb-macs

I am disappointed to learn that it's not a new Hindu-friendly addition to the menu at The Scottish Restaurant.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 28 April, 2021, 09:05:25 pm
What a "lamb mac" is.

https://www.shearwell.co.uk/protective-slip-on-lamb-macs
Plastic macs are all very well but they just end up as litter.

In my day you skinned a dead one and wrapped the live ones in that.

Farming: the brutal truths episode xxxii
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 29 April, 2021, 09:04:51 am
What a "lamb mac" is.

https://www.shearwell.co.uk/protective-slip-on-lamb-macs
Plastic macs are all very well but they just end up as litter.

In my day you skinned a dead one and wrapped the live ones in that.

Farming: the brutal truths episode xxxii

I think in this case they are for thermal insulation overnight, rather than for adoption purposes. Be a bit counter-productive to skin half your lambs to give the rest a coat!  The "macs" are allegedly biodegradeable, FCVO biodegradeable I'm sure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 29 April, 2021, 09:31:52 am
I have just discovered that the word oikology means the science of houses and homes, considered especially in respect of their sanitary conditions. What I wonder is the name for the study of oiks, there must be one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 29 April, 2021, 08:02:33 pm
From οίκος.  Various shades of meaning, but home, house or even household or estate according to context.  So οικογένεια for family, i.e. of the house(hold) and also (eventually and after the usual drift of meaning) gives us economics to describe the management/study of the "οίκος" where the "household" is a nation or even a group of nations.

Study of oiks?  Ermmm, how about μαγκασολογία  (mangasology)?   From μάγκας,  various meanings but one is fairly close to (a wanna be) hard man.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 29 April, 2021, 08:31:15 pm
That the scale of Westminster Abbey (designed input by Henry III) is so that at coronations the main knights of the realm could attend the service mounted on horseback and then process on horseback under a platform where the king was being crowned.

I so want this resurrected for the coronation of Charles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 29 April, 2021, 10:28:59 pm
From οίκος.  Various shades of meaning, but home, house or even household or estate according to context.  So οικογένεια for family, i.e. of the house(hold) and also (eventually and after the usual drift of meaning) gives us economics to describe the management/study of the "οίκος" where the "household" is a nation or even a group of nations.


Also, believe it or not, the root of the word ecumenical
 
Quote
Study of oiks?  Ermmm, how about μαγκασολογία  (mangasology)?   From μάγκας,  various meanings but one is fairly close to (a wanna be) hard man.


Surely that’s the study of Japanese graphic novels?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 29 April, 2021, 11:04:57 pm

Quote
Study of oiks?  Ermmm, how about μαγκασολογία  (mangasology)?   From μάγκας,  various meanings but one is fairly close to (a wanna be) hard man.


Surely that’s the study of Japanese graphic novels?

Or the study of farts in human males.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 30 April, 2021, 08:02:46 am
About the phenomenon of the "Asian flush". (no, nothing to do with imaginatively designed Japanese toilets)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 30 April, 2021, 09:25:00 am
About the phenomenon of the "Asian flush". (no, nothing to do with imaginatively designed Japanese toilets)

I usually rely on the Rogerzila to update me on these kinds of practices.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 30 April, 2021, 05:21:33 pm
A Calcutta* rinse is an improvised version of the Japanese techno-toilet, using an inverted shower head.

*a reference, I assume, to one's Black Hole
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 30 April, 2021, 05:40:11 pm
About the phenomenon of the "Asian flush". (no, nothing to do with imaginatively designed Japanese toilets)

Also worth looking up shovel incisors, simian line, mongolian blue spot and dry ear wax for more fun Asian genetic traits
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 May, 2021, 06:17:40 pm
That Wilco's orange luggage straps will just, but only just, go round a 24-pack of poo paper on top of my rack. There, a practical bit of learning you can apply to your daily life! (your straps may be longer or shorter, different racks have different dimensions, the size of toilet rolls can go up as well as down, alternatives exist)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 May, 2021, 06:51:59 pm
Less applicable to everyday life up here but perhaps more interesting, there is a mountain in Guinea, not far from Conakry, with the curious name of the Dog Who Smokes – le Chien qui Fume.

Despite the name, it doesn't seem to be a volcano. To me, it doesn't look much like a dog either. What do you reckon?
(https://rachelfellowguinee.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/img_2231.jpg?w=700&h=)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 04 May, 2021, 07:33:39 pm
That Rhode Island changed its name last year and didn't think to inform me, and not to the name I wanted, Little Rhody the Ornery State. (Sadly a more prosaic The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations to The State of Rhode Island, thus depriving me of a bit of dull trivia.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 04 May, 2021, 09:42:03 pm
That ISO isn't an acronym/initialisation for the International Standards Organization, on account of them being called the International Organization for Standardization.
Quote
International Organization* for Standardization' would have different acronyms in different languages (IOS in English, OIN in French for Organisation internationale de normalisation), our founders decided to give it the short form ISO**. ISO is derived from the Greek 'isos', meaning equal. Whatever the country, whatever the language, we are always ISO.

Linky: https://www.iso.org/about-us.html (https://www.iso.org/about-us.html)

*You would think they could work on a standard for the s vs z thing.

** What's the term for these anagrammed initials sets? Like UTC. In fact UTC is the only other example I can think of. 

 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 05 May, 2021, 08:07:07 am
Less applicable to everyday life up here but perhaps more interesting, there is a mountain in Guinea, not far from Conakry, with the curious name of the Dog Who Smokes – le Chien qui Fume.

Despite the name, it doesn't seem to be a volcano. To me, it doesn't look much like a dog either. What do you reckon?
(https://rachelfellowguinee.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/img_2231.jpg?w=700&h=)
I can see the dog; head, ear and left shoulder/leg.  But, as a geologist, it does not look very volcanic from here.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 May, 2021, 08:50:23 am
That Rhode Island changed its name last year and didn't think to inform me, and not to the name I wanted, Little Rhody the Ornery State. (Sadly a more prosaic The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations to The State of Rhode Island, thus depriving me of a bit of dull trivia.)

Just had a gander at the Providence Plantations bit on Wiki.  These settlers were good at falling out and going off in a huff, weren't they?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 May, 2021, 09:44:07 am
That Rhode Island changed its name last year and didn't think to inform me, and not to the name I wanted, Little Rhody the Ornery State. (Sadly a more prosaic The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations to The State of Rhode Island, thus depriving me of a bit of dull trivia.)

Just had a gander at the Providence Plantations bit on Wiki.  These settlers were good at falling out and going off in a huff, weren't they?

Honestly, had the Brits not been so beastly, that was the only thing the thirteen colonies agreed on. All the various strands of puritanism viewed each other as being suspiciously tolerant (Rhode Island's willingness to accept the more dilutely religious earned it the sobriquet's 'Rogue's Island' and the 'Sewer of New England') and there was no border they could agree upon (originally, Massachusett and Connecticut charters gave them a state-height stripe all the way to the Pacific (eh? - a Native American). In reality, that meant Connecticut 'owned' the top bit of Pennsylvania and a chunk of modern-day Ohio (the Connecticut Western Reserve, it was marooned when Pennsylvania got greenlighted, a curious enclave of New England in Ohio, still remembered in the names, such as Case Western Reserve University). Mass was still bickering quite late with New York over a chunk of Erie shoreline. Et cetera.

Rhode Island was the first colony to declare independence (two months before the other laggards) and last to ratify the constitution, of course (they didn't bother to send anyone to the meeting to rehash the Articles of Confederation, where they inadvertently wrote the Constitution instead, a rather sneaky bit of sneak by the Federalists). Even then they only signed because the other twelve states threatened them with taxes and tariffs.

The plantations bit was never to do with slavery, it was a generic term for the agricultural colony, but the modern-day attribution seems to have pushed them over the edge for the name change (Rhode Island was the first state to formally abolish slavery, though it must be said they mostly ignored the fact they had for the following century).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 May, 2021, 09:59:02 am
Modern-day attribution is a tinker's bitch.  Oh, sorry, a travelling person's gender-unspecified canine companion animal.  For the rest, it (New Eingland etc) seems like a good breeding-ground for smart-aleck authors à la Pynchon. Mechanical ducks indeed.

(Eingland? Ein Volk, Ein Boris.)  Freudian typo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 May, 2021, 10:04:24 am
Meanwhile, I haz lurnt that 1 human year = ~11 light-bulb years (varies with breed).  This from replacing a "15-year" bulb with its fellow from the cupboard under the stairs, the dud having been installed in January 2020.  Hope the new one lasts at least until this afternoon.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 May, 2021, 12:19:48 pm
No doubt it would achieve 15 years[1] pointing upwards, in well-ventilated free space and supplied with an extremely stable supply of voles at the bottom of the stated tolerance range.

It's like the tent manufacturers' definition of 'person'.


[1] Or, more likely, the number of hours that are equivalent to 15 years at some generous duty cycle.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 May, 2021, 01:26:40 pm
More like 15 years pointing in whichever direction you didn't point it in. "And you switched it on? Good god, man, are you mad???".

Re definition of "person", I'm sure it is absolutely untrue that camera-bag manufacturers have cunningly-fashioned small-scale models of SLRs for the marketing photos.

Heigh ho.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 07 May, 2021, 07:43:01 pm
Stepped drill bits are brilliant (I bought a cheapie set of three from Banggood) - used one to drill a hole in a piece of steel strip (repairing wheelbarrow - q.v.) - started with pilot hole and progressed a few more steps to get to an M8 size hole.  Excellent result and no drill bit changes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 08 May, 2021, 01:13:14 am
I stumbled upon the sub genre of YouTube video that just features Americans turning their Priuses into essentially one man air conditioned tents by ripping out the back seats and putting in a sleeping platform. Then they just drive around the country exploring and sleeping in their car. It's replaced my fantasy of joining the French foreign legion for what I would do if I ever needed to flee the country.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: campagman on 08 May, 2021, 08:32:05 pm
People over here do that with Renault Kangoo's or the Citroen equivalent.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 09 May, 2021, 03:46:30 pm
Don't ever paint wooden parts of garden chairs with Hammerite and expect to be able to strip it off  :hand:     I have some "French cafe chairs" - folding metal with wooden slat seats ... think pavement cafe.

I painted them about 30 years ago with Hammerite, wood and frame, and then overpainted with regular paint.   I'm now refurbishing them and can't get the paint off the wooden bits I want to salvage.   The steel frames are going to be blasted and powder-coated and seat slats replaced with new hardwood - but it's the backrest part (curved) that I want to re-use.

... and BTW Nitromors nowadays is but a poor shadow of its former self.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 10 May, 2021, 07:18:59 am
That block chained non-fungible tokens are the future.

(... and BTW Nitromors nowadays is but a poor shadow of its former self. 

It’s still possible to get industrial strength paint stripper, I last bought some off eBay)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 10 May, 2021, 10:55:29 am
People over here do that with Renault Kangoo's or the Citroen equivalent.

Just googled them, they actually look pretty good, another thing to add  to the list.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 10 May, 2021, 02:02:05 pm
That the horrible taste of US chocolate is all the fault of Hersheys and WWII. Prior to that all US chocolate tasted much the same as European chocolate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 May, 2021, 10:37:46 am
About the Vito Russo test, (https://www.glaad.org/sri/2014/vitorusso) described as a "gay Bechdel test".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2021, 08:15:42 pm
About the Vito Russo test, (https://www.glaad.org/sri/2014/vitorusso) described as a "gay Bechdel test".

Needs a "...and is still alive at the end of the film (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuryYourGays)".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 11 May, 2021, 08:32:43 pm
About the Vito Russo test, (https://www.glaad.org/sri/2014/vitorusso) described as a "gay Bechdel test".

Needs a "...and is still alive at the end of the film (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuryYourGays)".

Shouldn't that come with an XKCD 609 warning?  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mike J on 11 May, 2021, 08:34:46 pm
Microsoft edge isn't as useless as I thought it was.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 May, 2021, 08:36:45 pm
About the Vito Russo test, (https://www.glaad.org/sri/2014/vitorusso) described as a "gay Bechdel test".

Needs a "...and is still alive at the end of the film (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuryYourGays)".

Shouldn't that come with an XKCD 609 warning?  ;)

My friend Lizzie delights in baiting me with tvtropes links, so I make an effort to pay it forward whenever reasonable.
Title: Re: what I have learnt today.
Post by: T42 on 14 May, 2021, 08:41:40 am
A single Bitcoin transaction uses 707 kWh.  :o

https://www.trgdatacenters.com/most-environment-friendly-cryptocurrencies/
Title: Re: what I have learnt today.
Post by: Kim on 14 May, 2021, 12:10:59 pm
A single Bitcoin transaction uses 707 kWh.  :o

https://www.trgdatacenters.com/most-environment-friendly-cryptocurrencies/

Appalling, but I'd like to see an estimate of how much energy the traditional banking system consumes by way of comparison...
Title: Re: what I have learnt today.
Post by: T42 on 14 May, 2021, 01:24:15 pm
A single Bitcoin transaction uses 707 kWh.  :o

https://www.trgdatacenters.com/most-environment-friendly-cryptocurrencies/

Appalling, but I'd like to see an estimate of how much energy the traditional banking system consumes by way of comparison...

Dunno about them, but the last time I did PBP I averaged 103W for 93 (ahem) hours.  Unless my bump of arithmetick is slipping cogs that's about 9.5 kWh.  Makes one feel a bit Tesco Value in comparison.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 14 May, 2021, 01:48:04 pm
Power consumption will keep growing (in theory) up to until it reaches the threshold for bitcoin (21 million – about 18.5 million have been mined to date) - once the mining effort exceeds the value, this is an effect of proof of work, of course, there's no incentive to mine more. So it's unlikely they'll mine all the bitcoin.

It's all a bit made-up, of course, but I have combined all my YACF posts-to-date to produce a non-fungible token. It's yours for £1,000,000.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 15 May, 2021, 02:42:53 pm
Power consumption will keep growing (in theory) up to until it reaches the threshold for bitcoin (21 million – about 18.5 million have been mined to date) - once the mining effort exceeds the value, this is an effect of proof of work, of course, there's no incentive to mine more. So it's unlikely they'll mine all the bitcoin.

It's all a bit made-up, of course, but I have combined all my YACF posts-to-date to produce a non-fungible token. It's yours for £1,000,000.

I don't understand any of this. Do I need to?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 May, 2021, 03:26:30 pm
I'm not really trying to.  Presumably the power all goes in CPU churning and coms, but why it has to be so prodigal I've no idea. Smacks of bad design.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 15 May, 2021, 04:04:44 pm
What a multi-hyphenate is.

Seems to be quite a common usage but has passed me by until now. Designates someone with many strings to their bow, as we used to say.

So a singer-songwriter would be a single-hyphenate. A multi-hyphenate might be a singer-songwriter-trombonist-filmmaker-wizard. For example.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 15 May, 2021, 10:35:34 pm
There ain't half been some clever-bastards.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 15 May, 2021, 10:45:18 pm
Is that a new word for polymath, (for understanding by a new generation of non-scientists)?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 May, 2021, 10:48:50 pm
I'm not really trying to.  Presumably the power all goes in CPU churning and coms, but why it has to be so prodigal I've no idea. Smacks of bad design.

The whole premise of Bitcoin et al is that they ensure scarcity by the token being computationally expensive (and therefore hardware and electricity expensive) to discover.  Otherwise the person who invented it could just make up however much currency they liked, like normal money.

What I don't understand is why the transactions are so power-hungry.  Shirley once a bitcoin exists, you're just adding data to a blockchain when you exchange it?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: philip on 15 May, 2021, 11:19:00 pm
The scarcity is not really the bitcoins but the rate at which the blockchain, the list of transactions, can be extended.

Adding data to the blockchain (creating new blocks) is expensive because that is a necessary part of the design. Anyone can add new blocks so the question is how does one decide which new blocks are accepted? The answer is that the longest line of blocks is accepted. If adding new blocks was cheap then I could spend some bitcoin, wait for the transaction to be accepted, then go back to the state before that transaction and create new blocks that did not include transaction -- and if I can create enough new blocks my new line would become the longest line, and I would have cancelled the transaction that spent my bitcoin. By making the process of adding blocks expensive (and bitcoin adjusts the expense as the hashing rate varies) bitcoin attempts to make it impossible for one person to create blocks faster than the majority of all people creating blocks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 May, 2021, 12:07:24 am
Christ, who thought that was a good idea?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: philip on 16 May, 2021, 12:15:26 am
Nobody knows! The inventor has an alias and has managed to keep their identity secret from the public. They also created all the inital blocks giving them a large number of bitcoin worth tens of billions today.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 16 May, 2021, 08:50:48 am
Christ, who thought that was a good idea?
Finestre?  See various of Ian's threads.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 16 May, 2021, 04:04:28 pm
Nobody knows! The inventor has an alias and has managed to keep their identity secret from the public. They also created all the inital blocks giving them a large number of bitcoin worth tens of billions today.

Look for the dude with the massive fleet of Teslas.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The French Tandem on 16 May, 2021, 04:16:10 pm
The scarcity is not really the bitcoins but the rate at which the blockchain, the list of transactions, can be extended.

Adding data to the blockchain (creating new blocks) is expensive because that is a necessary part of the design. Anyone can add new blocks so the question is how does one decide which new blocks are accepted? The answer is that the longest line of blocks is accepted. If adding new blocks was cheap then I could spend some bitcoin, wait for the transaction to be accepted, then go back to the state before that transaction and create new blocks that did not include transaction -- and if I can create enough new blocks my new line would become the longest line, and I would have cancelled the transaction that spent my bitcoin. By making the process of adding blocks expensive (and bitcoin adjusts the expense as the hashing rate varies) bitcoin attempts to make it impossible for one person to create blocks faster than the majority of all people creating blocks.

I'm not sure that I understand everything in your post, but if I understand correctly, are you suggesting that the whole Bitcoin system will one day grind to a halt under the burden of ever growing computing cost? And then, this day, what will be the value of one bitcoin? Zero?

A
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: philip on 16 May, 2021, 07:52:32 pm
No.  Creating, aka mining, a new block takes a significant amount of computing calculation but the bitcoin network adjusts the difficulty of the calculation every few days. If the number of miners increases then the calculation can be done more quickly and blocks will be mined more frequently. If the mining rate gets too fast the bitcoin network will respond by increasing the difficulty of the calculation and the mining rate will slow down. Similarly, if the number of miners goes down the difficulty is reduced.

Bitcoin may go zero for other reasons: regulation, loss of confidence, a better competitor, advances in cryptography, etc.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The French Tandem on 16 May, 2021, 08:44:17 pm
^^ Ah! Thank you! I reckon you should be hired by a major newspaper or TV, for explaining these sorts of things  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: philip on 16 May, 2021, 09:15:05 pm
Power consumption will keep growing (in theory) up to until it reaches the threshold for bitcoin (21 million – about 18.5 million have been mined to date) - once the mining effort exceeds the value, this is an effect of proof of work, of course, there's no incentive to mine more. So it's unlikely they'll mine all the bitcoin.
That's not quite right. There is an overall limit on the number of bitcoin, but miners also get bitcoin from transaction fees. A transaction might transfer a defined amount from one account to another, but it can also transfer slightly more out of the source than goes into the destination -- the difference is then available to the miner. At present miners get newly created bitcoin when they mine a block as well as transaction fees, but once all the bitcoin have been mined they will continue to get transaction fees.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 16 May, 2021, 09:32:35 pm
The word taint, meaning perineum, I suppose from persons of confusion being told "'tain't that. No, 'tain't that either".
I have only encountered that being used by Leftpondians, especially those of a sub-Mason-Dixon persuasion.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 17 May, 2021, 09:45:32 am
Power consumption will keep growing (in theory) up to until it reaches the threshold for bitcoin (21 million – about 18.5 million have been mined to date) - once the mining effort exceeds the value, this is an effect of proof of work, of course, there's no incentive to mine more. So it's unlikely they'll mine all the bitcoin.
That's not quite right. There is an overall limit on the number of bitcoin, but miners also get bitcoin from transaction fees. A transaction might transfer a defined amount from one account to another, but it can also transfer slightly more out of the source than goes into the destination -- the difference is then available to the miner. At present miners get newly created bitcoin when they mine a block as well as transaction fees, but once all the bitcoin have been mined they will continue to get transaction fees.

Indeed, transactions will become more lucrative than mining, but I'm not convinced from what I've read that they'll mine them all in any reasonable timeframe.

The astounding thing is that it's all made-up, there nothing to a bitcoin, nothing at all other than faith wrapped in a shroud of superficial cleverness. That might be a truth of many financial instruments, but at least they have some notional fallback onto something that's real (which admittedly might turn out to a be pile of dodgy loans with little more value than IOU £1 million written in crayon by a four-year-old).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 18 May, 2021, 11:57:17 am
Dr McCoy says "He's dead, Jim" (or something extremely close) TWENTY TIMES during the original series of Star Trek.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 18 May, 2021, 12:25:48 pm
The astounding thing is that it's all made-up, there nothing to a bitcoin, nothing at all other than faith wrapped in a shroud of superficial cleverness.

This is the thing I really don't understand about bitcoin... From what I can gather, one bitcoin is essentially a piece/set of data that has been heavily encrypted. But the data itself is of little value - it's the encryption process that makes it unique and gives it value. Is that about right?

And does every new bitcoin have to follow on from the last bitcoin in the blockchain? Or are there multiple threads to the chain?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 18 May, 2021, 12:51:12 pm
Someone cleverer than me will explain it better, but a bitcoin isn't anything other than something that enough people have agreed has value.  It's like trading in an IOU that can't be paid, but everyone agrees has value. I some respects that's like a fiat currency, but ultimately they're backed by a government. They can (and do) default too, of course. But that has repercussions.

The blockchain (and the encryption) isn't to do with bitcoin, per se, it's the mechanism that makes bitcoin tamperproof, otherwise I could just claim that yep, I have a pile of bitcoin. The ledger proves whether or not I don't.

There are multiple blockchains, it's just that longest wins out – that's where the work comes in, as mentioned earlier.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 18 May, 2021, 01:30:38 pm
Supporters of bitcoin would argue that it's no different to fiat currency, which isn't backed by any underlying asset (e.g. gold) either.  However, fiat currency is backed by an identifiable government that has public assets, can borrow money itself, and can raise money through taxation.

Bitcoin is worth something because, currently, people are willing to swap real money for it and it is also untraceable, so you can buy illegal stuff with it.  Also FOMO (see South Sea and tulip bubbles for previous examples).

You can argue that gold has no intrinsic value, but its value as jewellery is so high and consistent that prices have to be seasonally adjusted to take account of the Indian wedding season.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 18 May, 2021, 02:35:14 pm
It's not untraceable though, it's everything but, there's a nice ledger recording every transaction from creation onward. That can be (and has been) mined to identify transaction patterns and tie those to individuals and organizations. There's a business doing this for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 18 May, 2021, 07:57:17 pm
That in Australia, women couldn’t drink in a public bar until 1970  :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 18 May, 2021, 08:11:19 pm
That far back?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 May, 2021, 08:59:08 am
Slime moulds are better at finding the exit from Ikea than we are.  This from MrsT, who is reading something Scientific.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 21 May, 2021, 09:27:13 am
They still won't find what they want in the self-service warehouse though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 21 May, 2021, 12:39:04 pm
Swift’s can fly 800km in a day.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2278226-common-swifts-can-fly-more-than-800-kilometres-a-day-during-migration/amp/

Quote
Swifts can fuel up on insects without landing, which allows them to remain in flight for about 10 months of the year.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 May, 2021, 08:25:56 am
That X-Pac fabric is not in fact completely waterproof.

Associated relearning: to completely empty all luggage after every wet ride (hike, etc). Especially of things made of water-absorbent materials.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 May, 2021, 09:47:08 am
Swift’s can fly 800km in a day.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2278226-common-swifts-can-fly-more-than-800-kilometres-a-day-during-migration/amp/

Quote
Swifts can fuel up on insects without landing, which allows them to remain in flight for about 10 months of the year.

According to a different report I saw they can not only refuel but preen in flight.  I wouldn't be surprised if they could start a family at the same time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 24 May, 2021, 10:41:49 am
Swift’s can fly 800km in a day.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2278226-common-swifts-can-fly-more-than-800-kilometres-a-day-during-migration/amp/

Quote
Swifts can fuel up on insects without landing, which allows them to remain in flight for about 10 months of the year.

According to a different report I saw they can not only refuel but preen in flight.  I wouldn't be surprised if they could start a family at the same time.

They do.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 24 May, 2021, 10:42:15 am
I wouldn't be surprised if they could start a family at the same time.
They do. The only time they land is at the nest. They mate while flying.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 24 May, 2021, 10:50:56 am
I wouldn't be surprised if they could start a family at the same time.
They do. The only time they land is at the nest. They mate while flying.
They also sleep while flying.   A series of nano sleeps apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 May, 2021, 11:14:33 am
Swift’s can fly 800km in a day.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2278226-common-swifts-can-fly-more-than-800-kilometres-a-day-during-migration/amp/

Quote
Swifts can fuel up on insects without landing, which allows them to remain in flight for about 10 months of the year.

According to a different report I saw they can not only refuel but preen in flight.  I wouldn't be surprised if they could start a family at the same time.

They do.

I'm not surprised. Told ya. ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 May, 2021, 11:24:54 am
Swift’s can fly 800km in a day.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2278226-common-swifts-can-fly-more-than-800-kilometres-a-day-during-migration/amp/

Quote
Swifts can fuel up on insects without landing, which allows them to remain in flight for about 10 months of the year.

According to a different report I saw they can not only refuel but preen in flight.  I wouldn't be surprised if they could start a family at the same time.

They do.

And gather coconuts…

[“That's swallows!” – Ed.]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 24 May, 2021, 11:56:38 am
I wouldn't be surprised if they could start a family at the same time.
They do. The only time they land is at the nest. They mate while flying.

Some fun facts about swifts (one of my favourite birds).

https://www.rspb.org.uk/globalassets/downloads/documents/conservation--sustainability/help-swifts/amazing-swift-facts.pdf
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 24 May, 2021, 08:51:44 pm
That Bluebird V rode on leaf springs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Moleman76 on 25 May, 2021, 08:08:41 am
Swift’s can fly 800km in a day.

well, they aren't called "Slows".

We live about 8 miles from the large, tall chimney (now disused) of a school building.  It's on the swifts migration route, and for about a week at the start and end of summer large flocks of them circle it just before nightfall and then all fly straight down to roost.  Local predator birds noticed this, too (along with the humans sitting on portable chairs to watch the spectacle), so measures were taken to make the area less friendly to them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 01 June, 2021, 01:34:40 pm
That First Direct use voice recognition to check a callers identity - I was told "I need more audio, can I have the first line of your address please".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 June, 2021, 09:18:32 pm
That the word cop, as in "cop hold of" or "cop a load of that" comes from the Dutch kaupen, to buy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 06 June, 2021, 07:22:59 pm
Swift’s can fly 800km in a day.

well, they aren't called "Slows".

We live about 8 miles from the large, tall chimney (now disused) of a school building.  It's on the swifts migration route, and for about a week at the start and end of summer large flocks of them circle it just before nightfall and then all fly straight down to roost.  Local predator birds noticed this, too (along with the humans sitting on portable chairs to watch the spectacle), so measures were taken to make the area less friendly to them.

I’ve not seen a swallow spit, either.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 June, 2021, 10:16:10 am
That the "Care in the Community" policy originated with Enoch Powell in 1961.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 June, 2021, 11:08:52 am
That the "Care in the Community" policy originated with Enoch Powell in 1961.

Around my locale, there are many former mental hospitals and asylums, all now housing estates and golf courses. The one that pioneered psychosurgery is now the Greatpark Estate. There's another, Caterham, which is now the Surrey National Golf Course, other than the small and atmospheric graveyard – that was where the infamous (for children of a certain age) Joey Deacon lived – the main thrust of his campaign was de-instutionalization and community care (and indeed, he got his wish). Similarly, there's another former Croydon mental hospital at Netherne-on-the-Hill, you can see the splendid water tower (now flats as part of the bigger estate that replaced the hospital) if you drive down the A23 towards the M25.

Possible there was a policy to put all the mental hospitals in Croydon. Or locally driven demand.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 09 June, 2021, 11:18:30 am
Epsom had similar. I believe that one in ten of the population was officially insane. Those institutions too are now all long gone.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 June, 2021, 11:59:53 am
And Banstead (closed 1986), which was so famous that Atomic Rooster wrote a song about it.  Hammond organ botherer and bipolar sufferer Vincent Crane had been a patient there.

The site is now occupied by a prison, which speaks volumes about the priorities of those in power ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 09 June, 2021, 02:14:35 pm
That "Chickens in tutu's are a thing".  Courtesy of a colleague, of course.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 09 June, 2021, 02:28:38 pm
Epsom had similar. I believe that one in ten of the population was officially insane. Those institutions too are now all long gone.

Given how many hospitals there were on the Horton Estate on the north-west of Epsom, that wouldn't surprise me.  ;D

ISTR most of the east side of Horton Lane had already been redeveloped by the time I'd moved away 20 years ago.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 09 June, 2021, 02:56:41 pm
Were you living in Epsom when the "Uh Uh !!" newspaper seller stood at the Spread Eagle crossroads ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 09 June, 2021, 03:22:18 pm
Were you living in Epsom when the "Uh Uh !!" newspaper seller stood at the Spread Eagle crossroads ?

Can't say I remember that guy - strictly speaking, while my postal address had Epsom in it, I was up by the race course and usually only came into town on a Saturday...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 June, 2021, 01:05:15 pm

(Stomps off to Screwfix* in a huff)

* where I should have stomped yesterday, had I been clearer of thought :-\
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 16 June, 2021, 07:03:59 pm
50ml of PVA glue, 1/4 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, and 1/2 teaspoon of contact lens cleaning solution (as long as it contains borax), with a drop of food colouring, makes slime.

It has kept my 4 year old amused all afternoon
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 16 June, 2021, 07:48:31 pm
50ml of PVA glue, 1/4 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, and 1/2 teaspoon of contact lens cleaning solution (as long as it contains borax), with a drop of food colouring, makes slime.

It has kept my 4 year old amused all afternoon
brilliant.  I might borrow that for the granddaughters coming on Saturday morning
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: campagman on 18 June, 2021, 09:00:46 pm
I have learned the word cragfest. When climbing, if you get stuck and can't go up or down. Ooops.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 18 June, 2021, 10:11:03 pm
I think you might mean cragfast. Cragfest sounds altogether more enjoyable.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 June, 2021, 10:14:52 pm
Cragfest (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=119576.0)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 18 June, 2021, 10:26:09 pm
Cragfest (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=119576.0)
Pretty, but perhaps not as enjoyable as I (and I suspect jsabine) were thinking of for CragFest
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 18 June, 2021, 10:30:54 pm
Cragfest (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=119576.0)

They're quite lovely - and I'm pleased that you avoided the temptations of CamelCase.

We resisted, so why couldn't cygnet?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 18 June, 2021, 10:36:57 pm
I was imagineering a festival with amplified music, some rock climbing maybe, with tents beneath, and possibly above, crags. Take your pick (ho ho) as to possible locations.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 18 June, 2021, 10:40:48 pm
Oh, so was I, as well as thinking it was probably a better manner for the Mountain Film Festival
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 18 June, 2021, 10:50:50 pm
Tonight I have learned that there are 2 Mountain Film Festivals appearing at the top of a Google search 😁
One is the Banff MFF and the other is a more global one.

Maybe check whether safesearch is on before you Google MFF in front of an audience though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 18 June, 2021, 10:51:56 pm
I was actually thinking of the Keswick one

It does appear that that's a Mountain Festival that happens to have films
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 June, 2021, 10:52:39 pm
Cragfest (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=119576.0)

They're quite lovely - and I'm pleased that you avoided the temptations of CamelCase.

We resisted, so why couldn't cygnet?
Probably because there's been recent discussion of shipping containers, I'm now seeing a crate full of dromedaries.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 19 June, 2021, 04:12:45 am
That "junior drag racing" for children as young as 5 is a thing in this country. Apparently they run 1/8 mile races instead of 1/4 mile, in cars that top out at around 30mph. I was talking to the lady who cuts my hair about her plans for her Dodge Durango (which involve a  supercharger and some track time) when she mentioned that her daughter (age 8 ) was starting to show an interest in a children's racing program.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: perpetual dan on 19 June, 2021, 10:47:00 am
Tonight I have learned that there are 2 Mountain Film Festivals appearing at the top of a Google search
One is the Banff MFF and the other is a more global one.

Maybe check whether safesearch is on before you Google MFF in front of an audience though.
I’m pretty sure the Banff one goes on tour (or used to). I’ve been to it in Brighton. :)

crag_fest* reminds me of a scooby doo film - the legend of the vampire, set at a rock festival with a mountain backdrop.

* Sorry, the camel case comments made it hard to resist some snake case :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 June, 2021, 12:11:35 pm
That makes "snake case" a thing I have learned today.  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 19 June, 2021, 04:39:33 pm
I have learned the word cragfest. When climbing, if you  stuck and can't go up or down. Ooops.


There's a word in this part of the country for a cycling equivalent - storm-stayed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 19 June, 2021, 04:43:31 pm
I have learned the word cragfest. When climbing, if you get stuck and can't go up or down. Ooops.

See also: Gargoyled
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: campagman on 19 June, 2021, 08:46:43 pm
Yes, sorry, I did mean cragfast. I said it was a new word. I'm still learning it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 29 June, 2021, 09:24:05 am
There have been six series of Love Island, which is some sort of reality TV fest available for your education and entertainment on that there anabaric distascope.

Apparently the seventh series will have 3,700 episodes. It’s been difficult for me not to become aware of it this year because my guilty pleasure is looking at the front pages of most of the news papers occasionally and the tabloids in particular seem to have had a picture of one of the ‘contestants’ pretty much constantly over the last week or two. I first became aware of it when a friend’s daughter turned down an offer to be a contestant either last year or the year before, but I don’t believe I’ve ever actually seen it, and I certainly couldn’t tell you how the participants compete with each other.

Given the article I’ve just read on the Graun website, I’m not quite sure how it’s being allowed to be broadcast. It sounds abhorrent. I don’t believe I’ll be making an effort to find out which channel it is on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 29 June, 2021, 10:26:41 am
Prurient bollocks at its worst. I loathe 'reality' TV. A bunch of talentless (mostly) exhibitionists (the very worst sort). This is part of the reason I gave up on TV some years ago.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 June, 2021, 11:37:15 am
They keep flashing up trailers for it during shitvert breaks on the live coverage of the Tour.  I not sure what kind of research they do into demographics but I suspect the overlap between “Cycle racing fans” and “People likely to watch 'Fuck Island'” is pretty minimal.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 29 June, 2021, 11:41:17 am
Given the article I’ve just read on the Graun website, I’m not quite sure how it’s being allowed to be broadcast. It sounds abhorrent.

It is remarkable that it hasn't gone the way of Jeremy Kyle yet. I know it's very popular with Young People though.

I've only ever seen it vicariously, via Goggle Box. Hasn't ever made me want to watch more.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 29 June, 2021, 12:00:14 pm
They keep flashing up trailers for it during shitvert breaks on the live coverage of the Tour.  I not sure what kind of research they do into demographics but I suspect the overlap between “Cycle racing fans” and “People likely to watch 'Fuck Island'” is pretty minimal.

It must be targetted, I've not seen these.

Endless car adverts though, for shit oversized wankwagons on perpetually empty roads promising 'urban adventure' and 'mild hybrid power.' I assume 'urban adventure' is sitting in a traffic jam hammering the horn in frustration while counting down the remaining years of your life and mild electric power means it has a car battery.

For all concerned, I'd launch an unlubricated Saturn V sized dildo up their collective fundaments.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 29 June, 2021, 01:01:34 pm
"Mild hybrid power" likely means they got into trouble with the regulator for describing a petril car as a "self-charging hybrid".

I've never seen Love Island, but I assume it's incredibly cheap and extensive coverage of annoying young people vying to have sex with each other in a decidedly un-BRITISH climate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 29 June, 2021, 02:27:11 pm
Mild hybrids can’t (unlike “self charging” versions) aren’t able to run on electric power only. They replace the alternator with a generator, and just provide a boost to acceleration and faster restarting from the start stop systems.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: grams on 29 June, 2021, 02:54:28 pm
"self-charging hybrid" is a deeply silly Toyota-ism that makes me embarrassed to own one.

The mild hybrid ad is for the Nissan Qashqai. It starts with lots of puff about electric power and embracing the future and makes you think they've brought out an actual electric one. Which they haven't, which is a bit shit given Mitsubishi and Renault both have working EV/PHEV systems they could borrow.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 June, 2021, 03:35:49 pm
Half-time adverts during the European Championship of Ball Kickology are, or have been for us (I'm not sure if these are UEFA content or channel specific) a plug-in electric vehicle called a VW iD. I don't know if it's a hybrid or pure battery EV cos they tell you nothing about it – there is literally no speech (or other audio) and the only captions are the name of the vehicle – but I know it's a plug in cos you see a woman standing next to it, smiling, while an anbaric glow sweeps along a cable from socket to vehicle. It must be the slowest charger ever, she still hasn't driven anywhere.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 29 June, 2021, 04:25:40 pm
What a "mild hybrid" is.  Which is this; pointless.  Up until now I had assumed it was one with good manners, "After you Claude.  No, after you Cecil."  Live and learn eh?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: perpetual dan on 29 June, 2021, 06:46:37 pm
Ah. There was me thinking that the midlands was going to make its industrial comeback with the raw materials for beer-batteries. :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Poacher on 29 June, 2021, 10:20:39 pm
What about the adverts for a toy car in weekly? instalments which, assuming the publishers maintain it to the bitter end, will cost the unlucky consumer North of £1200 for something which would struggle to exceed £20 at auction.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 June, 2021, 09:35:01 am
That during the Civil War, the Royalist forces besieging the Parliamentary town of Hull had a huge cannon, firing 36-lb shot, which they christened the Queen's Pocket Pistol. When it was captured by Roundhead troops, they renamed it Sweet Lips, after the town's most celebrated prostitute.

I'm wondering if this isn't some sort of ancestral behaviour of WW2 bomber crews painting pin ups on their aircraft.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: grams on 01 July, 2021, 10:49:29 pm
I take it back. I spotted these self charging "e-car" spaces today:

(http://fondantfancies.com/selfcharging.jpg)

Presumably you just sit there and rev the engine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 03 July, 2021, 09:43:18 pm
Woodlice like strawberries, and, quite frankly, they're more than welcome to them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 04 July, 2021, 09:46:28 pm
That Lincoln Street Llandysul is not named after the English city (?) but after the U.S. President.
Always assumed so, but nice to have it confirmed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 04 July, 2021, 09:56:55 pm
That X-Rays are luminescent, whereas radioactivity is phosphorescent. Roughly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 July, 2021, 09:45:45 am
I thought phosphorescence was a type of luminescence. I might be wrong though.

A good old cathode ray tube will dose you with x-rays as a boon to whatever you were watching.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 July, 2021, 10:33:37 am
AIUI:
Luminescence is just the emission of light (well, presumably any EM radiation) without incandescence (ie. glowing from heat).
Fluorescence is luminescence in response to stimulation by light at another wavelength.
Phosphorescence is delayed-action fluorescence, where energy is stored and light continues to be emitted after the stimulation is removed.

I'm not sure where the x-ray/radioactivity analogy comes in.  X-rays are just the next step up the EM spectrum from ultraviolet.  Radioactivity is atoms falling to bits and emitting things, which may or may not include gamma rays, the next step up from x-rays.  It's pretty hard to generate gamma radiation without radioactive decay, but x-rays and below may be produced by all sorts of methods (the typical x-ray tube being more or less a CRT TV screen minus the picture-drawing bits, with the anode voltage cranked up a bit).

X-rays, gamma rays and indeed particle radiation may all cause things to fluoresce/phosphoresce (hence the radium and tritium paints that combine[1] a radioactive isotope and a phosphor, old-timey x-ray fluoroscope screens, and some of their electronic equivalents).


[1] Note that the ionising radiation itself isn't visible.  At least not at any intensity that you're likely to survive exposure to, and even then it's probably cherenkov radiation or ionising the air that's causing the glow.  I recall reading that x-rays are visible in a dark room as a dull glow at the sort of intensities that people only shared a room with before they realised they were dangerous.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 July, 2021, 11:12:25 am
Indeed, x-rays are mostly generated by slamming high-velocity electrons into a tungsten target, x-rays are emitted as 'braking radiation' as those electrons rapidly slow down through collisions with tungsten nuclei. Old school x-ray generation resulted in some visible light photons, so there was a glow from the x-ray tubes. Being able to see the x-ray tube, of course, turned out to be a bad idea. Apropos of nothing, x-ray is the coolest name for something ever.

Cherenkov radiation is a similar-ish but not at all phenomenon that results in visible spectrum photons when particles end up travelling faster than the speed of light* in a medium (basically, when they pass one medium to another, and the phase velocity of light changes). Again, if you can see it, it's probably a really bad idea to say 'ooo, that's nice, let me get a photograph.'

Back when I used to work a 32-phosphorous, mostly a moderately high energy beta-emitter, so spits out a fast electron and an electron antineutrino, it was notable that exposed sources would attract flies. I assume that was because those electrons were causing some UV fluorescence in the acrylic shielding that the flies could see and humans couldn't. Or the flies wanted superpowers. They could have gone down the corridor, the people there were happily zapping them with full-on gamma rays.

*you can actually travel faster than the speed of light, provided that's not the speed of light in a vacuum.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 July, 2021, 11:16:46 am
Old school x-ray generation resulted in some visible light photons, so there was a glow from the x-ray tubes.

Indeed, but... *googles*

It was Röntgen who reported that the glow was visible from the other side of a wooden door.   :hand:

https://orau.org/health-physics-museum/articles/wilhelm-rontgen-invisible-light.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 July, 2021, 11:29:23 am
In other exciting radiation trivia, we all have a weak gamma source in our house, the americium-241 in smoke detectors (primarily an alpha emitter, but it spits out low energy gamma photons if you fancy giving your cat a case of the Hulk.)

It's the only synthetic nucleotide in domestic use (and is made from plutonium). It decays to an isotope of neptunium with a half-life just over 2 million years. If you want to dispose of a smoke detector from a lab, you have to fill out acres of paperwork and spend a lot of money. If you want to do it at home, you toss it in the trash.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 05 July, 2021, 11:39:15 am
That the award of a George Cross is worth 1% gross to your employer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 05 July, 2021, 11:55:03 am
In other exciting radiation trivia, we all have a weak gamma source in our house, the americium-241 in smoke detectors (primarily an alpha emitter, but it spits out low energy gamma photons if you fancy giving your cat a case of the Hulk.)

See David Hahn, the radioactive boy scout (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 July, 2021, 12:04:47 pm
Disappointed to learn that he died from an OD rather than when his home-made particle accelerator malfunctioned and turned him into a warthog.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 July, 2021, 12:14:48 pm
I'd forgotten about thorium in gas lamp mantles.

Old plates and pottery often have uranium glazes, and you can terrorize people by waving a Geiger counter over them. They're pretty safe though, the glaze is very hard and the uranium salts that provide the bright colours (primarily an alpha source, and not the isotope used in bombs) not very labile.

Of course, smoking cigarettes give you a nice dose of polonium (sadly, that nice President Obama, passed an act – much fought over by the tobacco lobby – forcing them to do something to reduce polonium levels in cigarettes – though arguably, if you're smoking in the first place, health concerns are not top of your agenda).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 05 July, 2021, 01:23:42 pm
Today I've taken delivery of a box of scalpel blades.
They are sterilised.
Sterilised by gamma radiation according to what it says n the side of the box.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 July, 2021, 01:30:03 pm
That's just irradiation. Pop them on a conveyor under a suitable gamma source.

Many of the foods we eat were created by gamma rays, just like The Hulk.

(Golden Promise malt, used in beers and whisk(e)ys, for instance.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 July, 2021, 01:35:01 pm
Today I've taken delivery of a box of scalpel blades.
They are sterilised.
Sterilised by gamma radiation according to what it says n the side of the box.

Good thing too.  Gamma-sterilization doesn't leave any residual radiation. It's only bad publicity that stops it being used for everything perishable. You could sterilize fish in a sealed bag with it and leave it out of the fridge for months without it going off.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 July, 2021, 12:08:28 am
In other exciting radiation trivia, we all have a weak gamma source in our house, the americium-241 in smoke detectors (primarily an alpha emitter, but it spits out low energy gamma photons if you fancy giving your cat a case of the Hulk.)

Sadly these are going out of fashion now that people have worked out how to make cheap optical smoke detectors that are Not Shit, and combine them with a temperature sensor to detect the fast flaming fires that optical smoke detectors are a bit reticent about.  Which means fewer toast alarms, and no radioactive spiders.

(Ideally, you probably want a mixture of detector types, because reasons.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 July, 2021, 12:15:40 am
Today I've taken delivery of a box of scalpel blades.
They are sterilised.
Sterilised by gamma radiation according to what it says n the side of the box.

Good thing too.  Gamma-sterilization doesn't leave any residual radiation.

It's also one of the more practical ways to sterilise plastics that don't react well to heat or some of the usual chemicals (ozone, peroxide, gluteraldehyde, etc).

And unlike UV, gamma rays go straight through the packaging.


Quote
It's only bad publicity that stops it being used for everything perishable.

I remember the fuss about it in the 80s.  Vaguely disappointed it hasn't quietly and without a fuss become mainstream since, like microwave ovens.


Quote
You could sterilize fish in a sealed bag with it and leave it out of the fridge for months without it going off.

I'm sure there are Scandiwegians who would be doing this on principle...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 July, 2021, 01:33:46 am
That “Lloyd” was a common 19th century word for a shipping company, hence HAPAG-Lloyd* which survives to this day.

* Known in these parts as “Haddock-Floyd”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 06 July, 2021, 09:57:28 am
In other exciting radiation trivia, we all have a weak gamma source in our house, the americium-241 in smoke detectors (primarily an alpha emitter, but it spits out low energy gamma photons if you fancy giving your cat a case of the Hulk.)

Sadly these are going out of fashion now that people have worked out how to make cheap optical smoke detectors that are Not Shit, and combine them with a temperature sensor to detect the fast flaming fires that optical smoke detectors are a bit reticent about.  Which means fewer toast alarms, and no radioactive spiders.

(Ideally, you probably want a mixture of detector types, because reasons.)

Americium-241 is quite complicated to make (needing a nuclear reactor, for instance, is the main complication) so I'm a bit surprised it's been used for so long.

They removed the nuclear from magnetic resonance imaging to stop scaring people.

I saw a big gamma-ray machine once, basically a hunk of cobalt-60 surrounded by a lot of lead and shielding and a hole in one end that you didn't want to stand in the same town as. They'd use it zap seeds, fruit flies, and poorly performing work-study lab technicians.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 06 July, 2021, 10:28:50 am
I did a system years ago for folk who built i.a. devices for measuring low-level radiation in petri-dish-size samples.  The sample dishes went into a hopper and were fed singly into a detector chamber that was shielded by a considerable weight of lead bricks.

The lead came in two varieties: bog-standard lead that was either mined recently or recycled, and the special stuff.  The bog-standard stuff was considered to be a secondary emitter in its own right and therefore not reliable as shielding for very low-level samples.  The special stuff was used to line the innermost detection chamber. It came from the cargo of a Roman galley that had sunk around 2000 years ago, and was reckoned to be emission-free.  My clients had bought the entire cargo, and charged a mint for it.

Nonetheless, the detectors were so sensitive that on days when the wind blew in their direction from over the Vosges mountains they couldn't be calibrated, igneous rock being slightly radioactive.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 06 July, 2021, 11:16:05 am
Recently refined lead contains a proportion of uranium-235 and its daughter nuclide lead-210. The uranium-235 keeps replenishing the lead-210 until refined away, but then the lead-210 sticks around for a while with a half-life of about 22 years, but that decays to radioactive polonium-210 and then relatively quickly to stable lead-206. This ejects a fair number of beta and alpha particles.

Very old lead contains essentially no remaining lead-210 or polonium-210, so is handy if you absolutely need no inherent radioactivity for very sensitive detectors and the like, and there's a premium market for it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 06 July, 2021, 11:42:26 am
My preferred view in the Finder window on Mac OS X is columns, but one thing I find deeply irritating is the way it makes the columns far wider than is needed, so I have to constantly resize them or do lots of annoying sideways scrolling.

I've just learned how to change the default width of columns. It's really easy - you just hold the Option key while dragging to resize, and it changes all other columns in the window at the same time, as well as setting the new width as the default.

Why didn't I look up how to do this years ago?  :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 06 July, 2021, 09:48:11 pm
You find all kinds of exciting things if you paw the option key when perusing menus or mostly clicking anything. Want to know your IP address, option-click the wireless icon. Need to get to the peskily secret /library folder, press option in the Finder 'go' menu. Want to cause your enemies to suddenly and messily deliquesce at your feet. Etc.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 07 July, 2021, 06:48:54 am
I already knew how to find the secret /Library folder. That one is very handy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 July, 2021, 10:03:07 am
That the word “Occitan”, the language as she is spoke in Occitanie (formerly Languedoc-Rousillon & Midi-Pyrénées) derives from òc – meaning “yes” – rather than being a mangled version of “Aquitaine”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 08 July, 2021, 10:32:34 am
That the word “Occitan”, the language as she is spoke in Occitanie (formerly Languedoc-Rousillon & Midi-Pyrénées) derives from òc – meaning “yes” – rather than being a mangled version of “Aquitaine”.

Depending on who you like to believe, this may also be the origin of "OK", meaning "OK".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 08 July, 2021, 12:18:56 pm
That the word “Occitan”, the language as she is spoke in Occitanie (formerly Languedoc-Rousillon & Midi-Pyrénées) derives from òc – meaning “yes” – rather than being a mangled version of “Aquitaine”.

Depending on who you like to believe, this may also be the origin of "OK", meaning "OK".

Distant memories of the label on OK sauce bottles in the 1950s has it that the suggestion that OK was from "Orl Korrect" being illiterate spelling (I can't check as I think we finished the last bottle we had in the mid-1970s!)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 08 July, 2021, 01:45:30 pm
That the word “Occitan”, the language as she is spoke in Occitanie (formerly Languedoc-Rousillon & Midi-Pyrénées) derives from òc – meaning “yes” – rather than being a mangled version of “Aquitaine”.

Depending on who you like to believe, this may also be the origin of "OK", meaning "OK".

Distant memories of the label on OK sauce bottles in the 1950s has it that the suggestion that OK was from "Orl Korrect" being illiterate spelling (I can't check as I think we finished the last bottle we had in the mid-1970s!)
For a month in 2012 I worked in an art deco building in Merton which previously was the OK Sauce factory.
These days it is home to design gurus Seymour Powell.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 08 July, 2021, 01:58:38 pm
That the word “Occitan”, the language as she is spoke in Occitanie (formerly Languedoc-Rousillon & Midi-Pyrénées) derives from òc – meaning “yes” – rather than being a mangled version of “Aquitaine”.

Depending on who you like to believe, this may also be the origin of "OK", meaning "OK".

Distant memories of the label on OK sauce bottles in the 1950s has it that the suggestion that OK was from "Orl Korrect" being illiterate spelling (I can't check as I think we finished the last bottle we had in the mid-1970s!)

Yes, that is another version.

I know of at least another couple of folk etymologies for OK, all equally plausible, all equally unlikely.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Zipperhead on 08 July, 2021, 02:03:05 pm
For a month in 2012 I worked in an art deco building in Merton which previously was the OK Sauce factory.
These days it is home to design gurus Seymour Powell.

Merton? Merton?

I'll have you know that's in Wandsworth - and just round the corner from me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 08 July, 2021, 02:05:24 pm
For a month in 2012 I worked in an art deco building in Merton which previously was the OK Sauce factory.
These days it is home to design gurus Seymour Powell.

Merton? Merton?

I'll have you know that's in Wandsworth - and just round the corner from me.

Ah! Elsewhere the internet tells lies.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 08 July, 2021, 02:55:22 pm
Ok sauce is still for sale.

Is it the same as it was?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 08 July, 2021, 09:29:49 pm
Applying a thin coat of Proofide to a couple of Brooks saddles with a small paintbrush seems to work well - leaving it for a few days to sink into the leather before buffing up to reduce any slight stickiness.    One is a fairly well-used ordinary B17, the other with only about 150 miles on it, a B17 narrow, laced.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 08 July, 2021, 11:30:30 pm
Bizarrely, despite looking at them all my life (or maybe because of that), I'd not noticed that clocks using roman numerals often use IIII instead of IV. How can I not have seen that?

Also seems that no-one is quite sure why; symmetry of stroke weighting with the VIII, or having the first four digits using Is, the next four Vs, the last four Xs,  or avoiding IV as it's an abbreviation for IVPITTER (Jupiter), or that it gives even numbers of each character (X, V, I) so if you are casting the numerals out of metal to attach to the face the mould is symmetrical.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: darkpoint on 12 July, 2021, 03:52:06 pm
Chainsaws were invented to help childbirth..

Crosses legs in sympathy

https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/we-regret-to-inform-you-that-chainsaws-were-originally-invented-for-childbirth/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 13 July, 2021, 10:41:09 am
Today I have learned who Ignacy Jan Paderewski was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacy_Jan_Paderewski

As well as all those achievements mentioned, he was also a solution in today's Guardian cryptic crossword.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 14 July, 2021, 08:51:45 pm
Standing in front of a mirror while I had my Osprey Talon backpack on, I noticed a funny protrusion on the clasp of the chest strap. Like a little drainage vent… except it’s pointing upwards.

Hmmmm what could it be for?

I wonder… maybe if I blow into it?

OH MY FREAKING GOD IT’S A WHISTLE!!!

Mind blown.

I’ve only had the backpack eight years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 14 July, 2021, 08:55:50 pm
That's what comes from not reading the instructions.  :-)

I have a slight compulsion to always plough through instructions, however banal. (So I know that Osprey rucsacs have whistles.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 14 July, 2021, 09:00:41 pm
I tend towards the view that a backpack doesn’t need instructions. I mean, it’s a backpack - how hard can it be?

That’ll learn me. ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: grams on 14 July, 2021, 09:50:26 pm
OH MY FREAKING GOD IT’S A WHISTLE!!!

My recently-purchased Decathlon has one of those. It didn't come with instructions. I've had to make do with YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnAFuM4w_50
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 15 July, 2021, 10:25:55 am
Quite weirdly, I discovered my backpack has a whistle too. Yesterday. Though I've only had it for a month or two.

It also has instructions on what to do in an avalanche and attract mountain rescue. I'm not sure it's necessarily specced for SE England.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 July, 2021, 11:10:39 am
No such luck here, but while rooting about the bottom shelf of our wardrobe for my most recent rucksack I discovered 5 forgotten dressing-gowns, my 1990s hiking boots, a pair of Scholl's clogs, the shoes MrsT wore to go on our honeymoon 50 years ago, a Hama slide sorter and a bunch of old coat-hangers. And four other rucksacks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 15 July, 2021, 03:10:40 pm
Further proof that I'm always the last to know...

Queen Anne is dead (https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2014/08/queen-anne-is-dead.html)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 15 July, 2021, 03:31:13 pm
Falling down an internet rabbit hole inspired by Canardly's trip here (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=10.msg2641367#msg2641367) I found that the phrase pour encourager les autres was coined by Voltaire in Candide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide), in relation to shooting an Admiral from time to time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 July, 2021, 03:33:16 pm
Further proof that I'm always the last to know...

Queen Anne is dead (https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2014/08/queen-anne-is-dead.html)

 
Quote
The Duchess of Richmond, said to be the model for Britannia on coins, was accompanied by her stuffed pet parrot.

And I bet her hubby said "kill and stuff the confounded thing, I can't stand the racket".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 15 July, 2021, 03:42:16 pm
Quote
The Duchess of Richmond, said to be the model for Britannia on coins, was accompanied by her stuffed pet parrot.

And I bet her hubby said "kill and stuff the confounded thing, I can't stand the racket".

But what did he say about the parrot?

BOOM! and indeed BOOM!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 July, 2021, 03:50:01 pm
Boom indeed.  What I remember about Queen Anne with an E is that she swore not to change her small-clothes until something or other was won, and as a result all the ladies of the court ended up wearing brown undies.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 July, 2021, 06:31:32 pm
Calais?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 July, 2021, 11:24:55 am
Calais? I thought that Mary had it engraved on her heart - or "callous", according to Sellar & Yeatman.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 July, 2021, 12:20:06 pm
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

[“No. No, not that” – Ed.]

The beastly French retook Calais in 1558.  One of our Great Universities had a society dedicated to the invasion and reconquest of France but I think it would have been on the news if they'd succeeded.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 16 July, 2021, 04:35:58 pm
You could once bend or fold a sixpenny piece by hand. Drinking beer all day would cost less than sixpence, hence going out on a bender.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2021, 04:50:34 pm
You could once bend or fold a sixpenny piece by hand. Drinking beer all day would cost less than sixpence, hence going out on a bender.

Hmmm... citation needed, as the kids say.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 16 July, 2021, 05:16:29 pm
You could once bend or fold a sixpenny piece by hand. Drinking beer all day would cost less than sixpence, hence going out on a bender.

Hmmm... citation needed, as the kids say.

It is probable - I'm old enough, just, to remember silver threepenny pieces* (in use before the many-sided brass looking type, pre-decimal) and although a little smaller than the then "modern" sixpence they were very soft and could just about the bent if you pressed them with your bare hands across a hard edge of some sort - they were high-content if not solid silver.  [I do believe I have one, unbent, somewhere in my box of treasures]

* I'm not sure that they were legal tender when I saw them - that would have been in about 1953/54
Title: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2021, 05:20:01 pm
I don’t doubt that bit. It’s the notion of this being the origin of the phrase “going on a bender” that sounds dubious to me.

Not least because according to my understanding of the phrase, a “bender” lasts *several* days rather than just one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2021, 06:57:00 pm
Quote
A “bender” is a prolonged, irresponsible, and dangerous bout of drinking and took its name from the patrons of London, England, alehouses during the 1850s.

To promote drinking, it was common for a tavern to offer patrons all they could drink for a tuppence a day, so sixpence was good for three days.

The sixpence coin, which was worth about a quarter, was nicknamed a “bender” because if it wasn’t phony it could be easily bent.

Since this bendable coin guaranteed three days of libation, the subsequent binge became known as a “bender.”
https://zippyfacts.com/why-is-a-binge-drinking-spree-called-a-bender-and-where-did-the-term-come-from/

Quote
http://The origin of the use of the term "bender" to refer to an extended bout of drinking alcohol is not certain. Some historians think it may refer to the act of bending one's elbow to take a drink, while others believe it is associated with the phrase "getting bent out of shape."
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-bender-67956

And so on, et cetera.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2021, 07:12:49 pm
Both highly reputable websites, and bastions of impeccable research, I’m sure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 16 July, 2021, 08:19:03 pm
You could once bend or fold a sixpenny piece by hand. Drinking beer all day would cost less than sixpence, hence going out on a bender.

Hmmm... citation needed, as the kids say.

https://www.royalmint.com/stories/collect/coin-nicknames/ (https://www.royalmint.com/stories/collect/coin-nicknames/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2021, 08:27:59 pm
Quote
Beer token – commonly used but often assigned specifically to the £2 coin, as when it was introduced a pint of beer in Britain commonly cost around £2.
Never heard that used for £2 specifically, just as a facetious reference to money in general.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 July, 2021, 08:30:00 pm
Quote
Beer token – commonly used but often assigned specifically to the £2 coin, as when it was introduced a pint of beer in Britain commonly cost around £2.
Never heard that used for £2 specifically, just as a facetious reference to money in general.

Was standard terminology amongst my PSO cohort, and I still use the term, in spite of not drinking BEER.

ETA: I've just asked barakta, and she also understands "beer token" to mean a £2 coin, but cites their then-unusual 'token-like' appearance.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 July, 2021, 08:34:49 pm
Whereas when I was a Penniless Student Oaf the £5 note was a drinking voucher.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 16 July, 2021, 08:42:18 pm
I've given up with scepticism and opted to believe the first story I read on the internet for everything.

But yes, in my day, the £5 note from a favoured ATM was the standard denomination of drinking token. I remember the super-strong beer served in the Augustus John on the Liverpool Uni campus was a princely, if awkward, £1.05 a pint – though if you got past four of them in an afternoon you'd probably wake up in Bootle at 8 pm to an irate bus driver. The 80p you had left was enough to get you back to Tuebrook though you'd need another ATM visit for the kebab purchase.

You could save money by undertaking in a foul pastime known as Addlestone's cider, which was 90p a pint but honestly, you'd always spew eventually, quite often through your nose.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2021, 08:42:50 pm
When did beer actually cost £2 a pint or thereabouts? It's quite possible I was out of the country, whenever it was!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 July, 2021, 08:48:24 pm
When did beer actually cost £2 a pint or thereabouts? It's quite possible I was out of the country, whenever it was!

February 2001, apparently.  https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/czms/mm23

By that graph, BEER was about £1.90/pint in summer 1998 when the tokens were first introduced.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2021, 08:54:02 pm
You could once bend or fold a sixpenny piece by hand. Drinking beer all day would cost less than sixpence, hence going out on a bender.

Hmmm... citation needed, as the kids say.

https://www.royalmint.com/stories/collect/coin-nicknames/ (https://www.royalmint.com/stories/collect/coin-nicknames/)

"We present to you a selection of our best attempts at referencing and researching the murky history of coin nicknames."

Hmmm. Not convinced.

When did beer actually cost £2 a pint or thereabouts? It's quite possible I was out of the country, whenever it was!

When I was a PSO, you could still get beer for under a pound (95p, to be precise) in the Old Bar in the student union (as long as you didn't mind drinking watered-down Tetleys), while the £2 piece was still a work of science fiction. Most reputable watering holes were charging around the £1.15 mark (or £1.30 if you went somewhere fancy in town like Whitelocke's). We used the term beer tokens generically for any denomination.

I got charged over £7 for a pint at the pub at the end of the audax the other week. That included the 12% tip that was automatically added by the app they insisted on you using to order. Progress, eh?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 16 July, 2021, 09:15:37 pm
That graph is spot on for my student life (I was in Liverpool 1988-91, then Edinburgh 91-95) then I lost track by leaving the country for many years. Beer pricing in the US is far more complicated.

When I first started drinking at the splendid age of 15, beer was 75p a pint, and when the police raided the pub they'd make you pour it down the loo, and then drive off without having made you leave the premises. I figure they had a deal with the landlord because we all had to buy a replacement pint.

The most expensive pint I had recently was £21, but it was awesome and I would have paid double (Pirate Noir by Prairie Artisan, and for the record, three of us shared it). That said, I'm still smarting from the time I footed a round of 3 Fountains kriek in the Rake the other year – for about twelve people. That didn't leave any change from £200.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 16 July, 2021, 09:40:46 pm
...3 Fountains kriek in the Rake the other year – for about twelve people. That didn't leave any change from £200.

Jings, was that a big bottle each?  :o Also nom  :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 16 July, 2021, 09:51:15 pm
You know, I don't think it was 3 Fountains, but it was some kind of expensive kriek because it was on tap and I bought it all down to the pink froth. There were people who pulled faces because it was 'too tart.' Wimps.

Reminds me of the time I found a keg of Chimay Blue in West Virginia. I drank all that too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2021, 10:03:20 pm
Christ, I’m still smarting from the time I bought *one* point in the Rake.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2021, 10:08:51 pm
When did beer actually cost £2 a pint or thereabouts? It's quite possible I was out of the country, whenever it was!

February 2001, apparently.  https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/czms/mm23

By that graph, BEER was about £1.90/pint in summer 1998 when the tokens were first introduced.
Point pointed. In 2001 I was paying about 4 zloty (a bit less than a quid) for a half litre.

Mind you, that graph is for draught lager, which by and large means (or used to) frothy pee in Britain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2021, 10:10:26 pm
I got charged over £7 for a pint at the pub at the end of the audax the other week. That included the 12% tip that was automatically added by the app they insisted on you using to order. Progress, eh?
¬!"£$%^&*()_+~@:><?/\|#
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 16 July, 2021, 10:12:44 pm
You know, I don't think it was 3 Fountains, but it was some kind of expensive kriek because it was on tap and I bought it all down to the pink froth. There were people who pulled faces because it was 'too tart.' Wimps...

I'm reminded of the time many years ago when Mrs P, her brother and I went to the 3 Fonteinen tap on our first foray into Belgian gueuzey soury goodness  ;D :-X :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 16 July, 2021, 10:27:47 pm
You know, I don't think it was 3 Fountains, but it was some kind of expensive kriek because it was on tap and I bought it all down to the pink froth. There were people who pulled faces because it was 'too tart.' Wimps...

I'm reminded of the time many years ago when Mrs P, her brother and I went to the 3 Fonteinen tap on our first foray into Belgian gueuzey soury goodness  ;D :-X :P
And I said the beer was only fit for putting on chips.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 16 July, 2021, 10:34:37 pm
Christ, I’m still smarting from the time I bought *one* point in the Rake.

True enough. It might have been Vimto.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 July, 2021, 01:00:07 am
Graph dunt go far enough back for my Penniless Student Oaf days :'(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 17 July, 2021, 07:29:35 am
Graph dunt go far enough back for my Penniless Student Oaf days :'(

Ditto - I recollect concern when Watneys Red Barrel went up in price to 2/6d  a print (that's 12.5p in the new-fangled money we now use)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 17 July, 2021, 08:36:37 am
On Monday (Freedom (to infect others) Day). 'Spoons is charging £2/pint My local one is below that on Mondays - or was BC. Haven't been in for 16 months.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 17 July, 2021, 01:23:54 pm
Even the *paint* on Concorde was special, becos of skin heating.  Which any fule orter kno, but I didn't.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 17 July, 2021, 04:12:48 pm
That graph is spot on for my student life (I was in Liverpool 1988-91, then Edinburgh 91-95) then I lost track by leaving the country for many years. Beer pricing in the US is far more complicated.

When I first started drinking at the splendid age of 15, beer was 75p a pint, and when the police raided the pub they'd make you pour it down the loo, and then drive off without having made you leave the premises. I figure they had a deal with the landlord because we all had to buy a replacement pint.

The most expensive pint I had recently was £21, but it was awesome and I would have paid double (Pirate Noir by Prairie Artisan, and for the record, three of us shared it). That said, I'm still smarting from the time I footed a round of 3 Fountains kriek in the Rake the other year – for about twelve people. That didn't leave any change from £200.

Hmmm, that graph starts 10 years too late for me. I think we were paying 30p a pint in the Union bar (Portsmouth Poly, St. Paul’s Road, 1975). Shorts were 50p. By some quirk of legislation, the Union bar always closed at 10:30, but Southsea pubs had summer opening until 11, so we’d all pile out at 10:25 an£ head for the India Arms to finish off the evening. I think a pint was 50p there. To put it in perspective, I had £14 a week after paying for the B,B & D accommodation (which could get kicked out of, or herded 5 to a room ine basement during peak tourist season)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 17 July, 2021, 04:13:46 pm
Even the *paint* on Concorde was special, becos of skin heating.  Which any fule orter kno, but I didn't.

Yep, leading edges got quite warm.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 18 July, 2021, 08:13:45 am
Graph dunt go far enough back for my Penniless Student Oaf days :'(

Ditto - I recollect concern when Watneys Red Barrel went up in price to 2/6d  a print (that's 12.5p in the new-fangled money we now use)
I seem to recall that the first pint I bought myself would have been in the Boston Rugby Club bar after a match, circa 1971.  2/6d.  A lot of money for a 17yo in those days.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: bhoot on 18 July, 2021, 12:15:11 pm
That graph is spot on for my student life (I was in Liverpool 1988-91, then Edinburgh 91-95) then I lost track by leaving the country for many years. Beer pricing in the US is far more complicated.

When I first started drinking at the splendid age of 15, beer was 75p a pint, and when the police raided the pub they'd make you pour it down the loo, and then drive off without having made you leave the premises. I figure they had a deal with the landlord because we all had to buy a replacement pint.


Hmmm, that graph starts 10 years too late for me. I think we were paying 30p a pint in the Union bar (Portsmouth Poly, St. Paul’s Road, 1975). Shorts were 50p.

Too early for my student days too, but having worked in the Union bar in my first year (1978-79) I can still remember the prices - most beer was 32p a pint, and also most spirits were the same for a single measure, while soft drinks and mixers were generally aligned with half pints at 16p. So we rapidly learned our 32 and 16 times tables for totting up the bill, which was generally done in our heads and the total rung through the till. A few items deviated from these multiples - I am pretty sure there was one cheap beer at 29p (Ansells?) and one more expensive one at 35p (some sort of Bass I think, this was the Midlands and Marstons Pedigree was the default ale at that time).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 19 July, 2021, 10:54:48 am
That “Lloyd” was a common 19th century word for a shipping company, hence HAPAG-Lloyd* which survives to this day.

* Known in these parts as “Haddock-Floyd”.

I knew this was the case in German, but today I also learned that the also Italians used it: Lloyd Sabaudo Societa had a 40,000 ton liner built in Glasgow in 1929.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 19 July, 2021, 11:27:32 am
We were paying 82p for a pint of Castlemaine XXXX in The Lazy Fox in Birmingham at the end of 1987.  If you were willing to go into one of the locals' pubs and drink bitter, 57p.  Mild was even cheaper, if you could actually stand the taste.  Birmingham was always a little cheaper than average for beer, probably because  most of the pubs sold M&B or Ansells swill.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 19 July, 2021, 12:13:27 pm
We were paying 82p for a pint of Castlemaine XXXX in The Lazy Fox in Birmingham at the end of 1987.  If you were willing to go into one of the locals' pubs and drink bitter, 57p.  Mild was even cheaper, if you could actually stand the taste.  Birmingham was always a little cheaper than average for beer, probably because  most of the pubs sold M&B or Ansells swill.

Must have been really bad if XXXX was a preferable option.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 19 July, 2021, 12:24:15 pm
We were paying 82p for a pint of Castlemaine XXXX in The Lazy Fox in Birmingham at the end of 1987.  If you were willing to go into one of the locals' pubs and drink bitter, 57p.  Mild was even cheaper, if you could actually stand the taste.  Birmingham was always a little cheaper than average for beer, probably because  most of the pubs sold M&B or Ansells swill.

We were regularly paying £1 pint in the Student Union bar at UEA (1993-96).  The SU kept Adnams going as a business during a very tough period for the company.

I drank for free in the Grad Bar (one of the perks at the time of being a member of the volunteer bar staff).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: felstedrider on 19 July, 2021, 12:43:18 pm
We were paying 82p for a pint of Castlemaine XXXX in The Lazy Fox in Birmingham at the end of 1987.  If you were willing to go into one of the locals' pubs and drink bitter, 57p.  Mild was even cheaper, if you could actually stand the taste.  Birmingham was always a little cheaper than average for beer, probably because  most of the pubs sold M&B or Ansells swill.

We were regularly paying £1 pint in the Student Union bar at UEA (1993-96).  The SU kept Adnams going as a business during a very tough period for the company.

I drank for free in the Grad Bar (one of the perks at the time of being a member of the volunteer bar staff).

Yeah but it was 50p a pint in Ritzy's or was that Peppermint Park ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 19 July, 2021, 12:50:57 pm
The Crown in Beeston was 26p/pint in the posh bar ('81 - '84) and 24p/pint in the scuzzy bar, and the beer in there was hand pull Home ales. So we'd buy it in the scuzzy bar and dutifully carry it round to the posh bar. Nectar. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 19 July, 2021, 01:18:52 pm
We were paying 82p for a pint of Castlemaine XXXX in The Lazy Fox in Birmingham at the end of 1987.  If you were willing to go into one of the locals' pubs and drink bitter, 57p.  Mild was even cheaper, if you could actually stand the taste.  Birmingham was always a little cheaper than average for beer, probably because  most of the pubs sold M&B or Ansells swill.

We were regularly paying £1 pint in the Student Union bar at UEA (1993-96).  The SU kept Adnams going as a business during a very tough period for the company.

I drank for free in the Grad Bar (one of the perks at the time of being a member of the volunteer bar staff).

Yeah but it was 50p a pint in Ritzy's or was that Peppermint Park ?

Most of the people in Ritzy's were too young to be buying alcohol ;D

Or am I remembering the Samson and Hercules?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 19 July, 2021, 02:54:34 pm
We were paying 82p for a pint of Castlemaine XXXX in The Lazy Fox in Birmingham at the end of 1987.  If you were willing to go into one of the locals' pubs and drink bitter, 57p.  Mild was even cheaper, if you could actually stand the taste.  Birmingham was always a little cheaper than average for beer, probably because  most of the pubs sold M&B or Ansells swill.

Ooh - The Lazy Fox. I think I'd been drinking there the first time I cycled a bit tipsy (as recommended by Alexei Sayle to TdF watchers this year. The cycling tipsy, thing, not the Lazy Fox which, on-topically, I have learned today, no longer exists).

How does everyone remember, to the penny, how much a pint cost so long ago? I don't think I could tell you what I paid for a pint this year, let alone 30 or so years ago.

(But, speaking of mild beer, I had my first pint of that in The Brown Derby in 1979 or 1980)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 19 July, 2021, 03:50:26 pm
We were paying 27p for a pint of Youngs Special in a pub in West Norwood in 1974.
Imagine our collective delight when on a school field trip to Scarborough we discovered that bitter could be had for 22p a pint.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 19 July, 2021, 04:00:10 pm
I remember that when we went for a not very sneaky pint on Friday lunchtimes during sixth form, half the teachers would already be the pub doing the same. Oh for lunchtime drinking. Mind you, they never got a round in.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: eckagain on 19 July, 2021, 04:15:44 pm
I remember that when we went for a not very sneaky pint on Friday lunchtimes during sixth form, half the teachers would already be the pub doing the same. Oh for lunchtime drinking. Mind you, they never got a round in.
When I worked in Embra City Chambers in the mid 70s, it was a weekly custom that most of the "workforce" would decant to the many pubs in the Royal Mile of a Friday lunchtime. This was, when I joined the Cooncil, in the days when pubs would close for the afternoon at 2.30. giving everyone a wee hint that it was time return to our desks. Then, after a couple of years, the law changed and pubs could stay open all afternoon.
You'll never guess what the outcome was.
My boss, to our small friendly team: "Erm, guys, it's ten past four, maybe we should head back to the office."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 19 July, 2021, 08:44:20 pm
Buggered if I can remember what beer cost when I started buying* it, but it has always seemed expensive to me.



*An entirely different thing from *drinking* it. :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 19 July, 2021, 08:52:59 pm
I remember that when we went for a not very sneaky pint on Friday lunchtimes during sixth form, half the teachers would already be the pub doing the same. Oh for lunchtime drinking. Mind you, they never got a round in.
When I worked in Embra City Chambers in the mid 70s, it was a weekly custom that most of the "workforce" would decant to the many pubs in the Royal Mile of a Friday lunchtime. This was, when I joined the Cooncil, in the days when pubs would close for the afternoon at 2.30. giving everyone a wee hint that it was time return to our desks. Then, after a couple of years, the law changed and pubs could stay open all afternoon.
You'll never guess what the outcome was.
My boss, to our small friendly team: "Erm, guys, it's ten past four, maybe we should head back to the office."

My first proper boss in the non-academic world was a very old school publisher who believed sincerely in the value of lunchtime, to such extent that when I had the temerity to question 'should we get back to work?' in my early days (I wasn't sure if it wasn't some devious kind of test) she looked at me and said 'but ian, this is work' and ordered a third bottle of wine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 19 July, 2021, 10:29:18 pm
The price that's set in my mind is the cost of cigarettes in vending machines in college. It was £2.30, and it could be achieved by 4 or 5 people just getting their loose change out of their pockets.  Now it's £12 quid a pack, and you have to be 18 to buy them, and they have to be hidden behind a grey curtain by the newsagent, so you can only ask for brands that you know of. I'm actually amazed by the youngsters who smoke, as I think its now cheaper to be a regular weekend user of cocaine, than it is to have a 20 a day habit.

I remember after my GCSE English mocks, going to the news agents and everyone buying a hamlet for 16p to celebrate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 July, 2021, 07:56:17 am
Buggered if I can remember what beer cost when I started buying* it, but it has always seemed expensive to me.



*An entirely different thing from *drinking* it. :)

I can remember my then BiL saying in 1990 that pubs in Eire had re-introduced an old measure called an imperial or some such, which was slightly smaller than a pint, so that they could keep the price under £1.

When I started drinking it a pint of McEwan's Export was 2/4d and decimalization was still 5 years away.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 21 July, 2021, 12:28:09 pm
The European Stone Stacking Championships is actually a thing

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57791811
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 21 July, 2021, 12:41:48 pm
We were paying 82p for a pint of Castlemaine XXXX in The Lazy Fox in Birmingham at the end of 1987.  If you were willing to go into one of the locals' pubs and drink bitter, 57p.  Mild was even cheaper, if you could actually stand the taste.  Birmingham was always a little cheaper than average for beer, probably because  most of the pubs sold M&B or Ansells swill.

We were regularly paying £1 pint in the Student Union bar at UEA (1993-96).  The SU kept Adnams going as a business during a very tough period for the company.

I drank for free in the Grad Bar (one of the perks at the time of being a member of the volunteer bar staff).

Yeah but it was 50p a pint in Ritzy's or was that Peppermint Park ?

I never actually made it to Peppermint Park in three years at UEA.  I don't know whether to be embarrassed or proud...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 22 July, 2021, 08:01:46 am
Beer token was certainly in parlance before the £2 coin, and even the £1 coin, and was a fluid expression for money, both in coin but especially note, in the sense of a promissory note that could be exchanged for something useful.

(and, my own early drinking in the west end, early seventies, was  at the rate of 4 drinks for £1)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 22 July, 2021, 09:04:38 am
Buggered if I can remember what beer cost when I started buying* it, but it has always seemed expensive to me.



*An entirely different thing from *drinking* it. :)

Can still remember buying my first beer in a pub one hot summers day.  We were all well underage and I felt very daring when I paid 9d for a half.  Later on I started the school speakeasy stocked with cider. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 22 July, 2021, 09:16:20 am
My first beer in a pub was in '68. A bottle of brown ale. I've no idea what it cost.

A few years later - working in a college bar - bitter (some fizzy shit) was 13p and Guinnnnesss was 15p.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: felstedrider on 22 July, 2021, 09:47:44 am
We were paying 82p for a pint of Castlemaine XXXX in The Lazy Fox in Birmingham at the end of 1987.  If you were willing to go into one of the locals' pubs and drink bitter, 57p.  Mild was even cheaper, if you could actually stand the taste.  Birmingham was always a little cheaper than average for beer, probably because  most of the pubs sold M&B or Ansells swill.

We were regularly paying £1 pint in the Student Union bar at UEA (1993-96).  The SU kept Adnams going as a business during a very tough period for the company.

I drank for free in the Grad Bar (one of the perks at the time of being a member of the volunteer bar staff).

Yeah but it was 50p a pint in Ritzy's or was that Peppermint Park ?

I never actually made it to Peppermint Park in three years at UEA.  I don't know whether to be embarrassed or proud...

There was a time when Wednesday at PP was a better night out than the Thursday at the LCR, but I lived that side of town and could walk there (and stagger back).   The building was boarded up last time I went through.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 July, 2021, 01:24:38 pm
The hottest place in Ireland this week was Ballywatticock.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 26 July, 2021, 10:27:25 am
I found out what a Fellmonger and Woolstapler is.

(https://i.ibb.co/XJGf8wy/20210725-121237.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 26 July, 2021, 12:42:09 pm
Would I be right in thinking that a fellmonger is a particularly specialised (and localised) estate agent?

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 26 July, 2021, 12:49:02 pm
A fellmonger sounds like someone who dispenses GBH and other forms of bodily harm.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 26 July, 2021, 02:47:33 pm
Fellmonger pulls the wool off the fleece and a woolstapler puts it back on again, obviously.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 July, 2021, 02:55:46 pm
Can guess these from German.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 26 July, 2021, 11:46:02 pm
The building dates from the 1740s and backs onto the river Great Ouse which was used to transport merchandise. The business carried on until the 1930s. The sign in the photo is a copy, the original being kept in the museum adjacent.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 28 July, 2021, 06:32:07 pm
The origin of the phrase ‘Hobson’s choice’.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 July, 2021, 08:42:04 pm
That Tina Turner renounced her USAnian citizenship in 2013 after becoming Swiss.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 28 July, 2021, 08:44:51 pm
That Mr Tesco's Emporium of Toothy Comestibles train their staff in, amongst other things, the importance of not offering cigarettes to people with open fractures and calling 999 if someone suffers a dog bite to the genitals.

(Or that's what they'd be training them in if they had the right email address.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 28 July, 2021, 09:37:37 pm
A dog bite in the genitals eh? Is that where F and F comes from?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 July, 2021, 04:46:07 pm
That the nam in Vietnam means "southern" and is related to the words used today by North and South Korea to refer to each other and themselves (but in Vietnam it does not in any way refer to the former South Vietnam).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 August, 2021, 10:04:01 pm
That four-finger swipes on a fondleslab don’t work if you have a plaster on the tip of your little finger.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 04 August, 2021, 04:20:04 pm
Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 9, Op. 47 in A major, usually known as the Kreutzer Sonata, was actually composed for and premiered by a violin virtuoso called George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bridgetower). Bridgetower was the son of a black man and a white woman.

I mentioned this to a friend and she said "Oh yes, someone who taught Darwin was black." (She mentioned the name but I do not remember it.)

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 August, 2021, 07:12:44 pm
That four-finger swipes on a fondleslab don’t work if you have a plaster on the tip of your little finger.

Are the Mega-Global Fruit Corporation of Cupertino, USAnia discriminating against those of a baraktoid persuasion?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 04 August, 2021, 08:04:03 pm
I see to recall that most Apple swipes are configurable and I can't get even 3 finger ones to work reliably so don't use them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 06 August, 2021, 08:57:24 am
That the formula for WD40 is like Worcestershire sauce, i.e. top secret.  It is held in a bank vault somewhere.  There is no patent.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 06 August, 2021, 01:43:51 pm
How to understand the circle of 5ths.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 06 August, 2021, 01:55:15 pm
What ".fr" sounds like when spoken on a French radio station.

Actually, it's sort of the other way round. I kept hearing it and not understanding what it meant.

It wasn't in common use when I learned French.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 07 August, 2021, 06:12:10 pm
How to understand the circle of 5ths.
I have one, laminated, next to my music stand.  Covered in chinagraph pencil annotations.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 August, 2021, 09:09:33 am
That Somerset has an official fingerpost restoration project. (https://www.somerset.gov.uk/waste-planning-and-land/somerset-fingerpost-restoration-project/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 August, 2021, 10:48:07 am
The Japanese term gemba, which seems a useful word.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 August, 2021, 01:15:39 am
That there was not one, but (at least) three Defenestrations of Prague.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 August, 2021, 01:35:12 pm
Heavy whipping cream won't suffer from being deep-frozen.  One site suggests freezing it in ice-cube trays so that small portions can be used without thawing the lot.

Just as well, since the only size of cream MrsT could find today was one litre and it's at its sell-by date.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 11 August, 2021, 02:01:24 pm
Heavy whipping cream won't suffer from being deep-frozen.  One site suggests freezing it in ice-cube trays so that small portions can be used without thawing the lot.

Just as well, since the only size of cream MrsT could find today was one litre and it's at its sell-by date.

I'm pretty sure one used to be able to get frozen whipping cream years ago - if memory serves, it came in the form of small cylindrical blocks in a bag.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 August, 2021, 03:27:12 pm
Heavy whipping cream won't suffer from being deep-frozen.  One site suggests freezing it in ice-cube trays so that small portions can be used without thawing the lot.

Just as well, since the only size of cream MrsT could find today was one litre and it's at its sell-by date.

I'm pretty sure one used to be able to get frozen whipping cream years ago - if memory serves, it came in the form of small cylindrical blocks in a bag.

Never noticed it in the shops, but then I've never looked for it.

Anyone wanting a G&T in our house now will get bloody phunny ice-cubes.  Of course, since they'll have to bring their own tonic & their own Mother's Ruin they probably won't be surprised.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 August, 2021, 02:14:12 pm
That the ventilation pillars you see in the pavement are not to do with sewers or gas pipes but vent hot air from subterranean electricity substations.
(https://www.bristol247.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Woodland-Road-2-photo-by-Martin-Booth-1536x1152.jpg)
https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/features/once-you-see-these-across-bristol-you-will-start-seeing-them-everywhere/

It would be good to know a bit more about them. Why are they underground? What measures are taken to prevent them flooding?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 August, 2021, 02:19:53 pm
 :thumbsup:

Best thing since vacuum sewers (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=119530.msg2630892#msg2630892).  Even the World Bollard Association would approve.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ppg on 15 August, 2021, 03:01:47 pm
That Somerset has an official fingerpost restoration project. (https://www.somerset.gov.uk/waste-planning-and-land/somerset-fingerpost-restoration-project/)
Volunteers brandishing paint and brushes were a frequent sight around these parts a while ago.

Apparently the reason we retained the finger posts rather than upgrade to the new (well ~40 years ago new) was less for aesthetics, but rather due to a lack of funds.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 15 August, 2021, 05:27:01 pm
The post in the middle of our Somerset village got flattened a few months ago, then mysteriously disappeared.
We are in the process of fund raising for a replacement, via that project.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 15 August, 2021, 08:20:58 pm
That not all fingerposts look like this.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51380294841_cb0ebb6db0.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2mhirAr)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 August, 2021, 08:34:26 pm
That's a truly splendid one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 15 August, 2021, 09:34:22 pm
That not all fingerposts look like this.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51380294841_cb0ebb6db0.jpg)
 (https://flic.kr/p/2mhirAr)

But it isn't bilingual. I think you should report it to the nearest Plaid Cymru member.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 16 August, 2021, 07:01:54 am
That the Welsh for furlong is Ystad (which also means 'estate').
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 16 August, 2021, 09:45:08 am
That the Welsh for furlong is Ystad (which also means 'estate').


Maybe from the Roman stadium (pl stadia or stade)  which was roughly the  length. The fence that they ran chariot races round was one stadium long.
A furlong was traditionally a furrow long - the length of a ploughed field, which maybe suggests where chariot racing started.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tomsk on 16 August, 2021, 10:22:57 am
..  and she said "Oh yes, someone who taught Darwin was black." (She mentioned the name but I do not remember it.)

John Edmonstone - a taxidermist who worked for, amongst other, the University of Edinburgh Medical School. A freed slave from British Guiana, taught by naturalist and explorer Charles Waterton (and plantation owner, it has to be said). Darwin describes Edmonstone in his autobiography as "a very pleasant and intelligent man" - the former witnessed many of the horrors of colonialism on his travels, though maybe Edmonstone also influenced Darwin's abolitionist beliefs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 20 August, 2021, 07:27:49 pm
M323 SPD pedals (the original combo pedals) hurt my feet on long rides, specifically the outside of my foot.  The cage must contact the shoe.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 21 August, 2021, 08:44:02 pm
Strawberries don't make the chemical that gives them a strawberry taste, that's made by bacteria on their leaves. But to get the bacteria to make the chemical, strawberry plants have to emit methane. Basically, they're farting for flavour.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 August, 2021, 08:43:58 pm
That Alice B. Toeclips refers to Jacquie Phelan.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 August, 2021, 08:24:57 am
That restaurants don't have an inside track that gets them tender faux filet. Half an hour of sawing and aerobic mastication last night.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 26 August, 2021, 11:49:15 am
Inspired by ^^^ and a desire to confirm that I knew vaguely where cuts like Faux Filet, Hampe, Onglet and Bavette came from, I discovered the sheer volume of different French cuts of beef https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut_of_beef
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 28 August, 2021, 11:34:07 am
That a small poo bag full of blackberries is exactly the correct amount for a blackberry and apple crumble.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 August, 2021, 02:02:33 pm
That in the 1960s, Fordson tractors ran on paraffin, because it was much cheaper than petrol or diesel, but they still needed petrol to prime. I don't know if this was make-specific or a general feature of tractors at the time. Further, that around 1966 petrol rationing was very briefly introduced as a result of collision in the Suez Canal.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 28 August, 2021, 03:40:57 pm
That in the 1960s, Fordson tractors ran on paraffin, because it was much cheaper than petrol or diesel, but they still needed petrol to prime. I don't know if this was make-specific or a general feature of tractors at the time. Further, that around 1966 petrol rationing was very briefly introduced as a result of collision in the Suez Canal.

Not strictly accurate that it was paraffin - it was TVO (Tractor Vaporising Oil) which was a mix of paraffin and, I think, about 10% petrol.  The TVO tractors went right back to the early "little Grey Fergies" of the early 1950s [a bit of trivia - the Ferguson had the same engine as a 1949 Standard Vanguard car]

The tractor had a two-compartment fuel tank, roughly 80/20, with a tap that switched from one to the other - you started the engine on petrol, once it was warm (i.e. able to vaporise the TVO) you switched to the other tank and used that for the work - when you stopped you had to switch back to the petrol tank for a few minutes to make sure the carb had petrol in it for next time's cold start.

About 35 years ago I had a house with some paddocks and had a grey Ferguson - great fun - with a 6' wide mower and a couple of other implements driven from the rear PTO.

(https://www.cycle-endtoend.org.uk/images/z-Beewee-pix/tractor.png)

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 August, 2021, 04:01:54 pm
That looks exactly like the tractor my father-in-law built for himself! That was from the 90s and had a diesel engine (no, he didn't make the engine himself).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 28 August, 2021, 05:03:01 pm
That looks exactly like the tractor my father-in-law built for himself! That was from the 90s and had a diesel engine (no, he didn't make the engine himself).

I can't remember the precise age of my TVO Ferguson in the picture - I think it was late 1940s/early 1950s.   Later models when Ferguson morphed into Massey Ferguson did have diesel engines and were painted red instead of grey.    The real innovation with the Fergie was the lifting/PTO mechanism at the back that allowed all sorts of implements to be used - mowers, transport boxes, ploughs, harrows . . . and the PTO to drive things like saw benches and log-splitters.  That same system is the basis for the rear end of today's tractors.

Two of my daughters did their first driving on the tractor, at the ages of about 6 and 8.  The throttle was a lever on the steering column and you sat pretty much on top of the gearbox with the lever between your legs - pedals (and footrests) for clutch and brake were either side and just forward of the gearbox.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 August, 2021, 05:13:21 pm
I used to pass Harry Ferguson's showroom every day on my way to school.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 28 August, 2021, 05:21:20 pm
That my British Eagle Touristique has only 16 gears. Also that 8-speed chains are much cheaper than 9-speed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 30 August, 2021, 07:10:59 pm
That looks exactly like the tractor my father-in-law built for himself! That was from the 90s and had a diesel engine (no, he didn't make the engine himself).

I can't remember the precise age of my TVO Ferguson in the picture - I think it was late 1940s/early 1950s.   Later models when Ferguson morphed into Massey Ferguson did have diesel engines and were painted red instead of grey.    The real innovation with the Fergie was the lifting/PTO mechanism at the back that allowed all sorts of implements to be used - mowers, transport boxes, ploughs, harrows . . . and the PTO to drive things like saw benches and log-splitters.  That same system is the basis for the rear end of today's tractors.

Two of my daughters did their first driving on the tractor, at the ages of about 6 and 8.  The throttle was a lever on the steering column and you sat pretty much on top of the gearbox with the lever between your legs - pedals (and footrests) for clutch and brake were either side and just forward of the gearbox.
My late F-i-L had both a grey and a red Fergie. Our kids' first driving experiences were on the red one. Great bits of kit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 02 September, 2021, 01:45:24 pm
That Field and Stream, a hunting shooting, fishing magazine reviewed a book by DH Lawrence in 1959
Quote
Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been reissued by the Grove Press, and this fictional account of the day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is still of considerable interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper.

"Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savor these sidelights on the management of a Midlands shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion this book cannot take the place of J.R. Miller's Practical Gamekeeping" (Ed Zern, Field and Stream, November 1959, p. 142).

This was apparently the first legal unexpurgated publication of the book and the alternative book recommended does not actually exist.

I remember as a teenager reading my father's Penguin copy which was published in 1960 after I was born.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 02 September, 2021, 01:59:07 pm
Ah but did you allow your manservant to read it?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 September, 2021, 02:01:58 pm
This would suggest that someone in Field & Stream had a sense of humour.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 02 September, 2021, 02:33:33 pm
..  and she said "Oh yes, someone who taught Darwin was black." (She mentioned the name but I do not remember it.)

John Edmonstone - a taxidermist who worked for, amongst other, the University of Edinburgh Medical School. A freed slave from British Guiana, taught by naturalist and explorer Charles Waterton (and plantation owner, it has to be said). Darwin describes Edmonstone in his autobiography as "a very pleasant and intelligent man" - the former witnessed many of the horrors of colonialism on his travels, though maybe Edmonstone also influenced Darwin's abolitionist beliefs.
Thank you, Tomsk, interesting.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 02 September, 2021, 02:47:01 pm
Ah but did you allow your manservant to read it?

ISWYDT  :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 02 September, 2021, 06:59:02 pm
Went round the garden this afternoon Google Lens-ing all the plants to find out what they are. Happily a good selection of flowering herbs which the bees are enjoying (except for the sage). Think the box hedge might get evicted though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 September, 2021, 10:03:15 am
That Field and Stream, a hunting shooting, fishing magazine reviewed a book by DH Lawrence in 1959
Quote
Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been reissued by the Grove Press, and this fictional account of the day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is still of considerable interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper.

"Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savor these sidelights on the management of a Midlands shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion this book cannot take the place of J.R. Miller's Practical Gamekeeping" (Ed Zern, Field and Stream, November 1959, p. 142).

This was apparently the first legal unexpurgated publication of the book and the alternative book recommended does not actually exist.

I remember as a teenager reading my father's Penguin copy which was published in 1960 after I was born.

Reminds me of the letter Darwin got when he first sent On The Origin Of Species for publication.  The editor suggested throwing out everything but the lengthy appendix on pigeon breeding, saying that no-one would be able to follow the first bit, but there would be a moderate market among pigeon-fanciers for the rest.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 03 September, 2021, 09:48:28 pm
Suffragettes 'terrorizing' London on motorized scooters (https://chickhistory.org/2014/03/29/lady-florence-norman-c-1916/) was a thing (as terrorizing as current electric scooters, of course, which we have established are far worse than giant vanity pickup trucks with bullbars and a certified cunt behind the wheel). Pure fucking A.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 September, 2021, 11:42:18 am
Front wheel drive. Presumably because there's more space for the engine up front and it avoids a chain, which might get oil on her fashionably shoe-length skirt. I guess the box by her feet is for tools?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 04 September, 2021, 12:30:45 pm
I guess the box by her feet is for tools?
I assumed that was a battery.  Looking more closely it does appear to have a small petrol tank on the opposite side to the camera.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 04 September, 2021, 12:39:49 pm
That the US Open tennis has a final set tie break at 6 all. As does the Australian, but a first to 10 as opposed to 7. Wimbledon I knew was at 12 all. The French don’t bother thus far.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 September, 2021, 12:54:18 pm
I guess the box by her feet is for tools?
I assumed that was a battery.  Looking more closely it does appear to have a small petrol tank on the opposite side to the camera.
It does look like a battery. Would a little two-stroke (I'm presuming it's two-stroke from its appearance and size) engine like that need a battery? I suppose it might be difficult to start with only a magneto.

But it could also be for her dynamite and revolver.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 04 September, 2021, 02:10:52 pm
I guess the box by her feet is for tools?
I assumed that was a battery.  Looking more closely it does appear to have a small petrol tank on the opposite side to the camera.

The box by her feet appears to have a hinged cover, so my guess is tools or personal luggage (papers, etc.). The container on the far side of the front wheel looks like a fuel tank to me, too. I would expect a motor that small to be started with a pull cord or a hand crank, given the low compression ratios and the state of battery and electric motor technology back then.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 04 September, 2021, 08:48:15 pm
According to Wiki, Florence Priscilla, Lady Norman is sporting this season's Autoped:

Quote
The driver stood on a platform with 10-inch tires and operated the machine using only the handlebars and steering column, pushing them forward to engage the clutch, using a lever on the handlebar to control the throttle, and pulling the handlebars and column back to disengage the clutch and apply the brake.[1][2][3][4] After riding, the steering column would be folded onto the platform to store the scooter more easily. The engine was an air-cooled, 4-stroke, 155 cc engine over the front wheel.[2][3] The bike came with a headlamp and tail lamp, a Klaxon horn, and a toolbox. Developed during wartime and gasoline rationing, it was quite efficient, but was not widely distributed.[2]

No room for a helmet with that fancy millinery either.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 September, 2021, 09:39:23 pm
Klaxon is an underused word, despite being an overused item.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 September, 2021, 08:30:50 am
According to Wiki, Florence Priscilla, Lady Norman is sporting this season's Autoped:

Quote
The driver stood on a platform with 10-inch tires and operated the machine using only the handlebars and steering column, pushing them forward to engage the clutch, using a lever on the handlebar to control the throttle, and pulling the handlebars and column back to disengage the clutch and apply the brake.[1][2][3][4] After riding, the steering column would be folded onto the platform to store the scooter more easily. The engine was an air-cooled, 4-stroke, 155 cc engine over the front wheel.[2][3] The bike came with a headlamp and tail lamp, a Klaxon horn, and a toolbox. Developed during wartime and gasoline rationing, it was quite efficient, but was not widely distributed.[2]

No room for a helmet with that fancy millinery either.

So if you run into someone the scooter tries to accelerate. Nice healthy get-me-outa-here approach.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 September, 2021, 10:25:07 pm
That Cheap Trick At Budokan was actually recorded at a show in Osaka and not at the Budokan at all.  Boo!  Money back …
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rr on 07 September, 2021, 01:11:29 am
That Cheap Trick At Budokan was actually recorded at a show in Osaka and not at the Budokan at all.  Boo!  Money back …
That'll be £3,50 for my yellow, transparent copy bought in 1980.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 07 September, 2021, 09:50:26 am
That the word 'meander' is derived from the name of this river:

(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-_wlEiMR2Wo8%2FU9_A6ad4NwI%2FAAAAAAAAC1M%2FzMqNrUb8ejY%2Fs1600%2Fmeandering-river.jpg&f=1&nofb=1) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCy%C3%BCk_Menderes_River)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 07 September, 2021, 11:23:48 am
That the word 'meander' is derived from the name of this river:

(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-_wlEiMR2Wo8%2FU9_A6ad4NwI%2FAAAAAAAAC1M%2FzMqNrUb8ejY%2Fs1600%2Fmeandering-river.jpg&f=1&nofb=1) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCy%C3%BCk_Menderes_River)

Looks like there'll be oxbow lakes soon!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 07 September, 2021, 05:28:47 pm
That the word 'meander' is derived from the name of this river:

(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-_wlEiMR2Wo8%2FU9_A6ad4NwI%2FAAAAAAAAC1M%2FzMqNrUb8ejY%2Fs1600%2Fmeandering-river.jpg&f=1&nofb=1) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCy%C3%BCk_Menderes_River)

Looks like there'll be oxbow lakes soon!
You took the words out of my mouth!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 07 September, 2021, 05:36:20 pm
That the word 'meander' is derived from the name of this river:

(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-_wlEiMR2Wo8%2FU9_A6ad4NwI%2FAAAAAAAAC1M%2FzMqNrUb8ejY%2Fs1600%2Fmeandering-river.jpg&f=1&nofb=1) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCy%C3%BCk_Menderes_River)

Looks like there'll be oxbow lakes soon!
I say billabong
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 07 September, 2021, 07:33:43 pm
That the word 'meander' is derived from the name of this river:

(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-_wlEiMR2Wo8%2FU9_A6ad4NwI%2FAAAAAAAAC1M%2FzMqNrUb8ejY%2Fs1600%2Fmeandering-river.jpg&f=1&nofb=1) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCy%C3%BCk_Menderes_River)

Looks like there'll be oxbow lakes soon!
You took the words out of my mouth!

First year, first term geography lesson at grammar school!  Never forgotten like many things in life . . . another one from my era was how to spell K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M   :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 07 September, 2021, 07:42:42 pm
Horace Batclelor!   ;D :thumbsup:  Radio Luxembourg under the bedsheets.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 September, 2021, 11:47:20 pm
What a team, Zebra Kid and Horace Batchelor on percussion.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 08 September, 2021, 07:20:29 am
Horace Batclelor!   ;D :thumbsup:  Radio Luxembourg under the bedsheets.

Radio Luxembourg was not cool when you could have Caroline between the sheets.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 08 September, 2021, 07:30:14 am
What a team, Zebra Kid and Horace Batchelor on percussion.

I can't hear an accordian without thinking of General de Gaulle . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 08 September, 2021, 07:32:44 am
Horace Batclelor!   ;D :thumbsup:  Radio Luxembourg under the bedsheets.

Radio Luxembourg was not cool when you could have Caroline between the sheets.

Nah, Caroline was (much later) for kids - Luxembourg with the signal fading and then coming back was the real deal.     Where would we be without the Teen & Twenty Disc Club?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 08 September, 2021, 08:27:17 am
 
Horace Batclelor!   ;D :thumbsup:  Radio Luxembourg under the bedsheets.

Radio Luxembourg was not cool when you could have Caroline between the sheets.

Nah, Caroline was (much later) for kids - Luxembourg with the signal fading and then coming back was the real deal.     Where would we be without the Teen & Twenty Disc Club?

I could tell you that!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 September, 2021, 08:52:05 am
I was in Keynsham yesterday but I still have to remind myself whether it's Keynsham or Keynesham! It's a useful place from which to get to other places, but apart from that it doesn't really have a lot going on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 08 September, 2021, 09:24:17 am
Horace Batclelor!   ;D :thumbsup:  Radio Luxembourg under the bedsheets.

Radio Luxembourg was not cool when you could have Caroline between the sheets.

Nah, Caroline was (much later) for kids - Luxembourg with the signal fading and then coming back was the real deal.     Where would we be without the Teen & Twenty Disc Club?

I could tell you that!

Indeed, we could do without the memory of Jimmy Savile . . .  but (having Googled) the roster of Luxembourg DJs that went on to other, possibly greater things is impressive:

DJ’s included Don Wardell, Pete Murray, David ‘Kid’ Jensen, Tony Prince, Keith Fordyce, Kenny Everett, Barry Alldis, Jimmy Savile, Alan Freeman, Bob Stewart, Simon Dee, Paul Burnett, Dave Christian, Mark Wesley, Noel Edmonds, Brian Matthew, Pete Brady, Peter Powell, Emperor Rosko, Stuart Henry, Johnny Walker, Tommy Vance, Rob Jones, Tony Blewitt, Tony Brandon, Chris Carey, Peter Carvey, Rodney Collins, Roger ‘Twiggy’ Day, Pearly Gates, Stuart Grundy, Paul Kaye, Johnny Moran, Colin Nicol, Mike Read, Steve Wright and Muriel Young (one of the very few female disc jockeys on Radio Luxembourg).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 September, 2021, 12:48:44 pm
Horace Batclelor!   ;D :thumbsup:  Radio Luxembourg under the bedsheets.

Radio Luxembourg was not cool when you could have Caroline between the sheets.

Nah, Caroline was (much later) for kids - Luxembourg with the signal fading and then coming back was the real deal.

208 metres/1439 kilocycles - nothing as common as Herz back then.  A chum and I lived about 100 yards apart and had WW2-surplus field phones to chat on, with the cable strung along a disused railway cutting.  With that as an aerial my crystal set picked up the Beeb full blast until they shut down, then Radio Luxembourg.  The fun of picking it up counted for more than the actual programme content.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 08 September, 2021, 12:56:21 pm
My good pal Jon has today sent a letter to Sir Peter Bazalgette, Head of ITV, which Jon has published on FB.

I think it is entirely fitting that the great-great-grandson of the man who was largely responsible for the introduction of the London sewerage system should be in charge of a television channel.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 08 September, 2021, 01:21:20 pm
"Fitting" may not be as appropriate as you suggest: the great-great-grandson will be in danger of over-loading his ancestor's system, I would have thought - though McDonald's fat-ball might give him a (non-) run for his money.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 08 September, 2021, 02:34:01 pm
That at least one mid-western USAnian Packers fan of my acquaintance believes, as he told a colleague and me this morning "Americans undertsand "inflammable" to mean it wont burn"  :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 08 September, 2021, 03:19:31 pm
That at least one mid-western USAnian Packers fan of my acquaintance believes, as he told a colleague and me this morning "Americans undertsand "inflammable" to mean it wont burn"  :o

If you normally use 'flammable' to mean 'will burn', then it is quite reasonable to think that 'inflammable' means 'won't burn'.

It is the fault of Latin bollocks.

'inflammable' really means 'inflame', as in 'to cause to burn'. 'flammable' means 'it is burning'.  Well, it used to.

Basically English is a mongrel language, and grumbling about it is like grumbling about a mongrel dog having random coloured patches of fur.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 08 September, 2021, 03:25:30 pm
This I understand, but even Merriam Webster agrees that "inflammable" means "easy to set light to".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 September, 2021, 03:37:33 pm
I'm a fluent American speaker, and I'm pretty sure they agree that inflammable means easy to set light to.

Admittedly, the mid-West is a different place and I learned to speak American on the east coast.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 September, 2021, 03:38:50 pm
Flammable and non-flammable might be the safest words to use. It's either that or restricting your audience.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 08 September, 2021, 07:42:48 pm
Horace Batclelor!   ;D :thumbsup:  Radio Luxembourg under the bedsheets.

Radio Luxembourg was not cool when you could have Caroline between the sheets.

Nah, Caroline was (much later) for kids - Luxembourg with the signal fading and then coming back was the real deal.     Where would we be without the Teen & Twenty Disc Club?

What about Jimmy Saviile's Under The Bedclothes Club? In retrospect it's a bit Uncle Ernie.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 08 September, 2021, 08:36:38 pm
7 transistors in your radio and you were good to go for Luxembourg. Who was that bloke that was always advertising something from Keynsham?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 September, 2021, 08:48:00 pm
I always wondered why the past tense of to go is went.

Now I know, it's really fucking obvious.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 September, 2021, 01:25:09 am
7 transistors in your radio and you were good to go for Luxembourg. Who was that bloke that was always advertising something from Keynsham?

The aforementioned Horace Batchelor?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 09 September, 2021, 07:39:35 am
7 transistors in your radio and you were good to go for Luxembourg. Who was that bloke that was always advertising something from Keynsham?

The aforementioned Horace Batchelor?

... he of the "Famous Infra-Draw Method" for forecasting results on the football pools.    Do they still have football pools with the paper forms and crosses/zeroes etc or is it all betting shops/online now?     When I first went to work in the mid-60s we had a pools syndicate .... I can remember a winning share on just one week in about 3 years - 10/- (50p)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 September, 2021, 08:43:10 am
7 transistors in your radio and you were good to go for Luxembourg. Who was that bloke that was always advertising something from Keynsham?

The aforementioned Horace Batchelor?

... he of the "Famous Infra-Draw Method" for forecasting results on the football pools.    Do they still have football pools with the paper forms and crosses/zeroes etc or is it all betting shops/online now?     When I first went to work in the mid-60s we had a pools syndicate .... I can remember a winning share on just one week in about 3 years - 10/- (50p)

8 of us had a syndicate at university.  One week we had 8 draws: flatmate called up his dad all joyful, put phone down not joyful and said "so has he".  We got a tenner each out of it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 09 September, 2021, 09:23:52 am
Thanks to Citoyen's recent post in the "Random thread for small things..." thread I now know that "experiential" is a real word, and has been since the 1640s!

I'd never come across that one before. It sounds like it should be modern USAnian Corporate/Advertising Newspeak.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 11 September, 2021, 08:02:31 am
That the Spanish for mobile library is bibliobús
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 September, 2021, 10:14:07 am
That the Spanish for mobile library is bibliobús

It is in French too, without the ´.  Looks like bilious with extra blobs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 September, 2021, 12:09:49 am
That there have been several occasions of mixed nationality teams in the Olympics, including the seemingly self-inflammable combination of GBR, FRA and USA, who won silver in the 1900 polo competition under the perhaps confusing name BLO Polo Club Rugby.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 September, 2021, 03:10:11 pm
The first Messerschmidt Bf 109 prototype was powered by a Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 14 September, 2021, 04:04:06 pm
The first Messerschmidt Bf 109 prototype was powered by a Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine.

Well, Anglo-German relations were still cordial enough in the mid-30s - at the same time, Rolls-Royce bought a Heinkel He 70* for use as an engine test bed, and in 1936-37, it was used to test the engine which evolved into the Merlin.


* Some sources suggest that the He 70 was traded for four Kestrel engines, one of which was used in the Bf 109 prototype. If that was the case, I wonder who got the better end of the deal...

edited to correct typo in footnote
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 September, 2021, 04:13:39 pm
Amazing how soon the arms-limitation clauses of the Treaty of Versailles became a dead letter.  Not that the N.I. Protocol is likely to last as long.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: yorkie on 14 September, 2021, 07:28:07 pm
The first Messerschmidt Bf 109 prototype was powered by a Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine.

Well, Anglo-German relations were still cordial enough in the mid-30s - at the same time, Rolls-Royce bought a Heinkel He 70* for use as an engine test bed, and in 1936-37, it was used to test the engine which evolved into the Merlin.


* Some sources suggest that the He 70 was traded for four Kestrel engines, one of which was used in the Bf 108 prototype. If that was the case, I wonder who got the better end of the deal...


Anglo-Italian relations were also quite cordial around the same time, Vospers 1937 prototype Motor Torpedo Boat No. 102 was originally powered by 3 x 1000hp Isotta-Fraschini petrol engines (yes, it did shift - top speed of 48 knots!) which were replaced by Rolls Royce Merlins after spare parts became difficult to obtain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 22 September, 2021, 04:03:41 pm
That AAAA batteries exist! I've spent nearly 40 years on this planet without ever having encountered one before.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: grams on 22 September, 2021, 04:23:47 pm
That AAAA batteries exist! I've spent nearly 40 years on this planet without ever having encountered one before.

If you really want your mind blown, most 9V PP3 batteries contain 6 AAAAs in series huddled together. Either that or 6 lozenge cells stacked on top of each other.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 22 September, 2021, 04:29:21 pm
That AAAA batteries exist! I've spent nearly 40 years on this planet without ever having encountered one before.

If you really want your mind blown, most 9V PP3 batteries contain 6 AAAAs in series huddled together. Either that or 6 lozenge cells stacked on top of each other.

Goodness! :o I just Googled that and indeed this "hack" came up in the results:
https://www.instructables.com/How-To-Get-AAAA-BATTERIES-OUT-OF-9V/
They've been there, lurking in my smoke alarm, all along! ;D

I did wonder whether AAAAA or even AAAAAA batteries might exist, but alas, it appears not.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 September, 2021, 11:15:57 pm
If you like that, then you'll love B cells.  They're the ones that make up those 4.5V lantern batteries that nothing made this century uses.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 23 September, 2021, 11:37:24 am
If you like that, then you'll love B cells.  They're the ones that make up those 4.5V lantern batteries that nothing made this century uses.

That was the next thing I discovered! ;D

I think the last time I saw one of those 4.5V batteries was in a CDT lesson circa 1995...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 September, 2021, 04:45:02 pm
I had a (halogen) head torch that used them that I think last got used in about 1998.

More surprisingly, I noticed they were still for sale in some shop or other relatively recently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: yorkie on 23 September, 2021, 08:02:31 pm
I had a (halogen) head torch that used them that I think last got used in about 1998.

More surprisingly, I noticed they were still for sale in some shop or other relatively recently.


I'm pretty sure the original Petzl head torches had one of those batteries. My younger brother had one, I seem to remember him constantly whingeing about not being able to get replacement batteries in any location close to where you would like to be using the thing! I had one of the Petzl Max head torches, a bit bigger and heavier, but at least it used 3 x AA *or* 3 x AAA batteries, available from any corner shop/garage/off licence/etc...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: lissotriton on 23 September, 2021, 08:13:22 pm
I'm pretty sure the original Petzl head torches had one of those batteries. My younger brother had one, I seem to remember him constantly whingeing about not being able to get replacement batteries in any location close to where you would like to be using the thing! I had one of the Petzl Max head torches, a bit bigger and heavier, but at least it used 3 x AA *or* 3 x AAA batteries, available from any corner shop/garage/off licence/etc...
Yes, I've got an old Petzl Zoom that used those square batteries. But I got an adapter, so can use 3 x AA instead.
And I've replaced the bulb with an LED, so a bit brighter and longer battery life.
Still works OK, though a bit rubbish compared to a modern torch.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 23 September, 2021, 08:15:10 pm
Oh yes, we dug a couple of Petzls out of the pile earlier this year. Promptly got binned as the batteries had gone all salty.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 September, 2021, 08:20:05 pm
I had a (halogen) head torch that used them that I think last got used in about 1998.

More surprisingly, I noticed they were still for sale in some shop or other relatively recently.


I'm pretty sure the original Petzl head torches had one of those batteries. My younger brother had one, I seem to remember him constantly whingeing about not being able to get replacement batteries in any location close to where you would like to be using the thing! I had one of the Petzl Max head torches, a bit bigger and heavier, but at least it used 3 x AA *or* 3 x AAA batteries, available from any corner shop/garage/off licence/etc...

Now I'm pondering an xkcd-style chart of battery specialisation vs annoyingness...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 24 September, 2021, 12:45:14 am
I had a (halogen) head torch that used them that I think last got used in about 1998.

More surprisingly, I noticed they were still for sale in some shop or other relatively recently.


I'm pretty sure the original Petzl head torches had one of those batteries. My younger brother had one, I seem to remember him constantly whingeing about not being able to get replacement batteries in any location close to where you would like to be using the thing! I had one of the Petzl Max head torches, a bit bigger and heavier, but at least it used 3 x AA *or* 3 x AAA batteries, available from any corner shop/garage/off licence/etc...

I remember seeing them for sale in French supermarkets, so I'm guessing they were pretty widely used in France at one time. Finding those batteries in the US was not easy, the only sources seemed to be the better stocked climbing shops.

Modern headlamps are wonderful, and they keep getting better.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 September, 2021, 09:14:25 am
I was saying to someone on Monday, as we rode home from the pub, LEDs are the best thing to happen to cycling this century. And perhaps to climbing too!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 October, 2021, 04:44:19 pm
The USSR had built the atom bomb (1949), the hydrogen bomb (1953), put a man into orbit (1961) and become the first nation to fly a supersonic airliner (1968) before they built their first toilet-paper factory (1969).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 01 October, 2021, 07:20:33 pm
Fantastic fact, Mr T.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 01 October, 2021, 08:26:56 pm
Quote from: Kim
Now I'm pondering an xkcd-style chart of battery specialisation vs annoyingness...
Ever Ready B122s & B121s.  My dad's old multimeter is perfectly servicable apart from needing a B122 which is was, "Specially designed for hearing aids, photoflash and electronic equipment." Twenty one and a half volts? 

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 01 October, 2021, 08:49:19 pm
Quote from: Kim
Now I'm pondering an xkcd-style chart of battery specialisation vs annoyingness...
Ever Ready B122s & B121s.  My dad's old multimeter is perfectly servicable apart from needing a B122 which is was, "Specially designed for hearing aids, photoflash and electronic equipment." Twenty one and a half volts?

And you can forget about there being any enterprising deaf kids with a suitable box aid who'll sell you the battery to make room for contraband...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 01 October, 2021, 09:04:23 pm
Twenty one and a half volts?

Twenty two and a half volts. Which makes far more sense.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 01 October, 2021, 09:07:49 pm
Yes, but in imperial units, 22.5 volts = 1 tinglefinger.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 01 October, 2021, 09:16:43 pm
Sadly the terminals are on opposite sides of the battery, so whilst you could use it tinglefingers, you couldn't use it to tonguejolt, the approved way of checking for life in PP3 battery.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 02 October, 2021, 07:03:07 am
Quote from: ian
Yes, but in imperial units, 22.5 volts = 1 tinglefinger.

Quote from: MattH
... tonguejolt ...
I'm nicking those and will shamelessly pass them off as my own invention.  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2021, 10:25:36 am
The USSR had built the atom bomb (1949), the hydrogen bomb (1953), put a man into orbit (1961) and become the first nation to fly a supersonic airliner (1968) before they built their first toilet-paper factory (1969).
A situation an American wrote about:
https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 03 October, 2021, 10:15:27 am
The USSR had built the atom bomb (1949), the hydrogen bomb (1953), put a man into orbit (1961) and become the first nation to fly a supersonic airliner (1968) before they built their first toilet-paper factory (1969).

Pravda was first published in 1912.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 October, 2021, 11:10:42 am
The USSR had built the atom bomb (1949), the hydrogen bomb (1953), put a man into orbit (1961) and become the first nation to fly a supersonic airliner (1968) before they built their first toilet-paper factory (1969).
A situation an American wrote about:
https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4

I got it here: https://youtu.be/ZU1f47SC_A8

How they killed 16 admirals at one go - or rather, how they killed themselves.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 October, 2021, 11:15:29 am
In Soviet Union is wise to kill sixteen admirals from time to time, to encourage Tupolev Design Bureau ~ Voltaire
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 October, 2021, 02:53:32 pm
The pilot was a bloke called Ilyushin...

♫ Want to buy some Ilyushins?
Slightly used, just like new...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 04 October, 2021, 11:07:04 am
I was shocked to learn that the autumn crocus isn't a crocus.

It reminds me of when I was in Patagonia. There's a tree/shrub which looks like a beech tree (fagus), so it was included in the fagaceae family. When it was discovered that it was genetically distinct from other trees of that family, a new family was created whose members are called nothafagus (not-a-fagus), Nothofagus antarctica being the one you'll most likely come across in southern Chile. The most southerly tree on earth is a nothafagus.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 05 October, 2021, 05:07:32 pm
Car body filler (the stuff that's a putty you mix with a drop of hardener) works a treat for filling large-ish holes in walls, and repairing damaged wooden furniture.  Dries hard in about 15 minutes and can be sanded smooth after about an hour.

Seems like the YT furniture flippers love it - trade name there is Bondo!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 05 October, 2021, 06:13:21 pm
Car body filler (the stuff that's a putty you mix with a drop of hardener) works a treat for filling large-ish holes in walls, and repairing damaged wooden furniture.  Dries hard in about 15 minutes and can be sanded smooth after about an hour.

Seems like the YT furniture flippers love it - trade name there is Bondo!


In a very similar vein I used copious amounts of knifing putty (Holts Cataloy, comes in a tube, no mixing req'd) to fill in the many dings and holey paint in the skirting boards at the old Pingu Towers. Worked a treat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 October, 2021, 07:00:21 pm
During the 1965 Leyton by-election campaign, Denis Healey prevented a stage invasion by noted fash shitbag Colin Jordan with a bunch of fives (https://youtu.be/23JqSNPqtFY) :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ruthie on 08 October, 2021, 07:13:52 pm
During the 1965 Leyton by-election campaign, Denis Healey prevented a stage invasion by noted fash shitbag Colin Jordan with a bunch of fives (https://youtu.be/23JqSNPqtFY) :thumbsup:

Is that the Colin Jordan depicted on Ridley Road on BBC1?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 08 October, 2021, 07:26:32 pm
During the 1965 Leyton by-election campaign, Denis Healey prevented a stage invasion by noted fash shitbag Colin Jordan with a bunch of fives (https://youtu.be/23JqSNPqtFY) :thumbsup:

Is that the Colin Jordan depicted on Ridley Road on BBC1?

The very same - I lived not far away at the time and can remember the incident (I was about 2 years short of being able to vote - it was 21 then) . . .  and quite a lot of other stuff that Jordan was involved in.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 08 October, 2021, 07:55:16 pm
You can buy new 4-speed shifters from Sturmey-Archer!

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/gear-shifters/4-speed-sturmey-archer-sls40t-thumb-shifter/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 October, 2021, 09:37:31 pm
During the 1965 Leyton by-election campaign, Denis Healey prevented a stage invasion by noted fash shitbag Colin Jordan with a bunch of fives (https://youtu.be/23JqSNPqtFY) :thumbsup:

Is that the Colin Jordan depicted on Ridley Road on BBC1?

The very same.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 October, 2021, 11:57:51 am
Great BRITAIN is not only the most successful nation in Olympic Tug of War but also the reigning champions.  Hurrah!  Hurrah for BRITAIN!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 09 October, 2021, 04:06:34 pm
That's the lorry driver shortage sorted. Those hairy-arsed Tuggers-of-War can pull the trailers around on the end of a rope.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 October, 2021, 04:35:33 pm
Quote
Harold "Harry" Joseph Stiff (23 October 1881 – 17 April 1939) was an English tug of war competitor who debuted at the age of 38 in the 1920 Summer Olympics, and won the gold medal representing Great Britain, as part of the City of London Police.[1] He later became a landowner of the Horse and Groom Public House, Cornish Hall End, close to Finchingfield, Essex.[2]
The glory days of the Olympic spirit!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 October, 2021, 10:39:50 pm
The amount of morphine needed to stun a rhino.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 October, 2021, 10:47:11 pm
The amount of morphine needed to stun a rhino.
Fun day out at the zoo?

It's such a perfect day,
I'm glad I spent it with you.
Stun rhinos at the zoo
Then later a movie too
And then home.

Lou Reed, this morning.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 October, 2021, 10:52:35 pm
Barakta has repeatedly claimed that she was on enough morphine to stun a rhino. So I looked it up. Turns out that they're surprisingly difficult to stun and you need at least an order of magnitude more equivalent dose than she was taking.

She wasn't even on enough to stun a baby rhino, which would be bad news for the car. If we had a car.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 09 October, 2021, 11:10:44 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FfgELGrC98

?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 October, 2021, 11:12:26 pm
'zactly
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 09 October, 2021, 11:26:27 pm
So Barakta should be able to take on a car.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 October, 2021, 11:01:38 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FfgELGrC98

?
Wow. I note the "hope they learned a lesson" comment – I'd say they were at least stunned, overturned and quite likely overdosed and RIP.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: quixoticgeek on 10 October, 2021, 11:20:32 am
Barakta has repeatedly claimed that she was on enough morphine to stun a rhino. So I looked it up. Turns out that they're surprisingly difficult to stun and you need at least an order of magnitude more equivalent dose than she was taking.

She wasn't even on enough to stun a baby rhino, which would be bad news for the car. If we had a car.

For those of us catching up. Exactly how much morphine does one need to stun a rhino? in terms of mg per kg of mass?

J
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 10 October, 2021, 12:02:05 pm
Well from further discussion this morning, it turns out morphine is really bad at stunning rhinos as are ketamines and you're better off using synthetic stuff with NxOx type chemical compounds in them. It's a constant tradeoff between not stunning the rhino sufficiently and stunning it too much and having its heart stop beating...

I think the figure Kim used on Twitter was 8000mg but I think by weight that's not too different to what I was taking at my highest as Rah did maths to calculate needed amount to stun a baby rhino... As you do...

I am not sure about now being more compared to a rhino... My own fault I fear.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 October, 2021, 01:29:22 pm
Rhinos and Baraktas both have and need thick skins?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 10 October, 2021, 01:38:17 pm
Truefax!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 10 October, 2021, 07:58:05 pm
BigClive does it again....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iY9hut8kPY
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 11 October, 2021, 08:35:19 am
Well from further discussion this morning, it turns out morphine is really bad at stunning rhinos as are ketamines and you're better off using synthetic stuff with NxOx type chemical compounds in them. It's a constant tradeoff between not stunning the rhino sufficiently and stunning it too much and having its heart stop beating...

I think the figure Kim used on Twitter was 8000mg but I think by weight that's not too different to what I was taking at my highest as Rah did maths to calculate needed amount to stun a baby rhino... As you do...

I am not sure about now being more compared to a rhino... My own fault I fear.
There is an advantage to being a rhino - Emma Thynn said that her favourite job is smeaaring mud onto the rhinos at Longleat.
https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/05/emma-weymouth-brushes-off-shock-strictly-exit-beams-leaving-takes-two-11043045/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 11 October, 2021, 10:02:45 am
The probably with opiates is that synthetic derivatives are significantly more potent. Morphine isn't very strong (heroin is 2-5x as strong, plus is more euphoric, hence the abuse potential). Fentanyl, on the other hand, is 50-100 times as strong as morphine, which is why it kills a lot of people. Its effects on rhinos, I'm unsure, you'd have to be a pretty brave dealer to push that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Zipperhead on 13 October, 2021, 12:09:15 am
That in the 60's you could buy a turbine powered back axle for cars.

That is, a turbine powered by rocket fuel driving the back axle (don't forget to engage neutral first, your valves and pistons will thank you) - Turbonique Turbo Drag-Axle (https://www.hagerty.com/media/maintenance-and-tech/turbonique-delivered-the-rocket-cars)

<fx>knock knock</fx>
Who's that?
It's the postman, I've got that 55 gallon drum of isopropyl nitrate that you ordered.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 October, 2021, 12:57:53 am
(Reads article, notes presence of word “Florida” in company address, nods sagely)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JonBuoy on 13 October, 2021, 07:08:51 am
That in the 60's you could buy a turbine powered back axle for cars.

That is, a turbine powered by rocket fuel driving the back axle (don't forget to engage neutral first, your valves and pistons will thank you) - Turbonique Turbo Drag-Axle (https://www.hagerty.com/media/maintenance-and-tech/turbonique-delivered-the-rocket-cars)

<fx>knock knock</fx>
Who's that?
It's the postman, I've got that 55 gallon drum of isopropyl nitrate that you ordered.

A guy I used to know told me that he had ... erm ... acquired a 55 gallon drum of isopropyl nitrate and used it to spice up the fuel in his racing motorbikes.  One of the downsides was the fact that the combustion products contain hydrogen cyanide and if you were held for too long in the pit lane the rider behind you started to suffer.  He also had problems with keeping it mixed in the fuel and on one occasion reckoned that he ended up running on the stuff neat.  Very fast for a short period of time until it was just the piston skirts going up and down.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 October, 2021, 11:19:29 am
In the halcyon days when anyone with big enough carb jets ran their racing car on “alcohol” and petril was just for little tin boxes nitromethane briefly found favour as a fuel additive.  Apparently you had to be careful about handling the stuff as it could be absorbed through the skin, with hilarious consequences.  There is a story about Charlie Cooper getting higher than Sputnik after a nitro mishap.  Top Fuel dragsters use the stuff, which explains a lot.

Then the Feds FIA interfered, as was their wont, and mandated “pump petril”, prompting an irate Tony Vandervell* to demand to know exactly which pump racing teams had to use.  The Man relented and specified AvGas instead, since at least there was an existing standard for it.  Somehow by the 1980s everyone with a tame oil company chemist managed to use stuff based largely on toluene which still met the letter of the rules.

* whose Chaps, coincidentally, were having a hard time making the Vanwall engine work properly when deprived of the booze it was designed to ingest
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 13 October, 2021, 12:15:18 pm
Nacho is short for Ignacio, the person who came up with the idea of putting cheese, chilli, and beans on tortillas/tortilla chips.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 22 October, 2021, 05:32:50 pm
To open a bar of Cadbury's Kraft/Mondelez Dairy Milk, simply pull apart at the OPPOSITE end to that indicated.  I'm sure they label it the wrong way around just for a laugh.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 October, 2021, 05:48:52 pm
In order to enjoy a bar of Dairy Milk at its very best, open at either end. It doesn't matter which. Then throw it away and have some decent chocolate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 22 October, 2021, 06:29:22 pm
Wot he said.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 October, 2021, 07:47:44 pm
why bother unwrapping it, save yourselves 30 seconds for more choclolate
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: campagman on 22 October, 2021, 09:04:31 pm
That young Swifts don't land until they first mate, aged 4. So the first 3 years when they are constantly flying includes a 14000 mile annual trip to Africa and back.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 22 October, 2021, 10:00:50 pm
why bother unwrapping it, save yourselves 30 seconds for more choclolate

I don't really like chocolate. I'd rather have a sausage roll. Which is unfortunate, as I don't eat pigs either. I'd like to eat them, but we're in a period of dispute and it seems the pigs don't agree.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 October, 2021, 10:12:46 pm
In order to enjoy a bar of Dairy Milk at its very best, open at either end. It doesn't matter which. Then throw it away and have some decent chocolate.

Wot he said.

I'll happily take care of any BRITISH chocolate rejected by the chocolate snobs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 October, 2021, 01:12:16 am
This ^^^^.  I accidentally bought plain chocolate digestives last week  :sick:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 23 October, 2021, 06:37:18 am
This ^^^^.  I accidentally bought plain chocolate digestives last week  :sick:

Put them in the post, most welcome at ED mansions
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 October, 2021, 08:25:59 am
This ^^^^.  I accidentally bought plain chocolate digestives last week  :sick:

One of my fecking-div moments happened years ago when I asked a friend visiting from the UK to bring some rich tea biscuits with her.  As soon as I saw them I realized I had meant digestives.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 October, 2021, 01:39:20 pm
This ^^^^.  I accidentally bought plain chocolate digestives last week  :sick:

One of my fecking-div moments happened years ago when I asked a friend visiting from the UK to bring some rich tea biscuits with her.  As soon as I saw them I realized I had meant digestives.  :facepalm:
Oh dear. Even plain chocolate digestives are preferable to rich tea.

My favourite chocolate is probably the chunky stuff with nuts in from Lidl (I typoed that as "with "huts in" which would be... ambitious. Chocolate in huts makes far more sense than huts in chocolate.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 October, 2021, 02:15:32 pm
Suspicious that rich tea biscuits [Notable for being neither rich, nor tea flavoured - Ed] are one of those bland foods designed to stop people masturbating.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 23 October, 2021, 09:54:19 pm
So far I know of only two people who remember dark chocolate rich tea, which, alongside garibaldi and ginger nut are the uber biscuits
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 October, 2021, 02:08:16 am
Pish to thee, Sirrah!  Hobnobs are the One True Biscuit unless you want CHOKLIT on them.  In which case it's the CHOKLIT Hobnob.  Savoury biscuit?  Hobnob with a piece of cheese.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 October, 2021, 09:11:28 am
Suspicious that rich tea biscuits [Notable for being neither rich, nor tea flavoured - Ed] are one of those bland foods designed to stop people masturbating.

The mechanics of that are giving me a brain hernia with a touch of "ooo narsty".

---o0o---

In the midst of all this biscuitry I have to admit a penchant for chocolate chip cookies as my favourite accompaniment for coffee before the last 25k of a ride.  And I must confess that I have made them at home in a fit of pissed-offedness with the wretched impositions of a diabetic diet. Doc doesn't like me drinking coffee either, the cnut.

Hmph. Now I'm feeling a bit pissed off...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 24 October, 2021, 09:55:15 am
Pish to thee, Sirrah!  Hobnobs are the One True Biscuit unless you want CHOKLIT on them.  In which case it's the CHOKLIT Hobnob.  Savoury biscuit?  Hobnob with a piece of cheese.

What of the Stroopwafel, from ABROAD where the FOREIGNS come from?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 October, 2021, 10:25:12 am
Pish to thee, Sirrah!  Hobnobs are the One True Biscuit unless you want CHOKLIT on them.  In which case it's the CHOKLIT Hobnob.  Savoury biscuit?  Hobnob with a piece of cheese.

What of the Stroopwafel, from ABROAD where the FOREIGNS come from?

They are an acceptable substitute, though Mr Sainsbury’s House of Toothy Comestibles puts them in a different aisle from the biscuits.  He obviously thinks they are some variety of CAEK.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 October, 2021, 11:21:24 am
Garibaldi and ginger nut are both very good, but I don't think any amount of chocolate could rescue a rich tea.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 24 October, 2021, 12:04:41 pm
Gosh, I'd totally forgotten about Stroopwafels, the joys of Schipol airport having been consigned to the pandemic dustbin of history.
 :'(

Bet there aren't any in our Sainsbo's either.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: bhoot on 24 October, 2021, 04:49:50 pm
Our small local co-op has them, but grouped with cake.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 24 October, 2021, 05:00:48 pm
Pish to thee, Sirrah!  Hobnobs are the One True Biscuit unless you want CHOKLIT on them.  In which case it's the CHOKLIT Hobnob.  Savoury biscuit?  Hobnob with a piece of cheese.
What of the Stroopwafel, from ABROAD where the FOREIGNS come from?
They are an acceptable substitute, though Mr Sainsbury’s House of Toothy Comestibles puts them in a different aisle from the biscuits.  He obviously thinks they are some variety of CAEK.

Tey are listed within 'Bakery' by Sainsbury's online, which corroborates the CAEK mindset.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 24 October, 2021, 10:42:02 pm
Lidl sell 'em......... In the bakery section.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 October, 2021, 11:08:50 pm
Makes sense. Stroopwafel is Dutch for 'bakery floor sweepings' isn't it?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 24 October, 2021, 11:18:22 pm
Gosh, I'd totally forgotten about Stroopwafels, the joys of Schipol airport having been consigned to the pandemic dustbin of history.
 :'(...

Going to Baarle Nassau for stroopwafels and Baarle Hertog for beer. Enclaving and exclaving all over the place  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 25 October, 2021, 10:58:25 am
Pish to thee, Sirrah!  Hobnobs are the One True Biscuit unless you want CHOKLIT on them.  In which case it's the CHOKLIT Hobnob.  Savoury biscuit?  Hobnob with a piece of cheese.

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=14685.0 refers.

[he hides them from me in his office]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 October, 2021, 01:15:29 pm
Pish to thee, Sirrah!  Hobnobs are the One True Biscuit unless you want CHOKLIT on them.  In which case it's the CHOKLIT Hobnob.  Savoury biscuit?  Hobnob with a piece of cheese.

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=14685.0 refers.

[he hides them from me in his office]

The very post of which I was thinking…
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 25 October, 2021, 03:52:15 pm
There is a Tandem Pilot and Stoker Matching Service on Facebook:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Guy on 27 October, 2021, 09:48:28 am
Tom Hanks is a huge fan of typewriters

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-59050028
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 October, 2021, 10:00:20 am
Typewronger Books. Good pun.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 30 October, 2021, 10:47:24 am
That the condensation on the outside of the windows rather than the inside means our windows are keeping in much more heat than the windows at our old place. Which is novel.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 October, 2021, 01:58:36 pm
That on average 100 people read this thread for every post made in it. Mrs Pingu's post above is number 5600 and it says the topic has been viewed 559999 times.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 November, 2021, 07:21:18 pm
Before sending Captain Kirk to boldly go where no human hand had set foot before, Gene Roddenberry was a Pan-Am airline pilot.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 01 November, 2021, 07:34:31 pm
That there are still live firing ranges on Hythe beach.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 01 November, 2021, 09:45:54 pm
That there are still live firing ranges on Hythe beach.

I used to regularly audit a medical devices factory in Hythe, there was a constant background crackle of small arms fire
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 November, 2021, 08:57:46 am
I learned something of real practical use at the weekend: the quickest way into Ikea, to the toilets and straight out bypassing all the shopping areas!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: woollypigs on 02 November, 2021, 10:33:15 am
I was randomscrolling through reddit today and this one came up - https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/qkp9mx/just_a_perfectly_normal_ikea/ this is how IKEA really feels like. (you only need to watch the first 11sec) 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 05 November, 2021, 12:49:26 pm
Where the Manor of Northstead is.

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 06 November, 2021, 07:08:03 pm
That there are still live firing ranges on Hythe beach.

I'm assuming you mean the Hythe in Kent, not the one in Hampshire, which does have a sort of beach.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 06 November, 2021, 07:22:05 pm
That there are still live firing ranges on Hythe beach.

I'm assuming you mean the Hythe in Kent, not the one in Hampshire, which does have a sort of beach.

Indeed, the Kentish one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 November, 2021, 08:11:24 pm
That there's a word for efflorescence.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 07 November, 2021, 12:11:40 am
That there's a word for efflorescence.

Cor, I caused Kim to learn a thing, as opposed to the other way around   ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 November, 2021, 12:45:39 am
I have learned that former Torygraph and now Heil on Sunday columnist Whingin' Dan Hodges is actually the son of Glenda Jackson.  Mr Google claims that people who search for Dan Hodges also search for John “Tony Blair Is God” Rentoul, Brillo Neil, former Guido Fawkes tea boy Master Harry Cole, former Guido Fawkes sandwich monitor turned Gammon BroadcastingTM pundit Tom “Hardwood” Harwood, all-purpose gobshite Julia Tory-Sewer and…

…and…



…Piers “Morgan” Moron, the colossal bellend.  Ye shall know them by the company Mr Google has them keep.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 November, 2021, 08:09:15 am
That such gadgets as hat-stretchers exist and are cheap.  "One size fits all" according to ever-helpful Amazon.  There's hope for excessively dolichocephalic* me, then.

* "Narrow-minded," quips MrsT.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 November, 2021, 11:00:34 am
I have had a hat-stretcher on my Mega-Global Big River Corporation of Seattle, USAnia wishlist for a couple of years since even the largest Stetson available in the Tucson metropolitan area is marginally too small for my outsized gulliver.  Also on my wishlist is the chance to return to USAnia and actually wear the damn thing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 November, 2021, 10:36:25 am
That IATA codes apply to some railway stations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IATA-indexed_railway_stations But they don't work in the NRE ticket site.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 09 November, 2021, 08:59:05 am
You could argue I should have known this years ago, after all, I was vaguely aware of the story behind the Velvet Underground "Venus in Furs" - Severin and all that, but I'd never put the pieces together. The author of Venus in Furs, Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch was who gave his name to Masochism (thanks to Kraft-Ebbing). Who knew? Lots of people probably, just not me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 09 November, 2021, 10:59:13 am
That for about 3 years, Mozart kept a pet starling. It died on 4th June 1787.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 09 November, 2021, 01:21:37 pm
That there is a walk in NHS immunisation centre just down the road in a local community centre. It doesn't however do Booster jabs. Bah! (why not?) So the next one is 12 miles away.  ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 10 November, 2021, 02:49:08 pm
That the Aussies version of Easy start is:

(https://www.nulon.com.au/imagecached/feature/files/aerosol/SYB350.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 10 November, 2021, 03:00:41 pm
On the subject of Easy Start...

When I worked on offshore oil rigs, we had large diesel-powered hydraulic power packs.
These could be a bit of a pig to get started, and it was fairly common to need a squirt of Easy Start in the air intake to get them fired up.

On one occasion, a crew had to mobilise a mechanic from the beach, as they could not get the thing to start even using the Easy Start.
The mechanic arrived, and they cranked the engine over.
"OK, give it a squirt of Easy Start into the air intake, and let's see what's going on!" quoth he.

The operator then squirted half a can of easy start into the *radiator* air cowling...
Well, that's the 'air intake', isn't it?...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 November, 2021, 07:18:12 pm
That shite courier company Yodel is ultimately owned by the Barclay Brother.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 10 November, 2021, 07:51:23 pm
That shite courier company Yodel is ultimately owned by the Barclay Brother.

IIRC Yodel morphed out of the home delivery network that one of the mail order companies ran (i.e. catalogue company like Littlewoods et al)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 November, 2021, 08:29:41 pm
That there is a town with two exclamation marks in its name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Louis-du-Ha!_Ha!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 November, 2021, 11:21:03 am
That the Free City of Danzig / Gdansk was founded 101 years and 1 day ago, 15th November 1920, that it was intended to be one of four Free Cities along with Rijeka, Klajpeda and Istanbul, but only the first of those came into being, and moreover that it maintains to this day a Government in Exile. Recognized by no other state, country or institution whatsoever.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 16 November, 2021, 04:52:50 pm
That household bleach will eat its way through a stainless steel ramekin in fewer than four days.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 16 November, 2021, 05:31:35 pm
Empirical evidence ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 17 November, 2021, 05:48:50 am
Poured bleach into ramekin last Saturday.
Perforated ramekin with dark matter oozing forth yesterday.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 17 November, 2021, 07:32:24 am
Poured bleach into ramekin last Saturday.
Perforated ramekin with dark matter oozing forth yesterday.

What gauge was the metal?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 17 November, 2021, 07:34:43 am
Thin.
Probably around 0.75mm
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 17 November, 2021, 07:47:08 am
I would have thought Sybil was made of sterner stuff. Who knew?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 17 November, 2021, 07:49:14 am
Whooosh!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 17 November, 2021, 08:17:06 am
Ah (https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Lady_Sybil_Vimes).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 November, 2021, 09:02:58 am
Poured bleach into ramekin last Saturday.
Perforated ramekin with dark matter oozing forth yesterday.

Don't knock it, it hold the Universe together.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 17 November, 2021, 11:37:44 am
Poured bleach into ramekin last Saturday.
Perforated ramekin with dark matter oozing forth yesterday.

Don't knock it, it hold the Universe together.

I think you'll find that'll be gaffer tape, which has a light side and a dark side, and it binds the universe...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 17 November, 2021, 11:49:56 am
That household bleach will eat its way through a stainless steel ramekin in fewer than four days.

Bleach is mostly a sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl/NaClO) and a strong oxidizer. Stainless steel is mostly stainless because it has a surface layer of chromium oxide which is fairly resistant but will eventually react with the OCl- and Cl- ions. Once they get under that surface, they'll react more rapidly with the iron in the steel and corrode it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 17 November, 2021, 11:54:22 am
So the stainless steel chodbins that councils use for public facilities in "lively" areas can't be cleaned with bleach?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 17 November, 2021, 11:58:30 am
A weak solution that's flushed out is fine, but if it's left puddled in the bottom then it'll probably start to corrode through (plus some of the bleach will decompose to NaCl and speed up things once it's got into the steel).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 November, 2021, 12:42:01 pm
Poured bleach into ramekin last Saturday.
Perforated ramekin with dark matter oozing forth yesterday.

Don't knock it, it hold the Universe together.

I think you'll find that'll be gaffer tape, which has a light side and a dark side, and it binds the universe...

Duc{t,k} tape in the version I heard.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 November, 2021, 12:44:38 pm
BTW, I learned today that having a light right over your desk means that flies die in your tea.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2021, 01:05:07 pm
BTW, I learned today that having a light right over your desk means that flies die in your tea.
Knowledge of true practical value.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 17 November, 2021, 04:09:22 pm
BTW, I learned today that having a light right over your desk means that flies die in your tea.

At least they won't drink so much of it  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2021, 04:23:51 pm
Going back to Danzig for a minute, but from a different source, apparently that city was the birthplace of the first foreign born mayor of Bradford, Charles Seman, mayor in 1864.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 November, 2021, 08:05:42 pm
Poured bleach into ramekin last Saturday.
Perforated ramekin with dark matter oozing forth yesterday.

Don't knock it, it hold the Universe together.

I think you'll find that'll be gaffer tape, which has a light side and a dark side, and it binds the universe...

Duc{t,k} tape in the version I heard.

The difference between duct tape and gaffer tape is prime what-I-have-learned-today material.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 November, 2021, 08:28:16 pm
Selwyn Francis Edge, who won the 1902 Gordon Bennett Trophy motor-car race for BRITAIN, was born in Australia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 17 November, 2021, 10:36:46 pm
If he were alive today to drive a Spaigno car it would be Edge of the SEAT stuff.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 November, 2021, 06:01:53 pm
Nansen passports. (https://www.migrationmuseum.org/tag/nansen-passports/)
It's possible my grandfather had one of these, although the surviving pages of whatever document it was that released him seem to have been issued by the Red Cross and relate to a specific journey (which he didn't complete – he jumped train and went somewhere more interesting instead).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 25 November, 2021, 05:12:41 am
Fridtjof Nansen has a cross country ski named after him, the Åsnes Nansen. The web page describing the ski includes a very brief biographic sketch, with a brief mention of his humanitarian efforts. https://www.en.asnes.com/produkt/nansen-bc/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 27 November, 2021, 01:48:56 pm
That in the USA the Mini can be had with “Old Glory” on the roof and mirrors. I wonder if the same adjustment takes place in other markets.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 27 November, 2021, 02:58:27 pm
That Дугуйтай Аялцгаая is Mongolian for let's take a bike ride.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 27 November, 2021, 03:47:37 pm
The rate of gun ownership in the US is 120 firearms per 100 people!   [I'm guessing that's just the ones they know about]

Next in the pecking order was the Falklands with 62/100 - the UK estimate is 5/100.

I should add that I have no interest in firearms having sold my air rifle in about 1995
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 28 November, 2021, 10:40:32 am
…the UK estimate is 5/100.
Hell’s bells! That’s loads more than I’d have thought!

Is that private ownership, or does it include all the guns in the country (like service stuff)?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JonBuoy on 28 November, 2021, 10:54:21 am
…the UK estimate is 5/100.
Hell’s bells! That’s loads more than I’d have thought!

Is that private ownership, or does it include all the guns in the country (like service stuff)?

Details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 November, 2021, 11:17:13 am
Also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_country
which gives % of households owning guns of all sorts and % of households owning handguns. In the UK, 6% and 0.4% , presumably most gun-owning households are pheasant-shooting types or farmers with shotguns. In the USA, 42% and 22% so even there it's not the norm for a household or individual to own a gun; the figures are skewed by some nuts with multiple guns.*

*Just like the figures for pedal cycles per 1000 people in the UK are skewed by YACF!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 28 November, 2021, 02:18:20 pm
And of those owning handguns (which have been illegal since 1997) I would assume that they’re actually kept abroad by competitive shooters.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 28 November, 2021, 06:26:57 pm
That I was born on the last ever Empire Day in Britain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 29 November, 2021, 11:43:30 am
If you ignore the relatively recent loanword 'elefanti', the Finnish word for elephant is 'norsu'.

So what? Well, a long time ago, Finns heard (probably from the Swedes) travellers' tales of big thick-skinned animals with majestic tusks living in far-away lands to the south. But they weren't that impressed, because they'd heard of such creatures existing up in the far north, which the Sami called 'morsa' (mursu/norsu in Finnish). When eventually they realised that they weren't in fact the same animal, to avoid confusion mursu came to mean 'walrus', and norsu was used for 'elephant'.

Or so they say.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 29 November, 2021, 11:51:26 am
That I was born on the last ever Empire Day in Britain.

IIRC I got my 11+ result (passed) on the last Empire Day
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 29 November, 2021, 12:05:25 pm
That I was born on the last ever Empire Day in Britain.

IIRC I got my 11+ result (passed) on the last Empire Day
I now have it confirmed you're not my Uncle Robbie because that was the day he found out he failed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 29 November, 2021, 12:22:58 pm
Also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_country (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_country)
which gives % of households owning guns of all sorts and % of households owning handguns. In the UK, 6% and 0.4% , presumably most gun-owning households are pheasant-shooting types or farmers with shotguns. In the USA, 42% and 22% so even there it's not the norm for a household or individual to own a gun; the figures are skewed by some nuts with multiple guns.*

*Just like the figures for pedal cycles per 1000 people in the UK are skewed by YACF!


Something odd there. If there is no significant difference between the numbers of people in gun-owning and non-gun-owning houses, wouldn't that mean that - in the average household where there is a gun at all, there are at least two for every member?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 November, 2021, 01:01:54 pm
Also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_country (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_country)
which gives % of households owning guns of all sorts and % of households owning handguns. In the UK, 6% and 0.4% , presumably most gun-owning households are pheasant-shooting types or farmers with shotguns. In the USA, 42% and 22% so even there it's not the norm for a household or individual to own a gun; the figures are skewed by some nuts with multiple guns.*

*Just like the figures for pedal cycles per 1000 people in the UK are skewed by YACF!


Something odd there. If there is no significant difference between the numbers of people in gun-owning and non-gun-owning houses, wouldn't that mean that - in the average household where there is a gun at all, there are at least two for every member?
By my not necessarily trustworthy arithmetic, if we assume 100 single-person households, of which 42 own guns, and the total number of guns is 120, that's just under 3 guns per gun owner.

That's for the US. It's difficult to work out for the UK cos the household figures are for the UK and the per capita and divided into constituent nations.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 November, 2021, 02:31:02 pm
The life and works of Patsy Mink (née Takemoto), who sounds to have been a tuough type indeed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patsy_Mink).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 November, 2021, 04:01:10 pm
What Josephine Baker did in WW2.  Wonderful.  And later, with MLK.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 November, 2021, 06:31:00 pm
And she's entered the Panthéon today :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 December, 2021, 08:13:51 pm
I discovered yesterday that the track “Warning” off of that Sabbath's eponymous debut album was in fact a cover, the original being by The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation.  Which I learned when DJ Random played the said original, which I didn’t even know I had.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 03 December, 2021, 11:11:02 pm
I discovered yesterday that the track “Warning” off of that Sabbath's eponymous debut album was in fact a cover, the original being by The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation.  Which I learned when DJ Random played the said original, which I didn’t even know I had.
Thanks, I suppose. I'd completely forgotten about the Retaliation. I shall now have to go rummaging around the internet to satisfy  my nostalgia craving.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 December, 2021, 01:33:03 am
About the only other thing I know about Mr Dunbar is that he took over the Bluesbreakers' drum stool from Miss von Brandenburg's father-in-law.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 December, 2021, 12:56:07 pm
Today I are learning that Shark Tank is the USAnian version of Dragon's Den.  The original was a Japanese show yclept Money Tigers.  Which makes finding pictures of Bond villains consigning hapless underlings to the mercy of the elasmobranchs more trouble than it’s worth.

Also if you just put “shark” into a FWSE the first result is for a bloody vacuum cleaner ???
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 04 December, 2021, 12:59:42 pm
I believe the Shark vacuum cleaners are the new alternative for people who don't like Dysons.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 December, 2021, 01:59:35 pm
In as much as they're basically the same thing.

Speaking of not liking Dysons... https://youtu.be/CJlrbMHLBd4?t=1692
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 December, 2021, 02:06:14 pm
Today I are learning that Shark Tank is the USAnian version of Dragon's Den.  The original was a Japanese show yclept Money Tigers.  Which makes finding pictures of Bond villains consigning hapless underlings to the mercy of the elasmobranchs more trouble than it’s worth.

Also if you just put “shark” into a FWSE the first result is for a bloody vacuum cleaner ???

Bloody motorcycling helmet here.

Their under-banner menu includes Shark Racing, but it's just more bikey stuff.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 04 December, 2021, 07:15:02 pm
That there are things called Chupa-Chups Melody Pops, a cross between a boiled sweet and a kazoo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 04 December, 2021, 07:24:45 pm
That there are things called Chupa-Chups Melody Pops, a cross between a boiled sweet and a kazoo.

Those were a thing when I was a young
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 04 December, 2021, 07:33:55 pm
Yes, we had Chupa-Chups, they'd set you back 3p of your 10p mix, so you had to think is that brief farty noise they make when you blow through them worth the investment? Rarely was that the case. Not when 2p more would get you an entire Caramac.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 04 December, 2021, 07:53:20 pm
That there are things called Chupa-Chups Melody Pops, a cross between a boiled sweet and a kazoo.
Oh I thought they were meant to be whistles or was that another company's imitation?

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 04 December, 2021, 08:15:27 pm
Toot Sweets (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: grams on 04 December, 2021, 08:25:52 pm
That was quick.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 04 December, 2021, 08:54:35 pm
That there are things called Chupa-Chups Melody Pops, a cross between a boiled sweet and a kazoo.

Those were a thing when I was a young
They are still a thing here in DE
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 December, 2021, 08:03:14 pm
That a Brompton isn't legally a bicycle in Texas.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 December, 2021, 08:17:46 pm
That a Brompton isn't legally a bicycle in Texas.
Wheels too small? Folding frame not allowed?  ??? And does this mean it's not legal to ride one, or just that you're not legally riding a bicycle if you do?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 December, 2021, 08:37:54 pm
A bicycle has two wheels in tandem of over 20" in diameter, apparently.

It seems that USAnian law is a mess when it comes to non-standard human-powered vehicles, in much the same as it is with e-bikes (indeed, in some cases, a given configuration is only legal if it *has* electric assist).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 05 December, 2021, 08:42:47 pm
What restrictions apply to a Not-A-Bicycle? Does that mean that it can't be ridden on the roads in Texas, but is allowed in the shopping maul?

As an ordinary doesn't have both wheels over 20", does the same apply to that?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 December, 2021, 08:52:45 pm
It was a throwaway comment in a wider discussion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJrX7LLt2ic), but it seems that it's possible to end up in a state of legal limbo where your vehicle isn't defined, leaving you at the mercy of the common sense of the police ossifer / jury / insewerants company.

Unlike UK law, where if it's not a pedal cycle or invalid carriage or something, it's a carriage or motor vehicle by default.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 05 December, 2021, 08:53:07 pm
An Ultegra CS-6500 9s cassette will not fit onto a Dura Ace 7800 hub (due to the 'stepped splines' on the hub).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: grams on 05 December, 2021, 10:08:06 pm
Is it 20 inches in actual measured diameter? Because almost all “20 inch” sizes aren’t.

(The nominal sizes relate to using a given rim with giant balloon tyres that we don’t use anymore)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 05 December, 2021, 11:30:38 pm
What restrictions apply to a Not-A-Bicycle? Does that mean that it can't be ridden on the roads in Texas, but is allowed in the shopping maul?

Nah, you're expected to use your fists to clear your way to the bargains at opening time on Black Friday like everyone else - belabouring people with a folded Brompton in its travel case is considered a tad unsporting.  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 December, 2021, 12:50:57 am
Is it 20 inches in actual measured diameter? Because almost all “20 inch” sizes aren’t.

(The nominal sizes relate to using a given rim with giant balloon tyres that we don’t use anymore)

This ^^^^.  My grate frend gNick rode the Hotter Than Hell 100 miler out of Wichita Falls TX a few years back, on a (borrowed) Optima Baron, on which the front wheel was a skinny 406; which my back-of-a-jiffy-bag calculations reckon about 18” diameter when the tyre is pumped up.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 06 December, 2021, 05:24:38 am
Is it 20 inches in actual measured diameter? Because almost all “20 inch” sizes aren’t.

(The nominal sizes relate to using a given rim with giant balloon tyres that we don’t use anymore)

This ^^^^.  My grate frend gNick rode the Hotter Than Hell 100 miler out of Wichita Falls TX a few years back, on a (borrowed) Optima Baron, on which the front wheel was a skinny 406; which my back-of-a-jiffy-bag calculations reckon about 18” diameter when the tyre is pumped up.
I ride with 28-406 front tyres on my velomobile and had to set the motor wheel size to 18 inch to get speed readings that were similar to my Garmin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 December, 2021, 11:12:40 am
It's Texas, so they probably have their own definition of an inch to further complicate matters.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 06 December, 2021, 12:37:52 pm
What restrictions apply to a Not-A-Bicycle? Does that mean that it can't be ridden on the roads in Texas, but is allowed in the shopping maul?

Nah, you're expected to use your fists to clear your way to the bargains at opening time on Black Friday like everyone else - belabouring people with a folded Brompton in its travel case is considered a tad unsporting.  ;)
Reference to a deliberate misspelling from Terry Pratchett, although I don't know if Ankh-Mopork shops would be any more dangerous than those in Texas.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 December, 2021, 01:06:00 pm
What restrictions apply to a Not-A-Bicycle? Does that mean that it can't be ridden on the roads in Texas, but is allowed in the shopping maul?

Nah, you're expected to use your fists to clear your way to the bargains at opening time on Black Friday like everyone else - belabouring people with a folded Brompton in its travel case is considered a tad unsporting.  ;)
Reference to a deliberate misspelling from Terry Pratchett, although I don't know if Ankh-Mopork shops would be any more dangerous than those in Texas.

I expect Texas has more gonnes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 December, 2021, 08:29:45 pm
That Barnum & Bailey Circus was still operating a circus train till 2017. Each train (there were two) was approximately a mile long, though shorter in the last few years after they stopped using elephants.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 08 December, 2021, 04:13:24 pm
That the Japanese TV show "Endurance", much loved of UK TV, was a minor programme in Japan itself, and featured students from competing universities.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 December, 2021, 04:24:47 pm
Just saw a video where a bloke easily slid grips onto a flat bar by blasting compressed air in as he pushed them on. He shoved the nozzle under the end nearest the stem.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 08 December, 2021, 05:54:17 pm
Just saw a video where a bloke easily slid grips onto a flat bar by blasting compressed air in as he pushed them on. He shoved the nozzle under the end nearest the stem.

All sounds a bit complicated - what's wrong with the hairspray method? - spray the bars, slide grips on and the hairspray lubricates and then holds them in position, stopping rotation (you may have to cut the grips to get them off)    When I ran an LBS people wondered why there was a can of hairspray on the shelf in the workshop area!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 December, 2021, 12:08:33 am
Just saw a video where a bloke easily slid grips onto a flat bar by blasting compressed air in as he pushed them on. He shoved the nozzle under the end nearest the stem.

All sounds a bit complicated - what's wrong with the hairspray method? - spray the bars, slide grips on and the hairspray lubricates and then holds them in position, stopping rotation (you may have to cut the grips to get them off)    When I ran an LBS people wondered why there was a can of hairspray on the shelf in the workshop area!

Stereotypical cycle mechanics tend to have more access to compressed air than they do hair?

I'll have a try with compressed air next time.  I've found isopropyl alcohol works well (again, on the basis of what I have to hand).  As does washing-up liquid, if you don't mind the grips sliding off when it rains.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2021, 09:21:41 am
I can't envisage how this compressed air trick works. I can see it being potentially useful for removing grips. Firstly, how do you even get the nozzle under the end [of the grip, I presume] nearest the stem?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JonBuoy on 09 December, 2021, 11:02:12 am
I'm guessing that this is the video that T42 saw:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qseRtY5eX94

The grips that it seems to work really well on look like Ourys which are very soft rubber.  I don't have a compressor but do have a can of IPA so I just use that to fit my Ourys and wait a while for it to evaporate off.  They go on easily and stay put but getting them off again would undoubtedly be easier with a compressor.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2021, 11:54:33 am
Can someone explain to me the physics of that? Is it just that the jet of compressed air is reducing friction between grips and bars so making it easier to push them along?

I think I'll stick with lock-on grips anyway.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 09 December, 2021, 11:58:05 am
Can someone explain to me the physics of that? Is it just that the jet of compressed air is reducing friction between grips and bars so making it easier to push them along?


Yep, air is a fluid, so force it between the grip and the bar and the grip will slide more easily. It may also serve to expand the grip somewhat, reducing contact area.

I can think of more fun things to do with compressed air in a workshop.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 December, 2021, 12:26:44 pm
I'm guessing that this is the video that T42 saw:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qseRtY5eX94

The grips that it seems to work really well on look like Ourys which are very soft rubber.  I don't have a compressor but do have a can of IPA so I just use that to fit my Ourys and wait a while for it to evaporate off.  They go on easily and stay put but getting them off again would undoubtedly be easier with a compressor.

For getting them off (assuming you're not just cutting them off because the grips are knackered) you can weasel the straw of a can of IPA or WD40 or similar under the grip, and work the lubricant along by massaging the grip until it just slides off.  Grip and bars will then need cleaning if you've used something oily.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 December, 2021, 02:42:24 pm
I'm guessing that this is the video that T42 saw:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qseRtY5eX94

The grips that it seems to work really well on look like Ourys which are very soft rubber.  I don't have a compressor but do have a can of IPA so I just use that to fit my Ourys and wait a while for it to evaporate off.  They go on easily and stay put but getting them off again would undoubtedly be easier with a compressor.

The one I saw was part of a much longer video about converting an old Lemond into a "street bike" (duh?) but that was the technique.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2021, 02:54:14 pm
That the Dutch "Stop de kindermoord" demonstrations of the 1970s were in part inspired by similar demonstrations to allow children to play in the streets in America in the 1950s.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-08/the-hidden-history-of-american-anti-car-protests
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 09 December, 2021, 04:22:42 pm
Quote from: JonBuoy
... but do have a can of IPA so I just use that to fit my Ourys and wait a while for it to evaporate...
Evaporate?  Waste of good beer. :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 09 December, 2021, 05:30:26 pm
Quote from: JonBuoy
... but do have a can of IPA so I just use that to fit my Ourys and wait a while for it to evaporate...
Evaporate?  Waste of good beer. :)

Unless it's Greene King IPA.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 December, 2021, 06:19:43 pm
There's two sorts of IPA: The stuff for stopping Brompton seatposts slipping and the stuff for lubricating handlebar grips.  It's important not to mix them up.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 December, 2021, 06:43:44 pm
If it were the only choice, I'd rather drink propan-2-ol than Greene King IPA. I can't imagine this makes me unique among the people who have tried Greene King IPA.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 09 December, 2021, 06:43:59 pm
I'm guessing that this is the video that T42 saw:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qseRtY5eX94

The grips that it seems to work really well on look like Ourys which are very soft rubber.  I don't have a compressor but do have a can of IPA so I just use that to fit my Ourys and wait a while for it to evaporate off.  They go on easily and stay put but getting them off again would undoubtedly be easier with a compressor.

For getting them off (assuming you're not just cutting them off because the grips are knackered) you can weasel the straw of a can of IPA or WD40 or similar under the grip, and work the lubricant along by massaging the grip until it just slides off.  Grip and bars will then need cleaning if you've used something oily.

I find a thin bladed screwdriver works very well as well
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 December, 2021, 01:04:00 am
Today I are learn that Ewan MacColl was born James Henry Miller, and was once married to Joan Littlewood.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jaded on 10 December, 2021, 02:11:39 am
If it were the only choice, I'd rather drink propan-2-ol than Greene King IPA. I can't imagine this makes me unique among the people who have tried Greene King IPA.

You must be young.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 10 December, 2021, 07:50:03 am
That from 1967 to 2002, the Cadillac Eldorado was front-wheel drive, including the 8.2l V8 versions  :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Hot Flatus on 10 December, 2021, 07:55:23 am
That in order to watch my recording of last night's Question Time completely unmolested I have to get up at 5am
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 December, 2021, 11:11:42 am
That from 1967 to 2002, the Cadillac Eldorado was front-wheel drive, including the 8.2l V8 versions  :o

Preceded by the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado of similar heft.  Apparently the FWD system worked well and there was no torque steer in spite of having a big-block V8 supplying the torques, but the same could not be said of the (drum) brakes, which came with The Book of Common Prayer as standard.  The oily bits also did service in the GMC motorhome.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 10 December, 2021, 03:31:57 pm
I was at Rover (the original company) when the Toronado appeared, and we had one for evaluation. I can confirm that the brakes were totally useless after one full application from 70mph. Useful as hand warmers on a cold day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 10 December, 2021, 06:00:07 pm
I learned this today, and it made me larf:

Boris Johnson has an ethics adviser (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/10/boris-johnson-ethics-adviser-could-quit-over-downing-street-flat-scandal-lord-geidt)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 December, 2021, 06:25:45 pm
I learned this today, and it made me larf:

Boris Johnson has an ethics adviser (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/10/boris-johnson-ethics-adviser-could-quit-over-downing-street-flat-scandal-lord-geidt)

WTAF does he do all day ???
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 10 December, 2021, 06:59:28 pm
That from 1967 to 2002, the Cadillac Eldorado was front-wheel drive, including the 8.2l V8 versions  :o

Preceded by the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado of similar heft.  Apparently the FWD system worked well and there was no torque steer in spite of having a big-block V8 supplying the torques, but the same could not be said of the (drum) brakes, which came with The Book of Common Prayer as standard.  The oily bits also did service in the GMC motorhome.
Torque-steer is almost unheard of with equal length drive shafts. The FWD system on those cars had a longitudinal engine, with the power coming out of the back, and drive shaft off to the left. The differential would have been well to the left, but the right-hand drive shaft would have to supported as it went across from left to right of the engine, with a CV joint on the right of the engine. A single long drive shaft wouldn't have had the clearance to give suspension travel. It's the long right-hand driveshaft from a left-mounted differential on transverse engine FWD cars that leads to torque steer.

The arrangement is much like the FWD part of a lot of modern 4WD systems with independent suspension.

It may have been a car like the Cadillac that led to a story I heard in the late 1970s.

Someone in England had bought a big American car, with power steering, auto box, power windows and power seats etc. when stuff like that was virtually unheard of in the UK. He enjoyed driving it around for about a week until he came to one of the old railway bridges that was only wide enough for one car, with a Mini coming the other way. Both drivers stood on the brakes, but while the Mini just stopped, the American car sailed on at virtually the same speed, with bad swears from the Mini driver following it, and a collision was avoided.

The owner of the got it home, jacked it up, took off a wheel and found a brake drum around the same size as one that would have been inside the 10" wheels of the Mini.

It was a month or two later before he dared to venture out in it again. By that time he had gone to a scrap heap, salvaged the entire braking system, from pedal to drums, from a van of a similar weight, and fitted the whole lot to the American car.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 December, 2021, 07:11:34 pm
That from 1967 to 2002, the Cadillac Eldorado was front-wheel drive, including the 8.2l V8 versions  :o

Preceded by the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado of similar heft.  Apparently the FWD system worked well and there was no torque steer in spite of having a big-block V8 supplying the torques, but the same could not be said of the (drum) brakes, which came with The Book of Common Prayer as standard.  The oily bits also did service in the GMC motorhome.
Torque-steer is almost unheard of with equal length drive shafts. The FWD system on those cars had a longitudinal engine, with the power coming out of the back, and drive shaft off to the left. The differential would have been well to the left, but the right-hand drive shaft would have to supported as it went across from left to right of the engine, with a CV joint on the right of the engine. A single long drive shaft wouldn't have had the clearance to give suspension travel. It's the long right-hand driveshaft from a left-mounted differential on transverse engine FWD cars that leads to torque steer.

The arrangement is much like the FWD part of a lot of modern 4WD systems with independent suspension.

There was a heavy-duty chain involved too, between the torque converter and the actual gears.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 10 December, 2021, 07:24:46 pm
That from 1967 to 2002, the Cadillac Eldorado was front-wheel drive, including the 8.2l V8 versions  :o

Preceded by the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado of similar heft.  Apparently the FWD system worked well and there was no torque steer in spite of having a big-block V8 supplying the torques, but the same could not be said of the (drum) brakes, which came with The Book of Common Prayer as standard.  The oily bits also did service in the GMC motorhome.
Torque-steer is almost unheard of with equal length drive shafts. The FWD system on those cars had a longitudinal engine, with the power coming out of the back, and drive shaft off to the left. The differential would have been well to the left, but the right-hand drive shaft would have to supported as it went across from left to right of the engine, with a CV joint on the right of the engine. A single long drive shaft wouldn't have had the clearance to give suspension travel. It's the long right-hand driveshaft from a left-mounted differential on transverse engine FWD cars that leads to torque steer.

The arrangement is much like the FWD part of a lot of modern 4WD systems with independent suspension.

There was a heavy-duty chain involved too, between the torque converter and the actual gears.
I saw that on the photo in Wikipedia. It reminded me of the transfer chain that's in a lot of 4WD systems with longitudinal engines.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 12 December, 2021, 04:39:10 pm
That EasyToys has nothing to do with EasyJet or any other EasyBrand, but rather it’s a Dutch online shop for sex toys (and sponsor of a Dutch curling competition).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 12 December, 2021, 04:47:15 pm
That EasyToys has nothing to do with EasyJet or any other EasyBrand, but rather it’s a Dutch online shop for sex toys (and sponsor of a Dutch curling competition).

Is Dutch curling a euphemism?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 12 December, 2021, 05:05:47 pm
It does sound like one of those things on the "specialist menu" that sound interesting to try, but turn out to be a bit shit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 December, 2021, 03:46:23 pm
Today I are learn that Arthur “God of Hellfire” Brown is not, as I had previously thought, dead.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 13 December, 2021, 05:55:41 pm
that circa 1900 the makers of Amiral Soap claimed that use of their product could dissolve fat. Eight bob sounds a bit steep to me.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51744414496_5e824c8419_w.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2mQtDFw)

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51745301715_1e2bb28dd9_w.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2mQycqp)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 December, 2021, 06:06:17 pm
Adverts from the days before not-blatantly-lying-in-adverts legislation are hilarious.  Especially after people had discovered industrial chemistry, but not health & safety.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 14 December, 2021, 10:42:01 am
That the Miss World contest is still a thing.  ???
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 14 December, 2021, 01:46:09 pm
That Christian Horner (Red Bull F1 boss) is married to Geri Halliwell (Spice Girl).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 15 December, 2021, 07:21:49 am
That rear derailleurs now do not need hangers and are direct mount (except SRAM)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 December, 2021, 07:48:49 am
So that you can break the frame or the derailleur instead of a part costing a measly 5€?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 15 December, 2021, 08:29:04 am
I understand that the redesign was done so that it is easier to fit thru-axles and also to put the derailleur in a safer place
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: grams on 15 December, 2021, 10:38:51 am
“Direct Mount” is a marketing term for bikes with hangers that put the derailleur pivot in the place modern Shimano RDs want it, instead of needing essentially an adapter that moves the pivot point backwards.

It’s up to the frame manufacturers whether the hanger is replaceable or not.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 December, 2021, 11:57:23 am
I've never quite seen why steel frames don't generally have separate hangers. Yes, you can bend the hanger back into line, but how many times and how accurately? It seems very common quite common that they are bent out of line.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 15 December, 2021, 12:03:31 pm
Steel is 3x stiffer than aluminium, meaning a more accurate shift. The type of steel used for dropouts is quite malleable and very resistant to fatigue. A hanger alignment tool is more accurate than a bolted-on hanger, given construction tolerances. A replaceable Al dropout would be a big step backwards.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 December, 2021, 12:14:10 pm
I was thinking of a bolted-on steel hanger – but your point about construction tolerances deals with that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 December, 2021, 01:51:27 pm
That some trams have electromagnetic brakes. Not just retarders, actual brakes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ashaman42 on 15 December, 2021, 04:20:32 pm
That doing something wrong such that the 130mm long ball end cutter on the CNC mill drives itself down through your workpiece and spoilboard and then tries to move sideways results in:


Sigh. I was doing well this week.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 15 December, 2021, 07:29:27 pm
Sir Ian Vallance of Covid fame is an old boy from my grammar school (somewhat after my presence there)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 16 December, 2021, 07:18:52 pm
Yesterday, hacksherly.

The etynology of the word "thagomiser".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 December, 2021, 08:34:05 pm
We at P@nd3m1c Pr0duckt10nzTM® covered that during this year’s Tour de France (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=119654.msg2642560;topicseen#msg2642560), in accordance with our charter to infuriate educate and disinform rehabilitate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 16 December, 2021, 08:51:01 pm
That (allegedly) there is a medico-scientific discipline called flatology... the study of farts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 16 December, 2021, 09:25:41 pm
That doing something wrong such that the 130mm long ball end cutter on the CNC mill drives itself down through your workpiece and spoilboard and then tries to move sideways results in:

  • a very big bang
  • a now 90mm long ball end cutter
  • lots of sparks
  • a somewhat chewed up collet holder

Sigh. I was doing well this week.

Aah.  Memories of too deep a cut and too fast a feed speed and the resulting bent arbour on the horizontal mill.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ashaman42 on 16 December, 2021, 10:47:52 pm
I reran the process. After rezeroing the axes (again). And had the speed slider set to 5% of the programmed speed. And spend the entire 25 minute process with my hand held against the eStop. And twitched at every noise.

And it ran almost absolutely as planned  ??? And, whilst I haven't checked it's exactly dimensionally accurate still (if it was to begin with) it seems pretty good.

So whilst I'm not certain what went wrong at least I have a little confidence back.

My coworker very helpfully told me "Well you need to work out what went wrong so it doesn't happen again". Well yes, yes I do. But I've had one ten minute tutorial on this machine and everything else has been Google and Youtube so how exactly do you expect me to divine the solution?!

I kind of don't want to learn too much of this because it's something he "can't be bothered to look after" and hterefore want's to slope off onto me but it's something I want to learn for my own skillset.

Anyway. I'm off now till Monday and I will pick up again then.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: bhoot on 17 December, 2021, 10:27:40 pm
That it's possible* to have a sustainable superyacht (https://www.oceancoyacht.com/fleet/bravo-eugenia/)

This one is in West India Dock at Canary Wharf and it's an ugly beast...

* No I am not convinced either
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: peter simplex on 17 December, 2021, 10:52:41 pm
That it's possible* to have a sustainable superyacht (https://www.oceancoyacht.com/fleet/bravo-eugenia/)

This one is in West India Dock at Canary Wharf and it's an ugly beast...

* No I am not convinced either
I see no contradiction - the International Superyacht Summit has only recently finished in the United Arab Emirates, the location also chosen last month by the dictator of our green,  inclusive and sustainable future, Klaus Schwab of the WEF, to go schmoozing with the leaders of that authoritarian state for purposes of promoting his coming book 'The Great Narrative'.  :sick:
  You can jet into Davos next month to witness the big reveal yourselves. Sustainably, of course,  like you did going to COP26.
https://www.weforum.org/events/the-great-narrative-2021/sessions/a-call-for-the-great-narrative
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 17 December, 2021, 10:54:59 pm
Ugly bastarding things
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 19 December, 2021, 01:15:54 pm
Along with many others I’m sure, that there is a flatfish called a Topknot.  And less widely, what Texas toast is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 December, 2021, 07:23:16 pm
If you travel by train, or if you ride on a route parallel to a railway, such as the Flax Bourton Greenway, you'll notice that every so often there's a stretch of oil-soaked track. What is this? Leaky trains? No, it's a flange greaser! A device that automatically greases the flanges of train wheels as they pass. What's more, some of them are solar powered.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 20 December, 2021, 05:57:51 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qseRtY5eX94

Can someone explain to me the physics of that? Is it just that the jet of compressed air is reducing friction between grips and bars so making it easier to push them along?


Yep, air is a fluid, so force it between the grip and the bar and the grip will slide more easily. It may also serve to expand the grip somewhat, reducing contact area.

I can think of more fun things to do with compressed air in a workshop.

Following on from this, I remembered to try it last time I had the compressor switched on.  The effect is quite dramatic on the 50cm long foam grips on my butterfly bars - the whole grip inflates and stretches slightly, riding on a cushion of air.  I was able to rotate the grip around the bar to present the less-worn surface from the underside (didn't try sliding it off, as there are shifters in the way, but I expect that would work too).

It's a bit faffier to manipulate than a liquid lubricant (you need one hand free for the air nozzle), but the grip is ready for use instantly.  I suppose it's also an environmental win, as you're only consuming electrons, rather than some organic chemistry that needs shipping around in containers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 December, 2021, 06:38:59 pm
That the Galápagos pengs at the northern end of Isabela island live in the Northern Hemisphere.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 December, 2021, 10:23:13 am
That the Miss World contest is still a thing.  ???
And that the United Nations has its own version: UN MISS (https://unmiss.unmissions.org).



This post may contain traces of misrepresentation, distortion, misrepresentation and factual inaccuracy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 22 December, 2021, 11:27:37 am
That the Galápagos pengs at the northern end of Isabela island live in the Northern Hemisphere.


There used to be lots of penguins in the Northern hemisphere. The name is derived from the Welsh for 'white head' and was used for the now-extinct great auk.


Quote
The great auk (Pinguinus impennis) is a species of flightless alcid that became extinct in the mid-19th century. It was the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus. It is not closely related to the birds now known as penguins, which were discovered later by Europeans and so named by sailors because of their physical resemblance to the great auk.


-Wikipedia

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 December, 2021, 12:28:09 pm
Ah, now I actually did know that :smug: and also that an alternative etymology for pengs is that the name derives from “pin-wing”, shortened from “pinion-wing” and referring to their lamentable inability to fly.  Though yer Great Auk's closest living relative is yer actual Razorbill, wot can fly perfectly adequately while still looking a bit like a pukka peng.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 22 December, 2021, 12:57:26 pm
It's well established that penguins, like dolphins, are fish.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: grams on 22 December, 2021, 12:59:22 pm
Not sure how we ending with pengs in English. Most other languages spell it with an i which is much more fun to say - pinguim, pingüino, pingwiny.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 December, 2021, 01:02:33 pm
It's well established that penguins, like dolphins, are fish.

Is that one of those vegetarian get-out clauses?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 December, 2021, 01:07:20 pm
It's well established that penguins, like dolphins, are fish.

Is that one of those vegetarian get-out clauses?

Or a Catholic one, like the business with [“giant waterproof Canadian guinea pigs” – Ed.]?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 22 December, 2021, 03:16:55 pm
Not sure how we ending with pengs in English. Most other languages spell it with an i which is much more fun to say - pinguim, pingüino, pingwiny.

Except in NZ where they have the English spelling but pronounce it pingwens. As in sivin pingwens iggz.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 December, 2021, 03:17:52 pm
Not sure how we ending with pengs in English. Most other languages spell it with an i which is much more fun to say - pinguim, pingüino, pingwiny.
By being closer (geographically) to the Celts?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 December, 2021, 04:40:13 pm
Not sure how we ending with pengs in English. Most other languages spell it with an i which is much more fun to say - pinguim, pingüino, pingwiny.

Just to be unhelpful, peng is onomatopoeic German for bang.  Banguins?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 22 December, 2021, 04:51:07 pm
Penge is a suburb in south London where there are no actual penguins but there are actual dinosaurs. Fact.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 December, 2021, 04:56:07 pm
I've never actually been to Penge, but I hear it's very nice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 December, 2021, 05:09:20 pm
Not sure how we ending with pengs in English. Most other languages spell it with an i which is much more fun to say - pinguim, pingüino, pingwiny.

Just to be unhelpful, peng is onomatopoeic German for bang.  Banguins?
Peng, peng! On the door, baby!*

*https://youtu.be/9SOryJvTAGs refers.

I've never actually been to Penge, but I hear it's very nice.
Is that because it has ice?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 December, 2021, 05:29:15 pm
I've never actually been to Penge, but I hear it's very nice.
Is that because it has ice?

True birthplace of Christ.


(In news that shouldn't come as a shock after the Tremors fiasco, I've just discovered there are now 10 novels in the now legendary Brentford Trilogy.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 22 December, 2021, 09:04:15 pm
There's an alternative version of the Lord's Prayer that has the line :

Lead us not into Penge Station

(Can't remember the rest but is quite amusing)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 22 December, 2021, 10:24:11 pm
After watching a video where dyke was spelt dike, I discovered that when referring to a wall, Dyke is Scots and Dike English.
Bloody vowel shift.



Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 December, 2021, 08:34:11 am
And there is that old limerick...

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 23 December, 2021, 08:52:47 am
After watching a video where dyke was spelt dike, I discovered that when referring to a wall, Dyke is Scots and Dike English.
Bloody vowel shift.



Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk
is that similar etymology to wynd vs wind?
As in, Backwynd Stairs leading from Union Street to The Green in Aberdeen.  (It's not Green).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 23 December, 2021, 09:17:32 am
Not sure how we ending with pengs in English. Most other languages spell it with an i which is much more fun to say - pinguim, pingüino, pingwiny.

Just to be unhelpful, peng is onomatopoeic German for bang.  Banguins?
Peng is/was a word used by The Youth of Today to mean good, attractive, well tasty. Innit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 23 December, 2021, 09:19:33 am
But no mention yet of the great legal triumph that was the Penge Bungalow Murders, where Rumpole conducted the defence alone and without a leader.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 23 December, 2021, 09:33:46 am
Not sure how we ending with pengs in English. Most other languages spell it with an i which is much more fun to say - pinguim, pingüino, pingwiny.

Just to be unhelpful, peng is onomatopoeic German for bang.  Banguins?
Peng is/was a word used by The Youth of Today to mean good, attractive, well tasty. Innit.
I can confirm for m'lud that such usage is still extant in the youth of today.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 23 December, 2021, 09:43:35 am
There's an alternative version of the Lord's Prayer that has the line :

Lead us not into Penge Station

(Can't remember the rest but is quite amusing)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_Driver%27s_Prayer has the words
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 23 December, 2021, 09:44:45 am
Not sure how we ending with pengs in English. Most other languages spell it with an i which is much more fun to say - pinguim, pingüino, pingwiny.

Just to be unhelpful, peng is onomatopoeic German for bang.  Banguins?
Peng is/was a word used by The Youth of Today to mean good, attractive, well tasty. Innit.
I can confirm for m'lud that such usage is still extant in the youth of today.
I'm much obliged to m'learned friend.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 December, 2021, 10:29:29 am
Penge - "peng-uh" - is also Scandi slang for money, according to the subtitles of half a dozen Nordic Noir epics on Netflux.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 23 December, 2021, 01:04:27 pm
Pingos:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/23/buried-ponds-to-be-excavated-in-norfolk-to-revive-wildlife
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 December, 2021, 01:08:24 pm
And there is that old limerick...

(click to show/hide)
;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 23 December, 2021, 03:29:20 pm
That attempting to carry an 8ft Christmas tree nearly 3 miles on foot isn't a terrible sensible idea (I should never have sold my bike trailer! :facepalm:). Just as well I don't have a sore arm from my booster yesterday!

On the plus side, because I left it so late to clear enough space to actually have a tree, it was free. And it *just* fits, with the bottom of the trunk lopped off (it was the smallest one I could find).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 December, 2021, 04:21:54 pm
Pingos:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/23/buried-ponds-to-be-excavated-in-norfolk-to-revive-wildlife

Different Pingos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingo).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 December, 2021, 01:11:27 pm
Nature: Explore the world with Lief Penguinson (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03610-9?utm_source=Nature%20Briefing&utm_campaign=7e7b036545-briefing-dy-20211223&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-7e7b036545-42905503&fbclid=IwAR2drMKOXABoB_R7TmxjE9UbLfJJ_MvquuFp__RdcTry7vLAYPnCwLJlvnY)

(a.k.a. find the penguin)

(https://mcusercontent.com/2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d/images/09774e6c-4a80-46f2-8ade-e0acb3ec1a1a.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 24 December, 2021, 02:29:38 pm
Pingos:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/23/buried-ponds-to-be-excavated-in-norfolk-to-revive-wildlife

Different Pingos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingo).

The NWT seems to have mis-named kettleholes, which can be regarded as antipingos.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 24 December, 2021, 04:41:06 pm
About half speed remastering of vinyl.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 24 December, 2021, 07:11:22 pm
Pingos:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/23/buried-ponds-to-be-excavated-in-norfolk-to-revive-wildlife

Different Pingos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingo).


The NWT seems to have mis-named kettleholes, which can be regarded as antipingos.

After a little more thought, I think that they are more antidrumlins.,


FWIW, pingos result from frost heave; kettleholes and drumlins are left behind after glacier retreat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 December, 2021, 04:14:53 pm
Today I are learn that Happy Bunny Spaz Juice (https://www.bevnet.com/brands/happybunnyspazjuice/Happy_Bunny_Spaz_Juice) is Actually A Thing :jurek:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 26 December, 2021, 06:08:47 pm
That shilfa is Scots for chaffinch.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 26 December, 2021, 10:20:00 pm
When you have lent money to someone and they deny/forget it ever happened, then just write it off (especially when they've bought expensive stuff in the interim period).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 29 December, 2021, 03:08:23 pm
There is such a thing as a proving basket cleaning machine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 December, 2021, 03:41:42 pm
There is such a thing as a proving basket cleaning machine.

One of these (https://www.kaercher.com/uk/home-garden/pressure-washers.html)?

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 29 December, 2021, 03:49:11 pm
Coffin Doors (or Death Door)
https://eastwindsorhistory.com/about-2/osborn-house-museum/coffin-door/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 29 December, 2021, 05:43:52 pm
There is such a thing as a proving basket cleaning machine.

One of these (https://www.kaercher.com/uk/home-garden/pressure-washers.html)?

Gosh no, nowhere near expensive enough.
https://www.bakerybits.co.uk/basket-cleaning-machine
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 29 December, 2021, 06:34:29 pm
Of the existence of a lead-tin alloy called Terne.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: campagman on 29 December, 2021, 08:57:53 pm
that Iran has crocodiles (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-59571711l), which surprised me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 29 December, 2021, 11:20:57 pm
that Iran has crocodiles (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-59571711l), which surprised me.

ITYM: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-59571711
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 30 December, 2021, 10:09:36 am
That what we might call the “verge”, that area ‘twixt the foot way and carriage way, is (in St Paul, Minnesota at least) known as the “boulevard”, and is where plowed (sic) snow is to be stored.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 30 December, 2021, 07:33:22 pm
Toss up between the 'div thread and here.  It is possible to cut one's finger to a surprising (and painful) depth on the edge of a steel rule.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 02 January, 2022, 12:53:56 pm
That the English expression 'Dutch courage' comes from British troops fighting alongside Dutch troops during their  wars of independence and drinking Juniper Gin, developed in the Netherlands.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Zipperhead on 04 January, 2022, 08:57:32 pm
Approximately half of Japan (the Eastern half) has electricity at 50Hz, the other half (you guess) has 60Hz. All of it at 100V.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 January, 2022, 12:02:59 am
Approximately half of Japan (the Eastern half) has electricity at 50Hz, the other half (you guess) has 60Hz. All of it at 100V.

Bet it's still better interconnected than Texas, thobut.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 January, 2022, 01:46:36 am
Today I are learning that “calculus”, in addition to being a variety of Hard Sums, is also another word for tartar.  The kind that afflicts teefs, not the Natives of Tartary.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 January, 2022, 08:46:09 am
Today I are learning that “calculus”, in addition to being a variety of Hard Sums, is also another word for tartar.  The kind that afflicts teefs, not the Natives of Tartary.

Also a kidney-stone.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 05 January, 2022, 09:09:43 am
Approximately half of Japan (the Eastern half) has electricity at 50Hz, the other half (you guess) has 60Hz. All of it at 100V.

Bet it's still better interconnected than Texas, thobut.

There are a few conversion plants between the two networks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 January, 2022, 08:03:38 pm
That as much as 10% of all plant species, including every single one of the 25,000 orchids, are mycoheterotrophs. Rather than making their own carbon and fuels, they obtain them through mycorrhizal partnerships; basically, from funghi. At least two genera, Monotropa and Voyria, have completely lost the ability to photosynthesize and produce no chlorophyll.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 January, 2022, 04:33:21 pm
The film Soylent Green was set in 2022.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 10 January, 2022, 06:42:13 am
Which also came up on R4 last week while I was picking my daughter up from the railway station
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 January, 2022, 08:50:21 am
Good old R4. We could pick it up in Paris, but it's too far over the horizon from Alsace.  Funny thing is that I could pick it up on the car radio as far south as Périgueux, back in the 80's.  Maybe the Beeb have pulled in their 1500-metre horns since.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 January, 2022, 11:41:06 am
Today I are learning that the roadrunner:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 12 January, 2022, 12:19:01 pm
Today I are learning that the roadrunner:
  • is a variety of cuckoo, and
  • does not go “meep meep”

O rly?

What's next - coyotes can't ride rocket-powered roller skates?   :P



 ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 January, 2022, 01:43:53 pm
Sounds like a question for the mid-Essex audaxers...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 12 January, 2022, 02:01:45 pm
Sounds like a question for the mid-Essex audaxers...

It's the trompe l'oeil tunnels and anvils dropping from a great height that you have to watch out for over there.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 13 January, 2022, 08:02:26 am
Today I are learning that the roadrunner:
  • is a variety of cuckoo, and
  • does not go “meep meep”

And is the state bird of Texas.

I lurned that whilst driving around the West Texas desert looking at oil wells for a week.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 13 January, 2022, 10:48:28 am
Isn't the state flag of Texas actually a review?

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/Flag_of_Texas.svg/800px-Flag_of_Texas.svg.png)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 16 January, 2022, 12:40:28 pm
Courtesy of the Observer crossword, Eisenhower is in fact Isenhour  ::-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JonBuoy on 16 January, 2022, 06:08:31 pm
From https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/16/panic-as-kosovo-pulls-the-plug-on-its-energy-guzzling-bitcoin-miners
Quote
The latest calculation from Cambridge University’s bitcoin electricity consumption index suggests that global bitcoin mining consumes 125.96 terawatt hours a year of electricity, putting its consumption above Norway (122.2 TWh), Argentina (121 TWh), the Netherlands (108.8 TWh) and the United Arab Emirates (113.20 TWh).

 :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 January, 2022, 11:16:51 am
You can peel root ginger very efficiently with the end of a teaspoon - less waste than with a potato peeler since you can get into all the crooks & nannies.

And: ginger juice squirted in the eye does not sting. Just don't follow up with the teaspoon.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 19 January, 2022, 02:28:34 pm
I've used a teaspoon, but the back of the spoon end
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 January, 2022, 05:07:29 pm
The spoon end is what I meant, but with the concave side leading.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 19 January, 2022, 05:30:10 pm
The spoon end is what I meant, but with the concave side leading.


I used to do that todeseed squashes, but I realised that a hook knife, normally used for spoon carving is more effective,
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 20 January, 2022, 01:29:20 pm
I was given a special ginger-peeling tool, which does indeed look pretty much like a teaspoon...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 20 January, 2022, 04:02:01 pm
I just scrape it with a knife, same as new potatoes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 21 January, 2022, 09:53:38 am
When oi were learning Indian cookery in India (from a woman who taught cupcake baking to the locals, and Indian cooking to foreigns) I picked up a knife to scrape ginger. She said "No" and showed me how it just rubs off with a fingernail. Their ginger is, apparently, fresher. Who would have thought?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 21 January, 2022, 02:52:12 pm
that sea lions have external ears, and seals don't courtesy of a Pingu https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=122059.0 (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=122059.0)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 21 January, 2022, 05:53:50 pm
 :smug:

Though, if you want to get pedantic, some 'seals' do have ears. For example the 'fur seals' have ears.
Otariidae = eared pinnipeds (sea lions and fur seals)
Phocidae =no external ears ('true seals')
Odobenidae = lolruses. Not a seal but also a pinniped.

Yes, I have got a book  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 January, 2022, 06:53:12 pm

Yes, I have got a book  ;D


“The Observers Book Of Pinniped Lug'oles” pp. 39, pub. grabber & grabber, rrp. £49.95.  Free delivery* if ordered before 31st January 1968.

* Offer open only to residents of the Democratic Republic of The Congo
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 21 January, 2022, 07:33:13 pm
Almost  :D
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=McNEUgU8Q58C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 January, 2022, 08:19:17 pm
(Read opening paragraph)

Since when have they mythological seal-people been “silkies” ???

(Decides not to bother looking for stuff about their ears)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 21 January, 2022, 08:54:05 pm
It's from the old English seolh, which derives selchs, silkies and seals.

I knew about the ears thing, everyone in California knows that sea lions are the ones with ears. Easy to tell in LA, as they also have earrings and tattoos.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 21 January, 2022, 10:47:17 pm
Usually spelled selkies here

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 January, 2022, 01:07:03 am
Usually spelled selkies here

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie

And that’s the way Professor Larrington spells it too. In a book.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 22 January, 2022, 07:59:34 am
Quote
And that’s the way Professor Larrington spells it too. In a book.
Shifty things vowels. They've got history that way.   No. 45 from, "Ye Bumpere Liste of Glo∫∫ological Jests & Japes"


An odd thing from when I was a middling young Lurker; having moved from civilisation to the howling badlands of the South (Norhants) I was required by a beak to spell the word "manure" (no I have no idea why either - strange people teachers), so I did.  Whereat I was told that the second letter was an "a" not an "e" because the cloth eared idiot teacher couldn't do accents that weren't English midlands and misheard the very clearly ennuciated "a" as an "e".  Pillock.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 22 January, 2022, 11:49:33 am
In the part of the Midlands I grew up in they didn't do the vowel shift, so fight is still pronounced fate etc. Water is w-hat-er like someone fat sat on the a and squashed it flat and wide. The outside world, which debuted in the late 80s, is now eroding the delightful linguistics and turning it into a more standard Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire mix.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 23 January, 2022, 02:25:11 pm
In the part of the Midlands I grew up in they didn't do the vowel shift, so fight is still pronounced fate etc. Water is w-hat-er like someone fat sat on the a and squashed it flat and wide. The outside world, which debuted in the late 80s, is now eroding the delightful linguistics and turning it into a more standard Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire mix.
Thank you for that jog of my memory.  My late dad was from Langley Mill on the Notts/Derbys border.  All of his uncles and aunts were of the short-tunged variety.  I had to listen carefully to work out what was being said.  Happy days.....
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 23 January, 2022, 02:55:19 pm
It is thought the english word smithereens comes from the Irish smidiríní i.e. little bits.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: offcumden on 23 January, 2022, 04:51:40 pm
It is thought the english word smithereens comes from the Irish smidiríní i.e. little bits.

New to me, too - thanks.  I have a friend called Smithers; I think of his kids as smithereens.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 23 January, 2022, 04:57:27 pm
Courtesy of ian, the word “canorous”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 27 January, 2022, 01:06:48 pm
That on a yiddish virtual keyboard, the backspace key points to the left, even though the character to the right is deleted, yiddish being written right to left.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 January, 2022, 01:18:14 pm
That on a yiddish virtual keyboard, the backspace key points to the left, even though the character to the right is deleted, yiddish being written right to left.

I'm betting the return key does too.  Unless it just says <Return>.  I suppose we're far enough abstracted from the physical carriage return levers of typewriters that it doesn't matter any more.

(I remember my mum learning to use a word processor and subconsciously raising her hand to slap the monitor in a manner reminiscent of the funky chicken movement I perform with my left arm when exiting a roundabout in a hybrid[1] car.)


[1] But not electric.  It seems my gear-change instinct is linked to engine noise, rather than road speed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 27 January, 2022, 01:27:03 pm

I'm betting the return key does too. 

[checks] Yes.

I only spotted the backspace thing when unsuccessfully trying the yiddish version of wordl (vertle or ןןץרטל).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 January, 2022, 04:19:25 pm
Norwich Pharmacal Order (https://www.brettwilson.co.uk/services/defamation-privacy-online-harassment/norwich-pharmacal-orders-identifying-the-anonymous)
I initially thought it was a typo...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 28 January, 2022, 04:36:09 pm
Norwich Pharmacal Order (https://www.brettwilson.co.uk/services/defamation-privacy-online-harassment/norwich-pharmacal-orders-identifying-the-anonymous)
I initially thought it was a typo...

Apparently it's an archaic word for pharmaceutical.  The company seems to have changed its name several times over the latter half of the 20th century, through the usual mergers and acquisitions.  The Norwich in question is USAnian.

Obviously Reverend Lafayette Moore and Oscar G. Bell were shortsighted in not using a catchy Pratchett reference in case their company formed the basis of an important legal case a century later.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 January, 2022, 05:05:08 pm
Given their liking for archaic language, it would be a snappy bit of Chaucer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 28 January, 2022, 05:07:11 pm
I never knew there was a Norwich in NY. There's one in Connecticut. They pronounce it Nor-witch and not Norrich, unless they're old people who pronounce it as the Angles intend. If you ever watch old interview footage with Americans, it's amazing how British they often sound.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 31 January, 2022, 06:51:35 am
That on a yiddish virtual keyboard, the backspace key points to the left, even though the character to the right is deleted, yiddish being written right to left.

I'm betting the return key does too.  Unless it just says <Return>.  I suppose we're far enough abstracted from the physical carriage return levers of typewriters that it doesn't matter any more.

(I remember my mum learning to use a word processor and subconsciously raising her hand to slap the monitor in a manner reminiscent of the funky chicken movement I perform with my left arm when exiting a roundabout in a hybrid[1] car.)


[1] But not electric.  It seems my gear-change instinct is linked to engine noise, rather than road speed.

Imagine having spent most of your driving life with a mangle, switching to automagic for 6 years, then back to mangle again.  Took a while before I stopped pulling up to roundabouts with a last minute juddering change down to second.  And the there's roundabouts in France, where I have attempted to change gear with the arm rest :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 31 January, 2022, 10:15:00 am
All this keyboardery reminds of the time I was there, in front of an eager audience of around 1,000 Japanese folks at the University of Tokyo and the presentation laptop decided that, yes, now is the time to request a password. Inputting these vital details wasn't helped by the keyboard having gone kanji-fied. Before I knew it, there were about 100 people on stage trying to save me from a terrible conjunction of IT and language. Eventually a small chap emerges through the crowd and gives it a good poke and, forgive my Japanese – voilà, the desktop. He bows a little and exits stage left. I'd supposed the guy who fixed things to be a very well-dressed IT guy, it turned out later he was actually the Minister for Something Grandiose. Imagine, on the other hand, what would happen, if Liz Truss tried to do IT support.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 January, 2022, 12:15:58 pm
But not electric.  It seems my gear-change instinct is linked to engine noise, rather than road speed

This.  I have driven petril-engined motor-cars with CVT a few times and never felt the slightest urge to reach for the skies stick.  The first of them was an horble Ovlov 340, though, so I did feel the urge to reach for the 14 lb lump hammer, the matches and the Lighthouse Family.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 31 January, 2022, 12:40:17 pm
But not electric.  It seems my gear-change instinct is linked to engine noise, rather than road speed

This.  I have driven petril-engined motor-cars with CVT a few times and never felt the slightest urge to reach for the skies stick.  The first of them was an horble Ovlov 340, Daf 66 with Extra! Heavy! Bodywork! and ElasticBandTM Drive! though, so I did feel the urge to reach for the 14 lb lump hammer, the matches and the Lighthouse Family.

Just a little FTFY. and to demonstrate unfortunate familiarity with both, the Renault engines used in these monstrosities had wet liners (where the cylinder bore is separate from the block) which had a common fault that after a while the lower seal wore, the liner would drop[ by a couple of thou resulting in cylinder head gasket blowing with unfortunate rapidity. I can also confirm that with practice, said gasket can be replaced in under two hours. It would have probably been easier to change girlfriend.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 January, 2022, 03:30:19 pm
Fortunately that example belonged to Professor Larrington's then-boyf's mother, so I only had to drive it twice.  Albeit that the first time was with that lady's Doberdog* in the back, who set up the most fearful row every time the horromobile exceeded 50 mph.  All the way from Greenwich to Woking >:(

The second time just had Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.) in the passenger seat and was thus calmer.

* my parents were looking after it while she swanned off to visit her son, who was working in Abroad
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 31 January, 2022, 03:35:39 pm
But not electric.  It seems my gear-change instinct is linked to engine noise, rather than road speed

This.  I have driven petril-engined motor-cars with CVT a few times and never felt the slightest urge to reach for the skies stick.

The corollary to this is that my clutching instincts are also tied to engine noise, which means I'm fine in a manual until it tricks me with automagic stop-start.  I'll then sit there at a green traffic light pressing the accelerator like a div wondering why the car isn't gliding forward with anbaric grace like I told it to.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 January, 2022, 06:14:38 pm
My clutching instincts are tuned to diseasels and their low-end torque.  So when called upon to drive a ghastly Korean thing with a petril engine out of an underpowered lawnmower while on holibobs (remember them?) I kept stalling the bloody thing >:(

Ob-cycling: long ago my knees learned that upright = fixed, which led to all sorts of prombles on the rare occasions I rode the Perfectly Good Gentleman’s Mountain Bicycle.  Fortunately they've now forgotten.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 January, 2022, 07:25:43 pm
Ob-the  Perfectly Good Gentleman’s Mountain Bicycle: is it a perfectly good mountain bicycle for a gentleman, or a mountain bicycle for a perfectly good gentleman?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 January, 2022, 07:27:34 pm
Ob-the  Perfectly Good Gentleman’s Mountain Bicycle: is it a perfectly good mountain bicycle for a gentleman, or a mountain bicycle for a perfectly good gentleman?

Yes :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 January, 2022, 07:28:24 pm
That is perfectly good.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 January, 2022, 08:46:39 pm
Today I are learning that TV On The Radio aka Thomas The Vance was born Richard Anthony Crispian Francis Prew Hope-Weston, which seems a tad excessive.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 31 January, 2022, 10:18:04 pm
Today I are learning that TV On The Radio aka Thomas The Vance was born Richard Anthony Crispian Francis Prew Hope-Weston, which seems a tad excessive.
(files that away for a quiz wot I am writing)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 February, 2022, 01:02:27 am
Real names of notable wireless DJs?  See also Michael Joseph Paternak (Emperor Rosko), Maurice James Christopher Cole (Kenny Everett), John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (John Peel) and, er, um, Alan Leslie Freeman.

Not 'arf!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 01 February, 2022, 08:23:12 am
Real names of notable wireless DJs?  See also Michael Joseph Paternak (Emperor Rosko), Maurice James Christopher Cole (Kenny Everett), John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (John Peel) and, er, um, Alan Leslie Freeman.

Not 'arf!

Johnnie Walker, born Peter Waters Dingley - went to school with my BiL  (and was taught by my late FiL -  BiL's father)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 February, 2022, 08:37:59 am
1 in 3 birds tested at an Australian animal hospital has chlamydia.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2306501-1-in-3-birds-tested-at-an-australian-animal-hospital-have-chlamydia

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 February, 2022, 11:39:57 am
Isn't it endemic in koalas too?

(Googles)

Yes.  Yes, it is.  I think there’s something going on in Captain Cook's Mistake that they’re not telling us in case it frightens away tourists.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 01 February, 2022, 12:09:03 pm
Isn't it endemic in koalas too?

(Googles)

Yes.  Yes, it is.  I think there’s something going on in Captain Cook's Mistake that they’re not telling us in case it frightens away tourists.
Lou Sanders on The Unbelievable Truth said she found that out the hard way.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 February, 2022, 12:15:51 pm
Isn't it endemic in koalas too?

(Googles)

Yes.  Yes, it is.  I think there’s something going on in Captain Cook's Mistake that they’re not telling us in case it frightens away tourists.
Lou Sanders on The Unbelievable Truth said she found that out the hard way.

I think some, or more, members of a Popular Beat Combo claimed to have contracted chlamydia after being pissed on by an infected drop bear.  Sex and drugs and rock and roll is one thing but golden showers with furry marsupials?  Weirdos.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 01 February, 2022, 12:19:53 pm
To be fair, it's hard to get up close and personal with a drop bear without getting pissed on.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 February, 2022, 12:22:37 pm
Since when has fairness been part of the equation :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 01 February, 2022, 12:26:12 pm
Since when has fairness been part of the equation :demon:

Certainly not where antipodean wildlife is concerned...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 01 February, 2022, 12:26:43 pm
Isn't it endemic in koalas too?

(Googles)

Yes.  Yes, it is.  I think there’s something going on in Captain Cook's Mistake that they’re not telling us in case it frightens away tourists.

It's environmentally endemic – it's a very successful organism that infects anything from protists to humans. It has an 'up to 100%' prevalence in fish. I'm not sure who's checked them all though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 February, 2022, 12:31:01 pm
Isn't it endemic in koalas too?

(Googles)

Yes.  Yes, it is.  I think there’s something going on in Captain Cook's Mistake that they’re not telling us in case it frightens away tourists.

It's environmentally endemic – it's a very successful organism that infects anything from protists to humans. It has an 'up to 100%' prevalence in fish. I'm not sure who's checked them all though.

Checking fish for chlamydia is part of the role of the EU Fisheries Committee.  The perpetual absence of Niggles Fartrage at meetings ensured that it was never done.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 February, 2022, 01:38:29 pm
Better not let your budgie pick your teeth.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: campagman on 02 February, 2022, 08:59:30 pm
I have learnt the difference between cactuses and succulents (even though cactuses are succulents)- I'm not sure if that should be cactii.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 02 February, 2022, 09:17:04 pm
Details of the six million dollar man crash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jvGJhJINlc
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 02 February, 2022, 09:28:05 pm
I have learnt the difference between cactuses and succulents (even though cactuses are succulents)- I'm not sure if that should be cactii.

Cacti with one i. Or Cactuses. Both are correct. Any fool knows you make booze out of succulents and distress cowboys with cacti.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 04 February, 2022, 11:13:12 am
That Freddie 'Parrot-face' Davies is still alive.

And why shouldn't he be, just because I haven't heard of him since his 1960s heyday.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 05 February, 2022, 02:45:58 pm
I used a torque wrench for the first time today. I set it to 22 wotsits and was surprised how easy it was to attain that torque. That means in all probability that I've been a serial over-tightener in the past
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 05 February, 2022, 03:09:52 pm
That Roma do not eat Hen's eggs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 05 February, 2022, 03:21:07 pm
I used a torque wrench for the first time today. I set it to 22 wotsits and was surprised how easy it was to attain that torque. That means in all probability that I've been a serial over-tightener in the past

That's quite a bit - what were you tightening?     Ease of use is, of course, related to the length of the bar on the wrench . . . what size wrench were you using?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 06 February, 2022, 10:25:49 am
That one can buy a garlic skin removal tube.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 07 February, 2022, 09:43:04 am
That one can buy a garlic skin removal tube.

And, for the record, they're pretty fucking awesome.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 07 February, 2022, 01:37:28 pm
That you can improve muscles by doing the opposite to conventional exercises.

This Japanese (subtitled) TV programme, about 45 minutes.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/4031012/ (https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/4031012/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 February, 2022, 04:40:48 pm
Today I are mostly learning that even if it's in a case, dropping your fondleslab four feet to land face-down on a brick-surfaced driveway is an effective way of b0rking the screen, which now resembles a relief map of the Mekong Delta >:(

Sent from round the cracks on my iPad.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 07 February, 2022, 05:13:06 pm
Oh dear.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 07 February, 2022, 05:25:51 pm
I used a torque wrench for the first time today. I set it to 22 wotsits and was surprised how easy it was to attain that torque. That means in all probability that I've been a serial over-tightener in the past

That's quite a bit - what were you tightening?     Ease of use is, of course, related to the length of the bar on the wrench . . . what size wrench were you using?
Behold, my pedal-wrench-inna-scaffolding-tube:
(https://www.cyclechat.net/attachments/7b52cf1a-7a64-44ff-814e-b56439617e86-jpeg.629038/)
Now we’re torquing…
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 February, 2022, 05:30:46 pm
Fortunately I have to venture into the badlands saarrff of the Lea Bridge Road on Thursday anyway so I can take a detour to the FruitCo place in Stratford to let them work their pome-stylee magic on said slab.  I don’t trust myself to attempt to replace it myself, having form for breaking iPods while trying to upgrade their internals.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 07 February, 2022, 05:36:09 pm
I used a torque wrench for the first time today. I set it to 22 wotsits and was surprised how easy it was to attain that torque. That means in all probability that I've been a serial over-tightener in the past

That's quite a bit - what were you tightening?     Ease of use is, of course, related to the length of the bar on the wrench . . . what size wrench were you using?
Behold, my pedal-wrench-inna-scaffolding-tube:
(https://www.cyclechat.net/attachments/7b52cf1a-7a64-44ff-814e-b56439617e86-jpeg.629038/)
Now we’re torquing…
Voila* (https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurekb/6915451377/sizes/c/)
*aka spanner/willy waving
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 February, 2022, 11:48:22 am
Today I are mostly learning that Satan really does skate to work.  That’s Miroslav Satan, who is captain of the Slovakian ice hockey team.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 08 February, 2022, 05:53:34 pm
All about the origins of chess, courtesy of Irving Finkel (no, he is NOT Wowbagger OTP)

https://youtu.be/UO0_ahE2Bxs

I apologise in advance if watching his videos on cuneiform and the like occupies more of your time than you expect.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 February, 2022, 09:19:38 pm
Who Mr Bojangles was. Maybe! He's dead too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 February, 2022, 10:09:35 pm
That Ed Sheeran tribute acts are a thing.  Courtesy of the Camping & Caravanning Club.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 February, 2022, 01:14:37 am
Who Mr Bojangles was. Maybe! He's dead too.

DJ Random played me His Bobness' cover of Mr. Bojangles just before dinner time.  Wah and, moreover, Spook!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 February, 2022, 09:41:16 am
That in Taiwan you have to hand-deliver your rubbish to the bin men as rubbish isn't allowed to touch the ground. The lorries cruise around playing Für Elise to let you know it's time to take out your rubbish and hand it over.  It's what Beethoven would have wanted.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 February, 2022, 09:43:14 am
Is that because the rubbish would get dirty on the ground? Or the ground would be contaminated by the rubbish?

Or maybe it's just for the sake of the binmens' backs and an excuse to play Beethoven in the street.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 February, 2022, 09:48:33 am
I presume it's to stop rubbish and bins cluttering up the street. Apparently, they've been doing it for decades, and now everyone associates Für Elise with their garbage.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 09 February, 2022, 09:50:12 am
That in Taiwan you have to hand-deliver your rubbish to the bin men as rubbish isn't allowed to touch the ground. The lorries cruise around playing Für Elise to let you know it's time to take out your rubbish and hand it over.  It's what Beethoven would have wanted.

I love this, though I'm not sure I'd appreciate having to run around after musical bin lorries with bags of rubbish. Different tunes are available, apparently - but here's Für Elise in all its glory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7DPXpqp9e4
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 09 February, 2022, 09:57:17 am
I used a torque wrench for the first time today. I set it to 22 wotsits and was surprised how easy it was to attain that torque. That means in all probability that I've been a serial over-tightener in the past

That's quite a bit - what were you tightening?     Ease of use is, of course, related to the length of the bar on the wrench . . . what size wrench were you using?
Quite a short Jobsworth/Planet X one. I was tightening the housing bolts on the motor on my ebike.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 February, 2022, 10:13:23 am
That in Taiwan you have to hand-deliver your rubbish to the bin men as rubbish isn't allowed to touch the ground. The lorries cruise around playing Für Elise to let you know it's time to take out your rubbish and hand it over.  It's what Beethoven would have wanted.

I love this, though I'm not sure I'd appreciate having to run around after musical bin lorries with bags of rubbish. Different tunes are available, apparently - but here's Für Elise in all its glory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7DPXpqp9e4
Urrrrrrgh! Horrible tone.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 10 February, 2022, 11:08:30 am
The term Gormless is descended from the Norse 'Gaum' meaning attention.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 10 February, 2022, 11:24:32 am
The term Gormless is descended from the Norse 'Gaum' meaning attention.


I've seen it spelled as  "gaumless" in publications from the Yorkshire Dialect Society, based (I think) on research by Stanley Ellis of Leeds University.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 February, 2022, 11:40:43 am
"19c: variant of obsolete gaumless, from gaum understanding," sayeth Chambers.

You can see how southrons would have stuck in an R instead of the U to make it match their addled RP fantasies.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 10 February, 2022, 11:53:52 am
there is quite a lot of north/south dialect originating in Danelaw vs Anglo Saxon and then Norman, such as field vs garth, ill vs sick, bairn for child etc.  It always surprised me how much of the language in Scandiwegia resembles that from both Scotland and Cumbria where my parents live.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 February, 2022, 03:22:43 pm
That Gil Scott-Heron's father played for Celtic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 February, 2022, 03:33:40 pm
Played what? No, don't bother, I can guess.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 12 February, 2022, 11:42:01 am
Halfords sell car screen wash in scented versions - why?   

AND I'm hoping to learn how to open the bonnet on my car today  ???  (it's nearly 3 years old but for obvious reasons mileage is very low, only just about 11,000)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 12 February, 2022, 12:59:16 pm
Halfords sell car screen wash in scented versions - why?   



So it isn't so obvious when they are taking the pee?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 February, 2022, 01:05:51 pm
Halfords sell car screen wash in scented versions - why?

To avoid having you motor-car smell like a distillery?  The pukka VAG stuff that Trans City Car Centre insists on stuffing a bottle of in my boot every time the FAFC goes in for a service smells so strongly of boozahol that Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.) once asked me whether I had fallen off the wagon :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 February, 2022, 03:52:24 pm
Our last car but one came with screen wash that smelt like vermouth.  Never did find out the brand, but I was sad when it ran out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 13 February, 2022, 03:52:45 pm
Cinzano?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 13 February, 2022, 07:14:15 pm
A couple of new words, never to be used…

Ferreous - of or containing iron

Eke-name - nickname.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 13 February, 2022, 07:21:03 pm
A couple of new words, never to be used…

Ferreous - of or containing iron

Eke-name - nickname.

Huh, wonder why we have ferreous when we also have ferrous.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 13 February, 2022, 07:23:39 pm
I confess my reading was insufficient to determine with any degree of confidence what the fine difference is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 February, 2022, 07:26:27 pm
I'm guessing the spelling pre-dates the idea of oxidation states...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 February, 2022, 09:10:43 pm
Today I are learning that Moomin creator Tove Jansson translated “The Hobbit” into Swedish, a book that featured a large and hairy Gollum rather than the 2/3rds scale model of Iggy Pop visualised by Peter Jackson et al.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/95/Large_Gollum_by_Tove_Jansson.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 13 February, 2022, 09:30:26 pm
It's Beaker with a pot belly!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 14 February, 2022, 07:21:07 am
Interesting interpretation, as I thought Smeagol was a hobbit or similar to start with?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 February, 2022, 09:02:38 am
Today I are learning that Moomin creator Tove Jansson translated “The Hobbit” into Swedish, a book that featured a large and hairy Gollum rather than the 2/3rds scale model of Iggy Pop visualised by Peter Jackson et al.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/95/Large_Gollum_by_Tove_Jansson.jpg)
This did make me lolup.  :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 February, 2022, 11:25:37 am
IIRC in the DVD Extras of one of the LOTR films Mr Jackson or one of his SFX minions stated that Mr Pop was an inspiration for the appearance of Gollum.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 15 February, 2022, 03:40:11 pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsons_code (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsons_code)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 15 February, 2022, 03:54:32 pm
That watching a helicopter take off in a strong breeze from a field to the grassy patch behind the neighbours house is worrying.
That the grassy patch next the road and behind my neighbours house is an ideal spot for the local air ambulance to land on.
That watching the helicopter take off from behind the neighbours and very close to your garage is worrying, bloody close to lampposts as well.

Hopefully the paramedic(s) that were in the car when it was hit are alright beyond the severity of the injuries warranting the air ambulance sit around for an hour while they were cut out, not seen anything in the news, but the road opened promptly after clear up, unlike last time when SoCOs were on scene for a while.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 15 February, 2022, 06:58:01 pm
Bill Dare, prolific radio comedy producer (see the radio recommendations thread) is the son of Peter Jones ( the voice of the  book in HHGTTG and Just a Minute star, rather than the bloke off Dragons' Den, or indeed the department store).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 15 February, 2022, 09:14:07 pm
Does he have a brother called Dan?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 February, 2022, 07:58:21 am
Does he have a brother called Dan?

Going by the timing of the stories he'd be SF Controller by now and thinking about retirement.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 16 February, 2022, 05:50:06 pm
that there is only one typo between implement and impalement
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 16 February, 2022, 07:03:00 pm
Quote from: FifeingEejit
That watching a helicopter take off in a strong breeze from a field to the grassy patch behind the neighbours house is worrying.
Likewise watching a U2 - a notoriously tricky thing to fly and land - trying to land in very strong winds is not at all relaxing. Christ knows what the pilot was thinking, but the gust induced rolls  (15? 20? more? degrees) at less than 1000' that I saw scared the shit out of me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 16 February, 2022, 09:42:22 pm
I think the fact that they need a chase car, with a qualified pilot talking to the pilot in the plane because he can't actually see where he is relative to the runway tells you a lot about how nuts that design is, but also utterly sublime
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 16 February, 2022, 10:18:13 pm
That our over bath shower screen appears to be wrong. It opens all the way out away from the bath into the room, but there is a stop which prevents it swinging over the bath. It seems it was meant for fitting on the other side/end of a bath.  :facepalm:
Presumably that is why it is sealed to the bath on the wrong side (the inside instead of the outside), because that bit doesn't move. Brilliant. That should scupper my plan to replace the manky sealant and stop the leak.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 16 February, 2022, 10:53:49 pm
Hmm. Unless the hinge can be turned upside down.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 17 February, 2022, 10:11:35 am
That our over bath shower screen appears to be wrong. It opens all the way out away from the bath into the room, but there is a stop which prevents it swinging over the bath. It seems it was meant for fitting on the other side/end of a bath.  :facepalm:
Presumably that is why it is sealed to the bath on the wrong side (the inside instead of the outside), because that bit doesn't move. Brilliant. That should scupper my plan to replace the manky sealant and stop the leak.

I've only ever seen hinged shower screens open outwards, as best I can remember.

In some places I believe this is also in the building regs, so that you can get to someone who has fallen etc; an inward-opening door could become blocked.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 17 February, 2022, 10:32:41 am
Inward opening they can bash on the taps. Always open outwards.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 17 February, 2022, 10:35:42 am
Surely inward opening would get in your way as you entered?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 17 February, 2022, 12:44:39 pm
Surely inward opening would get in your way as you entered?

Nah, they're typically less than half the length of the bath, unless full length sliding versions are fitted - recommended for power showers.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 February, 2022, 04:31:09 pm
Ours doesn't seem to be limited in its movement.  Outwards movement ultimately gets restricted by the wiper thingy[1] being crushed against the rim of the bath.

The bath's the wrong way round, so no danger of it hitting the taps.  This also means that the shower screen is barely long enough to prevent the stream of water running down your forearm, off your elbow and into a neat puddle on the bathmat as you rinse your hair.


[1] A thing I learned on a previous day is that these are replaceable, and there are a zillion different standard shapes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Little Jim on 17 February, 2022, 05:20:23 pm
Ours doesn't seem to be limited in its movement.  Outwards movement ultimately gets restricted by the wiper thingy[1] being crushed against the rim of the bath.

The bath's the wrong way round, so no danger of it hitting the taps.  This also means that the shower screen is barely long enough to prevent the stream of water running down your forearm, off your elbow and into a neat puddle on the bathmat as you rinse your hair.


[1] A thing I learned on a previous day is that these are replaceable, and there are a zillion different standard shapes.

Yes, I learnt that last year too and in the end decided it was worth paying well over the odds to get the correct one from the shower manufacturer rather than having four or five goes at getting the right one from unknown internet suppliers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 17 February, 2022, 06:15:09 pm
Ours doesn't seem to be limited in its movement.  Outwards movement ultimately gets restricted by the wiper thingy[1] being crushed against the rim of the bath.

The bath's the wrong way round, so no danger of it hitting the taps.  This also means that the shower screen is barely long enough to prevent the stream of water running down your forearm, off your elbow and into a neat puddle on the bathmat as you rinse your hair.


[1] A thing I learned on a previous day is that these are replaceable, and there are a zillion different standard shapes.

Yes, I learnt that last year too and in the end decided it was worth paying well over the odds to get the correct one from the shower manufacturer rather than having four or five goes at getting the right one from unknown internet suppliers.

We have this problem and despite the replacement seal looking and feeling the same, we now have a permanently drying bath mat. Unfortunately, we don't know who supplied the bloody shower cubical. I think we're on the sixth seal now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 February, 2022, 06:35:41 pm

 I think we're on the sixth seal now.


wasn't that a Tom Hanks/Dan Brown "movie"?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 February, 2022, 07:20:05 pm
Ours doesn't seem to be limited in its movement.  Outwards movement ultimately gets restricted by the wiper thingy[1] being crushed against the rim of the bath.

The bath's the wrong way round, so no danger of it hitting the taps.  This also means that the shower screen is barely long enough to prevent the stream of water running down your forearm, off your elbow and into a neat puddle on the bathmat as you rinse your hair.


[1] A thing I learned on a previous day is that these are replaceable, and there are a zillion different standard shapes.

Yes, I learnt that last year too and in the end decided it was worth paying well over the odds to get the correct one from the shower manufacturer rather than having four or five goes at getting the right one from unknown internet suppliers.

We have this problem and despite the replacement seal looking and feeling the same, we now have a permanently drying bath mat. Unfortunately, we don't know who supplied the bloody shower cubical. I think we're on the sixth seal now.

I managed to get it right, probably due to limited compatible options.  It helps that the replacement is a generously proportioned reasonably flexible rubber, whereas the original was landlord-quality plastic and barely filled the gap.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 17 February, 2022, 07:48:52 pm
Ok then, let's say the screen is supposed to fold open away from the bath,  I don't understand how the silicone sealant is supposed to work correctly.
For shower cubicles at least you're supposed to seal on the outside of the cubicle to tray interface, not the inside. I can't do that with an outward opening screen because the hinged bit moves.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51886742128_9dbea38bf5.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2n447Jd)2022-02-17_06-53-36 (https://flic.kr/p/2n447Jd) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr

Here's the inside. Apologies for manky sealant. It's on the to do list along with trying to stop the leak.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51885692127_2c1586c490.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2n3XJAK)2022-02-17_06-52-56 (https://flic.kr/p/2n3XJAK) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 17 February, 2022, 08:39:28 pm
Your problem is probably not sealant. Your problem is the shower screen equivalent of draught excluder. They wear in a ridiculously short amount of time. As stated above they are very replaceable.

Sealant only needs to be on the bath side of the upright and hinge.

I ended up trying to shower with the screen in the bath rather than sitting on the rim. This would probably have been a straightforward thing except I am a fat bastard.

Anyway now I have a cubicle and different first world problems.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 17 February, 2022, 09:19:07 pm
I have an outward opening door on my P shaped bath with shower. It has a draught excluder wossname on the bottom edge, which seems to do the job. The time it didn't do the job was when, in a fit of exuberance, I removed it to clean it and didn't put in back on properly. The water ran down the shower door, into the groove of the draught excluder, up over the outer edge and down onto the floor.

Might be worth checking this isn't what's happening with yours.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 17 February, 2022, 09:44:31 pm
I think we're on the sixth seal now.

You know what happens next...

(https://cdn.britannica.com/81/175581-050-1A5A4E20/scene-The-Seventh-Seal-Ingmar-Bergman.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 February, 2022, 11:59:32 pm
Y-M-C-A?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 18 February, 2022, 06:30:28 am
This is where the leak is presenting
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51888818734_2045b61e12.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2n4eL2L)2022-02-18_06-28-34 (https://flic.kr/p/2n4eL2L) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 18 February, 2022, 07:30:00 am
This is where the leak is presenting
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51888818734_2045b61e12.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2n4eL2L)2022-02-18_06-28-34 (https://flic.kr/p/2n4eL2L) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr

Can you redirect the shower head towards the wall a bit? - assuming it's tiled! - that would be a start in reducing the amount of water bouncing off your body towards the screen.

I guess the real question I would ask myself - is : Do I want a bath-tub? - or shall I replace it with a large shower tray/cubicle (the type with no door where the screens are sealed to the base)?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 February, 2022, 08:33:15 am
I guess the real question I would ask myself - is : Do I want a bath-tub? - or shall I replace it with a large shower tray/cubicle (the type with no door where the screens are sealed to the base)?

We have separate bath & cubicle, and I'm kicking myself to this day about not holding out for shower-only.  "A bathroom has to have a bath," they said.

13 years later and it's been used just once for bathing. The rest of the time it has mostly gathered dust.  The only positive thing about it is that I can take off the shower-head - the bath came with its own shower-head - and use the powerful jet of water from the hose to blast a stuck moby round the bend.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 February, 2022, 08:39:53 am
Y-M-C-A?
:D ;D 8)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 February, 2022, 12:12:43 pm
Today I are learning that racing motor-ist Bruce McLaren was only 5'3” tall, thus making him shorter than Napoléon Bonaparte, Ian Holm and TV's Tiny P Kennaugh.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 February, 2022, 01:55:14 pm
Napoléon's height is usually given as 5'2", but under the Ancien Régime an inch was 2.706 cm so that he was almost 1m68 tall, or 6'6", about average for the time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 18 February, 2022, 02:30:49 pm
Nelson was also height challenged .
Today's fun fact:
The statue at the top of Nelson's column tapers outwards as it get taller, so that when it is viewed from ground level, the the perspective is corrected to look straight.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 18 February, 2022, 03:21:46 pm
Napoléon's height is usually given as 5'2", but under the Ancien Régime an inch was 2.706 cm so that he was almost 1m68 tall, or 6'6", about average for the time.

5'6" shirly?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 18 February, 2022, 04:50:05 pm
I guess the real question I would ask myself - is : Do I want a bath-tub? - or shall I replace it with a large shower tray/cubicle (the type with no door where the screens are sealed to the base)?
Well I know what I *want*, but it's entirely academic at the moment as I'm just about to blow the last of the magic beans on a new kitchen.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Lightning Phil on 18 February, 2022, 04:55:06 pm
Napoléon's height is usually given as 5'2", but under the Ancien Régime an inch was 2.706 cm so that he was almost 1m68 tall, or 6'6", about average for the time.

5'6" shirly?

Indeed, I think T42’s post should go into the arithmetic that makes you cringe thread
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Neil C on 18 February, 2022, 05:25:14 pm
I thought his statue in Trafalgar Square was 16 foot and he was 5' 4" - Horatio of three to one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 February, 2022, 07:24:11 pm
...that the sticker I've seen on some delivery scooters round town is for an Algerian football club.
Quote
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b2/Logo_MCA_1921.png/220px-Logo_MCA_1921.png
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 18 February, 2022, 08:28:39 pm
I guess the real question I would ask myself - is : Do I want a bath-tub? - or shall I replace it with a large shower tray/cubicle (the type with no door where the screens are sealed to the base)?
Well I know what I *want*, but it's entirely academic at the moment as I'm just about to blow the last of the magic beans on a new kitchen.

Ditch the enclosed shower totally, and go with a wet room where the shower runs directly onto the floor which is gently inclined towards the drain.

Then nothing leaks because it all leaks.

Unless it's on the first floor, in which case it *always* leaks. Into the downstairs room.
In which case, Laings of Inverurie will re-do it for you, for a king's ransom. But it works.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 18 February, 2022, 08:38:56 pm
Yes, wet rooms. What can go wrong there?

You can spot anyone who's had a wet room installed from about 50 metres away just by the agonised look on their faces, a picture of what one wrong decision can do to contort one's soul.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 18 February, 2022, 08:43:48 pm
Yes, wet rooms. What can go wrong there?

You can spot anyone who's had a wet room installed from about 50 metres away just by the agonised look on their faces, a picture of what one wrong decision can do to contort one's soul.

Indeed. Who doesn’t love damp toilet tissue.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 18 February, 2022, 08:58:14 pm
Friends of mine had one in their Hackney flat. Their solution, after two years of fighting with the contractors, was to move to Devon.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 18 February, 2022, 09:01:28 pm
So the wet room is not *totally* un-enclosed!
It's just that there's no plastic tray with a mouldy seal around the perimeter.
(The mould is free to grow everywhere else instead!)

It's got walls on 2 sides, and there's a full room-height glass wall on the third side to contain the worst of the spray.
Also, the room needs to be big enough that there's a reasonable distance from the open end to Things You Don't Want To Get Wet, like bogroll.
But having been dangled by the ankles to have the initial poor implementation put right, I do like it.

There's room enough for all possible showering options, without worrying about leaky rubber seals.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 February, 2022, 10:40:04 pm
I like wet rooms, but that's because I've not had to deal with stopping the leaks.  They solve all sorts of mobility issues, and it's dead easy to hose everything down for cleaning.

Obviously it needs proper ventilation, and ideally some under-floor heating, so things dry out in a timely manner.  It also needs dry places to put your stuff.  ARE YOU LISTENING CAMPSITE/SPORTS CENTRE PROPRIETORS?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 19 February, 2022, 07:50:51 am
This is where the leak is presenting
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51888818734_2045b61e12.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2n4eL2L)2022-02-18_06-28-34 (https://flic.kr/p/2n4eL2L) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr


I avoided the above scenario in my bathroom by having a simple shower curtain.


(https://live.staticflickr.com/303/32007376221_e14b145bb3_o.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 February, 2022, 09:49:46 am
Napoléon's height is usually given as 5'2", but under the Ancien Régime an inch was 2.706 cm so that he was almost 1m68 tall, or 6'6", about average for the time.

5'6" shirly?

Right enough.  :-[  Was thinking too much about sixes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 19 February, 2022, 11:44:33 am

I avoided the above scenario in my bathroom by having a simple shower curtain.


(https://live.staticflickr.com/303/32007376221_e14b145bb3_o.jpg)

I always find that the airflow generated by the water jets tend to suck in shower curtains that enclose small areas, and I bet getting wet clammy shower curtain stuck to me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 19 February, 2022, 12:48:48 pm
Back when we had a shower curtain in the 1st Pingu towers I used to buy the really heavy duty thick plastic curtains which weren't too clingy as far as I recall, tho it was over 17 years ago.

It may yet come to a shower curtain in the short term, if my attempts to fix this leak are unsuccessful.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 February, 2022, 03:56:44 pm
Napoléon's height is usually given as 5'2", but under the Ancien Régime an inch was 2.706 cm so that he was almost 1m68 tall, or 6'6", about average for the time.

5'6" shirly?

Indeed, I think T42’s post should go into the arithmetic that makes you cringe thread
Rather than cringeworthy arithmetic, I read it as TRINIDAD. That's like TOBAGO but not good.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 February, 2022, 05:21:19 pm
Napoléon's height is usually given as 5'2", but under the Ancien Régime an inch was 2.706 cm so that he was almost 1m68 tall, or 6'6", about average for the time.

5'6" shirly?

Indeed, I think T42’s post should go into the arithmetic that makes you cringe thread

It's a typo, ye gomerel, not bad arithmetic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 February, 2022, 10:08:51 am
The word "veiligheidswielen",
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 24 February, 2022, 05:25:52 pm
Oak Furniture Land furniture is not solid oak . . .  it's real wood, possibly oak, but in strips laminated together and then with what looks like some sort of woodgrain wrap.   

[I acquired a damaged double-bed frame to recycle the timber for some of the products I make - as soon as I cut the posts on the headboard the structure was revealed]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 24 February, 2022, 05:45:30 pm
I guess the real question I would ask myself - is : Do I want a bath-tub? - or shall I replace it with a large shower tray/cubicle (the type with no door where the screens are sealed to the base)?

We have separate bath & cubicle, and I'm kicking myself to this day about not holding out for shower-only.  "A bathroom has to have a bath," they said.

13 years later and it's been used just once for bathing. The rest of the time it has mostly gathered dust.  The only positive thing about it is that I can take off the shower-head - the bath came with its own shower-head - and use the powerful jet of water from the hose to blast a stuck moby round the bend.

My current place has no bath. I do think that a bathroom should have a bath, really, but I'm not sure the faff and expense involved in replacing it would be worth it for the luxury of having a bath once in a while. I have yet to check whether my bike fits in the shower cubicle, though...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 24 February, 2022, 05:49:21 pm
Quote from: robgul
... real wood, possibly oak, but in strips laminated together and then with what looks like some sort of woodgrain wrap.   
I did wonder how they managed to keep their prices down.  Mind you (a sort of) glulam has got to be better than IKEA's very best chipboard & sticky-back plastic offerings and looking on the "green" side of things it means wood that may otherwise be discarded or, worse, burnt gets used.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 24 February, 2022, 06:19:09 pm
Ukraine used to be the most heavily nuclear weaponsed country but then de-nuked some time ago...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 February, 2022, 07:33:52 pm
That the castle at Cesky Krumlov, in the Czech Rep, has a real, populated BEAR moat. Apparently BEARS were commonly kept in castle moats as a first line of defence in parts of Europe with BEAR populations during the 16th and 17th centuries. Unlike human soldiers, they don't need to be paid or want holidays or fall asleep at inconvenient times like a cold winter's day. Oh, maybe not that last part.

Disappointingly, the current BEAR population of Cesky Krumlov's BEAR moat is one (1) bear.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 February, 2022, 07:41:29 pm
That Leopold I, Emperor of the Holy Romans in the latter half of the 17th century, like hunting. Well of course he did. But rather than sneak through the forest with a gun or a bow and arrows to kill deer, he would have his minions beat the deer into a deep lake, where his entourage would pick them off with crossbows.

But that was as nothing compared to his preferred method of fox hunting, which did not involve horses and red coats, but having foxes brought to him so he could toss them in a blanket (!) before clubbing them to death.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 25 February, 2022, 10:30:30 am
That Leopold I, Emperor of the Holy Romans in the latter half of the 17th century, like hunting. Well of course he did. But rather than sneak through the forest with a gun or a bow and arrows to kill deer, he would have his minions beat the deer into a deep lake, where his entourage would pick them off with crossbows.

But that was as nothing compared to his preferred method of fox hunting, which did not involve horses and red coats, but having foxes brought to him so he could toss them in a blanket (!) before clubbing them to death.

... being pedantic - huntsmen don't wear RED coats - they are PINK  (being named after the tailor Thomas Pink in Savile Row rather than the colour)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 25 February, 2022, 11:33:09 am
From the cold-season sporty thing in China: polar penis, a frozen todger due to high speed and light clothing in cross-country skiing.
Suggestions for suitable protection, please.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 25 February, 2022, 11:58:09 am
One of these, surely - https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/542658611/original-willy-warmer-aka-peter-heater?click_key=f3b0854793b7ae619ae33baeaeb5508e8ceab210%3A542658611&click_sum=5e80055b&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=willy+warmer&ref=sr_gallery-1-27&organic_search_click=1&frs=1
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 25 February, 2022, 12:15:26 pm
From the cold-season sporty thing in China: polar penis, a frozen todger due to high speed and light clothing in cross-country skiing.
Suggestions for suitable protection, please.

A cricket box with plenty of Vicks VapoRub or Deep Heat smeared inside it?  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 26 February, 2022, 09:21:06 am
That's cruel!
At the start of a TT on a cold morning a rider had rubbed some such gloop on to his thighs and then went behind a hedge for a leak. His reaction couls have been heard at the turn point!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 26 February, 2022, 06:37:59 pm
That “Arena” is Latin for “Sand” which was the surface of the business part of a Roman amphitheatre.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 26 February, 2022, 10:45:36 pm
Canola oil is a North American name for Rapeseed Oil.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andytheflyer on 27 February, 2022, 07:09:40 am
That “Arena” is Latin for “Sand” which was the surface of the business part of a Roman amphitheatre.
and the geological term for 'sandy' is arenaceous. Follows, innit?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 February, 2022, 08:14:47 am
That “Arena” is Latin for “Sand” which was the surface of the business part of a Roman amphitheatre.
and the geological term for 'sandy' is arenaceous. Follows, innit?

Like Arenaceous Toksvig.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 February, 2022, 11:53:16 am
That making Jews wear a yellow star on their clothing wasn't a new idea thought up Hitler and the Nazis. It was the revival of a former Central European practice, officially abolished by Emperor Joseph II, who died in 1790. He also removed the previous ban on Jews leaving their houses on Sundays and Christian feast days.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Slave To The Viking on 01 March, 2022, 12:19:17 am

... being pedantic - huntsmen don't wear RED coats - they are PINK  (being named after the tailor Thomas Pink in Savile Row rather than the colour)

Is that actually being pedantic though? If* the coats are named after a tailor, that doesn't mean their being described as red is incorrect, merely that the name of the tailor is - coincidentally - also the name of a colour. That doesn't stop them being red, any more than being Hunter wellies stops them being green.

When pink is involved in their description, they're not coats which "are PINK": they're "pinks".

Now that's pedantry...




*'tis a tale oft told, though one lacking in reliable documentary evidence.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 March, 2022, 08:33:18 am

... being pedantic - huntsmen don't wear RED coats - they are PINK  (being named after the tailor Thomas Pink in Savile Row rather than the colour)

Is that actually being pedantic though? If* the coats are named after a tailor, that doesn't mean their being described as red is incorrect, merely that the name of the tailor is - coincidentally - also the name of a colour. That doesn't stop them being red, any more than being Hunter wellies stops them being green.

When pink is involved in their description, they're not coats which "are PINK": they're "pinks".

Now that's pedantry...




*'tis a tale oft told, though one lacking in reliable documentary evidence.

Wear 'em long enough and they'll be pink anyway.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 March, 2022, 01:37:24 pm
Today I are learning that they have “Monster Munch” in France.  But zey look like zis:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/Monster_Munch_1.jpg/606px-Monster_Munch_1.jpg?20150404130306)

because the “Munch” in question is Edvard Of That Ilk.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 March, 2022, 06:58:47 pm
Today I are learning that the official birb of Madison WI is:

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 March, 2022, 12:57:04 am
Today I are learning that when Sir Henry Rawlinson called Old Scrotum (the wrinkled retainer) “you vile jelly” he was quoting the Duke of Cornwall off of TV's “King Lear”.  Possibly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 March, 2022, 11:26:39 am
Cornwall, was it?  And Gloucester's eye. "Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot" is one of the best lines in English literature, second only to "I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 10 March, 2022, 01:32:32 pm
Canola oil is a North American name for Rapeseed Oil.
A massive win for the Canadian rape marketing team. Yes really.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 10 March, 2022, 01:58:39 pm
Indeed, the CAN is from CANada (OLA: Oil, Low Acid). There's used to be a town in Saskatchewan that had a big 'Land of Rape and Honey' sign outside though I think they got rid of it. At least the residents of Dildo haven't folded and are still proud Dildoniums.

The Canadians pioneered both low erucic acid varieties and extraction processes (hence the OLA) which made rapeseed oil palatable and assuaged health concerns. Plus it obviously helped with the marketing. Pressing for oil leaves plenty of residue for animal feed etc. so it's a profitable crop.

Rape comes from the latin for turnip (Brassica rapa) though canola and most edible oilseed rape is the related species Brassica napus these days.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 March, 2022, 01:15:35 am
Today I are learning that Charles Faroux, co-founder and race director of the Le Mans 24 Hours, was also a three-time billiards world champion.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 14 March, 2022, 12:10:41 pm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carillon

I just learnt what a carillon is having googled Carillonist as mentioned in a book I'm reading
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: bhoot on 14 March, 2022, 02:14:17 pm
Having once been a student at Loughborough I did know that. Quite an impressive installation and with bells cast in the town too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 14 March, 2022, 02:52:49 pm
That dogs shouldn't be given apple cores.  Seems the pips contain a small amount of cyanide.
Well ours has been consuming at least two a week for her eleven years on this planet, so it can't be that bad.
Best we stop giving them to her now that we know.

<first world grumble >  now we have to get up and go to the compost bin instead of just chucking it at the dog.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 March, 2022, 03:11:18 pm
Same applies to cider.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 14 March, 2022, 03:52:11 pm
I'll drink the cider myself if I have to before I pour it on the compost heap!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 14 March, 2022, 03:57:17 pm
That dogs shouldn't be given apple cores.  Seems the pips contain a small amount of cyanide.
Well ours has been consuming at least two a week for her eleven years on this planet, so it can't be that bad.
Best we stop giving them to her now that we know.

<first world grumble >  now we have to get up and go to the compost bin instead of just chucking it at the dog.

I eat 100% of apples (excludes stalk). Is that why I iz ded?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 March, 2022, 04:06:35 pm
I'll drink the cider myself if I have to before I pour it on the compost heap!

Watering the apple trees
With cider seems rather wrong
We’ll drink the cider then
We’ll water the trees before too long!

 – The Kipper Family
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 14 March, 2022, 04:35:09 pm
There's not very much cyanide in apple cores, so I wouldn't worry. The chemical in question is amygdalin, a cyanogenic glycoside (basically a sugar with a -CN molecule appended). It's also contained in almonds (and anything flavoured by almonds). There are similar chemicals in cassava etc.

You'd need to eat about 15 kg of marzipan before worrying, which is a lot even by my standards.

If you routinely consume high levels of cyanide, you will start to express more enzymes that detoxify it, turning it into an amino acid that you excrete in your urine. So it's possible to train yourself to withstand cyanide poisoning, however unless you're planning to become a secret agent, it's probably not worth the effort.

(Contrary to popular belief, cyanide isn't that toxic, it's nowhere near as dangerous as hydrogen sulfide, for instance, and you get a bit guff of that from a boiled egg.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 14 March, 2022, 07:28:34 pm
I'll drink the cider myself if I have to before I pour it on the compost heap!

Watering the apple trees
With cider seems rather wrong
We’ll drink the cider then
We’ll water the trees before too long!

 – The Kipper Family

Well done the Kippers
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 14 March, 2022, 07:48:02 pm
Same applies to cider.

That's my dog's Saturday nights ruined.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: benborp on 14 March, 2022, 08:31:32 pm
I regularly inject myself with a cyanide compound. I reckon I would choose death over the available natural remedies - copious amounts of raw liver juice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 March, 2022, 01:26:45 am
Today I are learning that one of my great-grandfathers was Under-Butler to the 3rd Baron Crewe.

[“The 'Tenuous Claims To Fame' thread is downstairs” – Ed.]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 March, 2022, 08:03:21 am
That dogs shouldn't be given apple cores.  Seems the pips contain a small amount of cyanide.
Well ours has been consuming at least two a week for her eleven years on this planet, so it can't be that bad.
Best we stop giving them to her now that we know.

<first world grumble >  now we have to get up and go to the compost bin instead of just chucking it at the dog.

I wouldn't worry. The same goes for plums, peaches, apricots etc. Our parrot likes to crack open the stones and chew the bits inside: he's been doing it for over 30 years and the cantankerous bugger is still with us.

Slivovitz is made from damsons with the stones still in.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 March, 2022, 09:30:59 pm
The utterly bonkers origin of degaussing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degaussing#Ships'_hulls).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 17 March, 2022, 09:38:27 pm
I've been misreading it as desperming. The internet continues to have a lot to answer for.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 17 March, 2022, 10:30:34 pm
The utterly bonkers origin of degaussing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degaussing#Ships'_hulls).


The origin of the Philadelphia Experiment (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment) conspiracy theory?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 March, 2022, 01:25:30 am
Today I are learning about the so-called “Advanced Gun System” fitted to the USAnian Navy's Zumwalt-class destroyers.  It can only fire the so-called “Long Range Land Attack Projectile”.  The USAnian Navy cancelled procurement of the said ammo in 2016 because each shell would have cost the thick end of a million dollars, or about the same amount as a Tomahawk cruise missile.  Next year they will, reportedly, get round to removing the guns from the ships :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 March, 2022, 02:41:21 pm
The connection between syphilis and sheep. It's not what you might think... Syphilis was the name given to a shepherd in a poem by Girolamo Fracastoro in 1530. In the poem, Syphilis the shepherd is struck by disease by Apollo as punishment for insulting him.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 21 March, 2022, 02:56:05 pm
That dogs shouldn't be given apple cores.  Seems the pips contain a small amount of cyanide.
Well ours has been consuming at least two a week for her eleven years on this planet, so it can't be that bad.
Best we stop giving them to her now that we know.

<first world grumble >  now we have to get up and go to the compost bin instead of just chucking it at the dog.

I wouldn't worry. The same goes for plums, peaches, apricots etc. Our parrot likes to crack open the stones and chew the bits inside: he's been doing it for over 30 years and the cantankerous bugger is still with us.

Slivovitz is made from damsons with the stones still in.

I nearly always eat the cores.  I'll sometimes eat my children's apple cores, and sometimes chuck them into the paddock for the geese.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ashaman42 on 21 March, 2022, 08:37:35 pm
Do geese eat children?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 March, 2022, 08:42:53 pm
Do geese eat children?

One had a go at eating my brother when he was small.  Didn't get further than a good chomp on an unguarded finger, which resulted in enough crying that I wished it would come back and finish the job.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 March, 2022, 07:20:43 am
Do geese eat children?

A goose attacked my trousers once when I was walking round the Serpentine.

Hope this helps.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tomsk on 22 March, 2022, 07:52:16 am
Do geese eat children?

A goose attacked my trousers once when I was walking round the Serpentine.

Hope this helps.

A former neighbour of mine, a retired GP, once told me he was called into a worried colleague's room to give an opinion on the small horseshoe-shaped welts he'd found on a child. This was at the time of the Orkney satanic abuse panic in the late '80s/early '90s. Attacked by a goose of course ...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 22 March, 2022, 08:40:57 am
I was savagely bitten on the finger by a turkey at Finkley Down Farm in the mid 80s...

My geese are generally very docile, except when they're sitting on nests.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 March, 2022, 09:03:12 am
I was bitten on the finger by a swan, not a goose but close, in the Botanical Gardens in Lublin, Poland, while having wedding photos taken. Possibly an omen or something.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 March, 2022, 09:10:07 am
I reckon a goose could have a swan in a square go.  All that stuff about breaking arms is just bluster.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 March, 2022, 09:22:13 am
Out running in a wooded area of a park in Sweden, I came round a tree to find I'd disturbed a goose, which managed to flap hard enough to get to and stay at my face-level long enough give me the highest heart rate of the run.  I developed a better goose-awareness in that park on subsequent visits

My trousers survived.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 March, 2022, 10:28:29 am
Glad of that.

I was chased by a rooster when I was 8.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 March, 2022, 10:53:17 am
I reckon a goose could have a swan in a square go.  All that stuff about breaking arms is just bluster.

Careful now!
</HMHB>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 22 March, 2022, 11:05:05 am
Birds aren’t a significant threat until they are the size of a cassowary at least. I don’t see why people freak out about birds smaller than that.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/how-dangerous-are-cassowaries-really/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 22 March, 2022, 11:06:07 am
If you want a dangerous farm animal look no further than a pig. They can be very big, very fast and aggressive.

The thing I've learned today is that France's longest land border is with Brazil.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 22 March, 2022, 11:07:05 am
If you want a dangerous farm animal look no further than a pig. They can be very big, very fast and aggressive.

The thing I've learned today is that France's longest land border is with Brazil.
Great bit of trivia that !!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 22 March, 2022, 11:52:22 am

I wouldn't worry. The same goes for plums, peaches, apricots etc. Our parrot likes to crack open the stones and chew the bits inside: he's been doing it for over 30 years and the cantankerous bugger is still with us.

Slivovitz is made from damsons with the stones still in.

And my mothers made "crunchy" apricot jam but splitting the stones then chopping the kernel and putting it in the jam. Lovely!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 March, 2022, 11:57:40 am
Birds aren’t a significant threat until they are the size of a cassowary at least. I don’t see why people freak out about birds smaller than that.

My chum Sir Hugh of Hugh once had a disturbing encounter with a demonic pigeon in Portsmouth and eventually decided to go the long way round rather than further risk its wrath.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 March, 2022, 12:12:45 pm
If you want a dangerous farm animal look no further than a pig. They can be very big, very fast and aggressive.

Presumably this is why there's so much focus on the possibility of pigs being able to fly. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 March, 2022, 12:14:44 pm
If you want a dangerous farm animal look no further than a pig. They can be very big, very fast and aggressive.

Case in point:  https://twitter.com/CBSEveningNews/status/1505679234639048706

How long until the BEARS start carrying AR-15s?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 March, 2022, 12:27:58 pm
Birds aren’t a significant threat until they are the size of a cassowary at least. I don’t see why people freak out about birds smaller than that.

Traumatic childhood encounters? (See above.)

It's relative size that matters.  I present this typical example of a stand-off with a Gt Yarmouth Shitehawk (wheelie-bin for scale):

(https://www.ductilebiscuit.net/gallery_albums/dunrun2019/2019_07_15_12_34_16.sized.jpg)

I'd classify that as 'no big deal, just keep an eye on your chips'.  But then a family with a toddler appeared, and it started pestering them.  Toddler, quite reasonably, was having none of being strapped to a chair while a flappy dinosaur half its size with at least one sharp end hopped around just out of arm's reach.  I thought the parents' approach of laughing at the distressed child was a bit unfair, but I suppose that's what my parents did in similar circumstances, and it hasn't done me any harm...


And that's just a shitehawk, which is ultimately only interested in theft.  Geese have terrible attitude and will attack just because they're moody bastards.  And swans are basically geese with white privilege and the ability to break your arm.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 March, 2022, 12:37:55 pm
Somewhere in these pages there is mentioned someone who lost an eye when attacked by a wol.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 22 March, 2022, 12:47:47 pm
Birds that fly have weak bones. That is what counts.

I had a territorial Aussie magpie draw blood next to my eye. The little bastard's beak was bouncing off my glasses. Shortly afterwards, I took my friend on the back of my tandem to his badminton match…

https://road.cc/content/news/has-aussie-cyclist-found-way-stop-magpie-attacks-286503
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 March, 2022, 12:55:13 pm
Personally, my main concern when it comes to birdlife is being shat on.  Also, campylobacter.

As far as actual danger from animals in the UK goes, badly controlled dogs seems the most likely.  Or getting wowbadgered while riding my bike.  I treat cattle with the respect they deserve, and there's not much else that can do real damage.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Polar Bear on 22 March, 2022, 01:05:25 pm
I had a distressing and prolonged encounter on Papay some years back.  A bonksie took exception to our walk around a headland and came in for repeated low level strafing.  Being taller than mllePB my noggin was it's target. 

Thankfully unscathed but it was the longest 15 minutes of my life.  I suspect that my heart rate reached the highest level it had ever reached and is, more terror events notwithstanding, ever likely to reach.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Flite on 22 March, 2022, 01:18:15 pm
Quite common at this time of year to be chased along Fell Roads by angry red grouse wanting to attack rear lights, reflectors, red socks...  Seeing off rival males - not too bright red grouse.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Flite on 22 March, 2022, 01:25:45 pm
That reminds me.
Also riding along a fell road at dusk and seeing, flying directly ahead of me, an enormous pteridactyl type bird.
Massive wing span, with articulated wings going steadily up and down.
I eventually worked out it was 3 geese flying in a v-formation and wings beating in perfect synchrony.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 March, 2022, 01:45:43 pm
That reminds me.
Also riding along a fell road at dusk and seeing, flying directly ahead of me, an enormous pteridactyl type bird.
Massive wing span, with articulated wings going steadily up and down.
I eventually worked out it was 3 geese flying in a v-formation and wings beating in perfect synchrony.

Had the same happen to me on an Essex Audax, confused me for a bit until the angles changed and I could see two ducks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 22 March, 2022, 03:54:10 pm
The grumble version of the BAFTAs is called the SHAFTAs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 23 March, 2022, 05:17:46 pm
If you want a dangerous farm animal look no further than a pig. They can be very big, very fast and aggressive.

The thing I've learned today is that France's longest land border is with Brazil.
Saw a clip of a leopard grabbing a wild boar piglet. The area was sand and the cat couldn't accelerate much; the sows charged and then were overtaken by a boar that rammed the cat. It dropped the piglet and fled.
Considering that a boar can make a hole in a man's thigh similar to that for a hip replacement, it's no surprise that a big cat can' afford to be injured by one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 25 March, 2022, 08:09:04 pm
What an epicrisis is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 26 March, 2022, 09:18:21 am
Terry Jack's "Seasons in the sun" is an English version of a Jacques Brel song, le moribond.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 26 March, 2022, 09:27:33 am
Terry Jack's "Seasons in the sun" is an English version of a Jacques Brel song, le moribond.

.. with lyrics rewritten in 1963 by American singer-poet, the late, Rod McKuen.

Bit of a Rod McKuen fan here ... his Sea/Earth/Sky trilogy is brilliant.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 March, 2022, 10:12:28 am
Terry Jack's "Seasons in the sun" is an English version of a Jacques Brel song, le moribond.

Which tells a much blacker story: a dying man's biting farewell to his best friend, the local curé, his wife and his wife's lover.  The McKuen version is prettily banal.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 March, 2022, 12:01:19 pm
Terry Jack's "Seasons in the sun" is an English version of a Jacques Brel song, le moribond.

N Boulting: I knew that :smug:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 26 March, 2022, 12:02:14 pm
That my two times great grandfather was born in Paris. Does this mean I can apply for French citizenship? (Rhetorical)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 26 March, 2022, 03:15:05 pm
Courtesy of my wife, that the Times of London used to have its front page covered with adverts, and (courtesy of the Graun) this continued until 1966.  :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 26 March, 2022, 04:43:39 pm
Courtesy of my wife, that the Times of London used to have its front page covered with adverts, and (courtesy of the Graun) this continued until 1966.  :o

. . .  and The Times used to publish a collector edition every day that was a scaled down version (photographed) of the actual paper about 8" x 6", printed on very thin "airmail" paper.  [I have a copy somewhere . . . ]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 27 March, 2022, 05:52:23 pm
Courtesy of my wife, that the Times of London used to have its front page covered with adverts, and (courtesy of the Graun) this continued until 1966.  :o
We didn't get that answer in the quiz this week.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 27 March, 2022, 06:23:35 pm
Courtesy of my wife, that the Times of London used to have its front page covered with adverts, and (courtesy of the Graun) this continued until 1966.  :o

I remember that from my paper round.  It was just a mass of birth, marriage and deaths, plus other announcements and general small ads.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 01 April, 2022, 11:28:28 am
That the USA used to have a network of massive yellow concrete arrows every ten miles on the ground that were illuminated at night so that the US postal service planes could navigate at night before WWII and modern navigation systems.

https://youtu.be/-DfzbnW2DTI
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 April, 2022, 12:00:02 pm
My copy of Atlas Obscura says there are still some in Montana which haven’t been built on, ploughed under or sold to the fiendish Godless hordes of Beijing either, presumably marking the route to Seattle.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 April, 2022, 01:11:39 pm
Courtesy of my wife, that the Times of London used to have its front page covered with adverts, and (courtesy of the Graun) this continued until 1966.  :o

I remember that from my paper round.  It was just a mass of birth, marriage and deaths, plus other announcements and general small ads.

Great fun, the Times front page: "Lt-General Charles ffewkesbourough-Combover announces that he will no longer be responsible for his wife's debts" - too much gin in the gin rummy again, eh?

I can remember the first time that news and (gasp!) photos appeared on the front page. Had all the fogies huffing and Good-Godding. You could hear the aneurysms popping a mile off.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 April, 2022, 06:09:06 pm
That former footballer Roberto Baggio is a Buddhist.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 April, 2022, 03:37:22 pm
Mansuete, manciple, esker, replevin and more in just two or three pages of Blood Meridian.  Whether I'll still remember them tomorrow is uncertain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 04 April, 2022, 10:02:28 am
My Garmin car satnav had an interesting instruction today that was a first - rather than the usual "turn right", "turn left", "at the roundabout" etc type commands it came with one that said :   "In nnn turn right at the red fish bar" -  that seemed a bit odd, but lo and behold there was a fish and chip shop painted bright red on the corner at the turn.   

I'm used to the voice pronouncing street names strangely but never a command like this one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 05 April, 2022, 09:55:40 am
I found out that I am potentially eligible for Hungarian*, therefore EU, citizenship via marriage. There are however a few complications:
With a bit of gentle persuasion I might be able to coax some cooperation out of my ex, but there needs to be a certain amount of creativity to satisfy other requirements. I'm fairly sure that the language test can be passed with some directed tutoring.


* I know, I know! Beggars can't be choosers...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 April, 2022, 02:09:26 pm
That gollum is Irish Gaelic for pigeon. Which puts your fancy Italian tubing in a different light (or no light but a dark dank cave).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 08 April, 2022, 09:16:33 am
Two types of pillow case: Oxford and housewife. Easy mnemonic: housewife has frilly bits at the edges.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 08 April, 2022, 09:59:14 am
That the Pogues were formed as "Pogue Mahone" – the anglicisation of the Irish Gaelic póg mo thóin, meaning "kiss my arse"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 April, 2022, 10:04:47 am
The existence of this fascinating site: https://rappel.conso.gouv.fr/, being the list of products which have been subject to obligatory recalls since 2018, from cars to Kinder eggs. Quite entertaining unless you've bought one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 08 April, 2022, 06:10:58 pm
Lots of cheese...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 April, 2022, 06:32:19 pm
The Renault Zoe one – a Nissan accelerator pedal may have been installed instead of a Renault accelerator – made this Unit smile.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 08 April, 2022, 07:13:13 pm
Hmmm, a Jumpy Spacetourer, cool name!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 09 April, 2022, 03:40:11 pm
The Renault Zoe one – a Nissan accelerator pedal may have been installed instead of a Renault accelerator – made this Unit smile.
Saw one today - it's 'lectrick.
I refer you to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi_Alliance
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 April, 2022, 05:47:42 pm
That the Christian Congregational Church of Jamaica is ultimately governed from... Samoa!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 17 April, 2022, 04:19:18 pm
Kyocera AVX offer 2.96 million types of capacitor.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 17 April, 2022, 09:01:25 pm
Kyocera AVX offer 2.96 million types of capacitor.

I'll give you 10,000 house points to Griffindor if you can find me a source of replacement reservoir caps for the NAD amp I have on the bench.

22000uF 63v 105c.
Form factor: 35mm dia, 70mm tall, snap-in 10mm pin spacing.
The form factor is critical to fit the board.

I can only find these from crappy off-brand JCCON shit on ebay.
I might have to mount the replacements off-board with flying leads.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 18 April, 2022, 12:10:19 am
Kyocera AVX offer 2.96 million types of capacitor.

I'll give you 10,000 house points to Griffindor if you can find me a source of replacement reservoir caps for the NAD amp I have on the bench.

22000uF 63v 105c.
Form factor: 35mm dia, 70mm tall, snap-in 10mm pin spacing.
The form factor is critical to fit the board.

I can only find these from crappy off-brand JCCON shit on ebay.
I might have to mount the replacements off-board with flying leads.
Electrolytic capacitors haven't improved much in the last 20 years, and oddities like that aren't easy to find.
I would suggest getting as much capacitance as you can in the space, for instance this:- https://uk.farnell.com/multicomp/mcklz063m103p51y/cap-10000-f-63v-alu-elec-snap/dp/2610649 (https://uk.farnell.com/multicomp/mcklz063m103p51y/cap-10000-f-63v-alu-elec-snap/dp/2610649)
and then adding flying leads to additional capacitor(s) in parallel. I would be concerned about the added resistance and inductance from flying leads. That would be reduced if some of the capacitance is in the same place as before.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 18 April, 2022, 09:23:09 am
I'd also be tempted to see if it genuinely needs 63v, or if the designer specced that because they were cheap/no more expensive at the time. Could even be that that was a part they already had on their system. I've done that in the past.
If it's over-rated, then 50v caps are available that otherwise meet the spec. But you'll need to look at the circuit carefully to be sure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 18 April, 2022, 06:53:08 pm
Courtesy of Mr Larrington, that  there’s a “Jump To” thingummy at the bottom left of YACF.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 April, 2022, 07:28:34 pm
Er, it’s on the right.  Or at least it is on my fondleslab.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 18 April, 2022, 08:54:31 pm
Ah, that explains why I didn't understand what he was on about  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 April, 2022, 10:27:43 am
Today I are learning that in addition to that forerunner of the noble bicycle the draisine, Karl Freiherr von Drais also invented the keyboard-equipped typewriter* and the meat grinder.

* Or not, as Wikinaccurate's article on the tripewiter makes no mention of the good Baron.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 19 April, 2022, 08:53:27 pm
I'd also be tempted to see if it genuinely needs 63v, or if the designer specced that because they were cheap/no more expensive at the time. Could even be that that was a part they already had on their system. I've done that in the past.
If it's over-rated, then 50v caps are available that otherwise meet the spec. But you'll need to look at the circuit carefully to be sure.

Oh, it does.
The power supply on this device has a slightly unusual NAD feature, called PowerDrive.
The marketing blurb for this is total tosh ( it's hi-fi, after all ), but what it amounts to is this:

The main transformer has two sets of tappings: 'regular', and 'high voltage' (my terminology)
Each is connected to it's own bridge rectifier.
Under normal load, the 'regular' tappings feed the regular rectifier, and charge the reservoir caps to around +/- 50v.
If the load exceeds a threshold, then a pair of SCRs fire, and the higher-voltage DC from the 'high voltage' tappings and rectifier are switched on to the reservoir caps, pushing them up to slightly over 55v.

Basically a crappy solution to a poorly regulated under-spec PSU.
Make the base PSU able to hold up under load!
But there's not a marketing name for that...

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 20 April, 2022, 11:01:23 am
I'd also be tempted to see if it genuinely needs 63v, or if the designer specced that because they were cheap/no more expensive at the time. Could even be that that was a part they already had on their system. I've done that in the past.
If it's over-rated, then 50v caps are available that otherwise meet the spec. But you'll need to look at the circuit carefully to be sure.

Oh, it does.
The power supply on this device has a slightly unusual NAD feature, called PowerDrive.
The marketing blurb for this is total tosh ( it's hi-fi, after all ), but what it amounts to is this:

The main transformer has two sets of tappings: 'regular', and 'high voltage' (my terminology)
Each is connected to it's own bridge rectifier.
Under normal load, the 'regular' tappings feed the regular rectifier, and charge the reservoir caps to around +/- 50v.
If the load exceeds a threshold, then a pair of SCRs fire, and the higher-voltage DC from the 'high voltage' tappings and rectifier are switched on to the reservoir caps, pushing them up to slightly over 55v.

Basically a crappy solution to a poorly regulated under-spec PSU.
Make the base PSU able to hold up under load!
But there's not a marketing name for that...
To give them due credit, it does make the system somewhat more efficient. However, charging GBFO capacitors can't be done quickly, and it's not a big change from 50 to 55 V.

I've repaired power amplifiers with other odd power supply arrangements that improved the efficiency.

One had power rails at ±42V, ±84V and ±126 V (and about £200 worth of capacitors) and it would run power the main transistors from whichever rail would be enough. It would change very quickly, so running at 1 kHz and full power, each output cycle would be created using 8 changes of power rail voltage.

Another had two separate power supplies, which were in parallel but were switched to series for large voltage peaks.

Those used unregulated power supplies with really heavy transformers. Another arrangement that I have seen described is to have a switch-mode power supply, where the output voltage changes in response to what is being amplified, and stays a few volts above the output voltage required, following the waveform. The output transistors then remove the switching noise, but they never have a large voltage across them, so they don't get too hot.

±55 V will give around 1500 W into 4 Ohms if run as push-pull, so there is quite a lot of power to be handled. I've seen quite a few amplifiers where the power transistors have exploded, and anything that can keep the heating down is a help.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 20 April, 2022, 04:52:27 pm
Another arrangement that I have seen described is to have a switch-mode power supply, where the output voltage changes in response to what is being amplified, and stays a few volts above the output voltage required, following the waveform. The output transistors then remove the switching noise, but they never have a large voltage across them, so they don't get too hot.

At that point, you've gone 90% of the way to building a class D amp.
Why not go the rest of the way, and ditch the 'analog' output transistors room-heaters totally.

Quote
±55 V will give around 1500 W into 4 Ohms if run as push-pull, so there is quite a lot of power to be handled. I've seen quite a few amplifiers where the power transistors have exploded, and anything that can keep the heating down is a help.

Most amps are not designed or rated to operate in Bridge Mode for exactly that reason!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 20 April, 2022, 05:45:02 pm
Another arrangement that I have seen described is to have a switch-mode power supply, where the output voltage changes in response to what is being amplified, and stays a few volts above the output voltage required, following the waveform. The output transistors then remove the switching noise, but they never have a large voltage across them, so they don't get too hot.

At that point, you've gone 90% of the way to building a class D amp.
Why not go the rest of the way, and ditch the 'analog' output transistors room-heaters totally.
It's very difficult to filter enough of the switching noise to be inaudible. It's a lot easier to leave a few volts across some analog output transistors, and that will remove the switching noise. As there is only a few volts across the transistor, they don't become the serious room heaters that they would if the power supply was turned up to 11 all the time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 22 April, 2022, 06:35:12 pm
On the subject of PSUs, when I was in my teenage years I would repair old TVs which people had put out with the bins!
With mixed success.
These would typically be based around the Thorn 1400 chassis.

The PSU on these involved a 'dropper resistor': a foot-long wirewound resistor with multiple tappings for different voltages.
To say this ran warm would be an understatement.
It sat out on metal arms, where free air could circulate past it to give that 'warm tv' smell.
Common failures were one section going open-circuit, where you could patch a new section in using bus-wire.

Other failures modes were one of the series-connected valve heaters failing open-circuit ( often the line output PL504 ); the Line Output Transformer, or the EHT Tripler, a marvellous Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier.

There was also a very particular smell, which indicated that a selenium rectifier had pooped itself!

Happy days.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 23 April, 2022, 04:08:03 pm
That Inkscape's handy* little "calculate the area enclosed by a path" extension only works correctly if the path is drawn as single circuit to start with.  If you combine sub-sections to create the path it wilfully and incorrectly returns a smaller than correct value.

*There are various simple formulae available for determining whether a tail plane for a free flight model aeroplane is large enough. They rely on knowing the area of of both wing and tail plane and while one can approximate a planform closely with a selection of semi-circles, rectangles, triangles and trapezoids and do the sums by hand it is sooo much easier and quicker to trace the outline and point Inkscape at the problem.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 April, 2022, 07:48:32 pm
Was told a couple of days ago actually. That the term "Asperger's syndrome" is now officially disused in America and discouraged in Europe, due to the eponymous doctor's Nazism and eugenic involvement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger#Nazi_involvement
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 25 April, 2022, 09:16:19 pm
Was told a couple of days ago actually. That the term "Asperger's syndrome" is now officially disused in America and discouraged in Europe, due to the eponymous doctor's Nazism and eugenic involvement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger#Nazi_involvement

Autistic spectrum seems to be more widely used these days
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 April, 2022, 07:57:10 am
Was told a couple of days ago actually. That the term "Asperger's syndrome" is now officially disused in America and discouraged in Europe, due to the eponymous doctor's Nazism and eugenic involvement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger#Nazi_involvement

Autistic spectrum seems to be more widely used these days

We're all on the autistic spectrum somewhere.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 27 April, 2022, 07:37:09 pm
That “Roundheads” didn’t refer to the helmets the Parliamentarians wore, but rather likened them to the crop-haired Apprentice boys, or London based hooligans.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 April, 2022, 08:33:07 pm
That “Roundheads” didn’t refer to the helmets the Parliamentarians wore, but rather likened them to the crop-haired Apprentice boys, or London based hooligans.

This one was covered in the documentary Red Dwarf:

Quote
Rimmer : You all think I'm a petty-minded bureaucratic nincompoop who delights in enforcing political regulations because he gets some kind of perverse pleasure out of it. And in many ways, you're absolutely damn right! But that doesn't alter the fact that the only we're gonna down track Red Dwarf and get through this in one piece is with a sense of discipline, a sense of purpose, and wherever possible a sensible haircut.

Lister : [Feeling bored after Rimmer's speech]  I'm going back to bed.

Rimmer : Would it harm you to have hair like mine?

The Cat : I have got hair like yours. Just not on my head.

Rimmer : Well, I'm no stranger to the land of scoff. Perhaps you'd like to explain to me why it is that every major battle in history has been won by the side with the shortest haircut.

Kryten : Oh, surely not, sir!

Rimmer : Think about it! Why did the US cavalry beat the Indian nation? Short back and sides versus girly-hippie locks. The Cavaliers and the Roundheads, 1-0 to the pudding-basins. Vietnam, crew-cuts both sides, no score draw.

Kryten : Oh, for a really world-class psychiatrist!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 April, 2022, 01:19:33 am
Arnold Judas Rimmer BSC SSC has clearly never seen a picture of General George Armstrong Custer, military idiot and bar, who could have easily passed for the singer in a Southern Rock band.

(https://www.historyonthenet.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/George-Armstrong-Custer-e1545880769942.jpg)

Ronnie van Zant

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYx1I6pW8AAU4IM.jpg)

George Custer
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 28 April, 2022, 01:11:35 pm
Quote from: Mr Larrington
Arnold Judas Rimmer BSC SSC has clearly never seen a picture of General George Armstrong Custer, military idiot and bar...
Ahh, but we don't know how his opponents on the day were wearing their hair.  Custer and his men may have been beaten by warriors with their locks dressed in fashionable short bobs in which case Rimmer's hypothesis cannot be categorically refuted.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 28 April, 2022, 03:10:59 pm
There used to be a golf course just behind the office in which I am sitting.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 April, 2022, 03:25:13 pm
Quote from: Mr Larrington
Arnold Judas Rimmer BSC SSC has clearly never seen a picture of General George Armstrong Custer, military idiot and bar...
Ahh, but we don't know how his opponents on the day were wearing their hair.  Custer and his men may have been beaten by warriors with their locks dressed in fashionable short bobs in which case Rimmer's hypothesis cannot be categorically refuted.

One ventures to point out that after the Little Big Horn battle Lt. Col. Custer's hair was considerably shorter than that of any of his conquerors, even the bald ones.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 April, 2022, 06:11:30 pm
And serves him right.  Custer met the criteria of at least seven of the BRITISH Army's eleven recognised types of fucking idiot :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 May, 2022, 08:01:16 am
Satellites can now spot cows farting.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 03 May, 2022, 08:16:13 am
MethaneSat?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 May, 2022, 10:40:10 am
Summat like. Probably more belching than t'other but it's all, er, good.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 03 May, 2022, 10:54:45 am
If it's MethaneSat that is the reason we are now in NZ. Vernon will be driving it when it launches.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 03 May, 2022, 11:03:04 am
Shouldn't your avatar be upside down ? 


Congrats on escaping to somewhere relatively sane. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 03 May, 2022, 11:14:06 am
My avatar is currently bobbing around in a container somewhere so it could well be upside down.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 May, 2022, 08:06:32 am
Ooh! Or rather, eh! May you drive many kiwisats!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 May, 2022, 08:13:49 am
If it's MethaneSat that is the reason we are now in NZ. Vernon will be driving it when it launches.

No, it was a Canadian bunch, GHGSat. NewSci have an in-shallows article (https://www.newscientist.com/article/2318299-methane-emissions-from-cows-spotted-from-space-for-the-first-time/) about it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 05 May, 2022, 07:30:31 am
If it's MethaneSat that is the reason we are now in NZ. Vernon will be driving it when it launches.

No, it was a Canadian bunch, GHGSat. NewSci have an in-shallows article (https://www.newscientist.com/article/2318299-methane-emissions-from-cows-spotted-from-space-for-the-first-time/) about it.

I've been looking at GHG Sat professionally, very interesting technology. Also several aeroplane-carried versions such as Kairos and a bunch of people using drones (Seekops) all working lots in the oil and gas industry as methane is the new thing (except it's really not)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 May, 2022, 11:47:34 am
Today I are learning that in 2015 Jack White bought the first ever recording by a Mr E Presley, for 300,000 of your Earth dollars.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 06 May, 2022, 06:30:39 pm
I am currently in that Manchester.
And it's true. It's bloody pissing down. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Syd on 06 May, 2022, 06:34:52 pm
I am currently in that Manchester.
And it's true. It's bloody pissing down.
I don’t miss the rain. Edinburgh is so much drier.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 May, 2022, 09:06:05 pm
I am currently in that Manchester.
And it's true. It's bloody pissing down.

I expect living in Wales was good training...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 06 May, 2022, 09:42:54 pm
I am currently in that Manchester.
And it's true. It's bloody pissing down.
I don’t miss the rain. Edinburgh is so much drier.

One of the reasons I moved there from Glasgow! (And I still haven't got used to the idea that outdoor plants sometimes need watering... ???)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 06 May, 2022, 10:04:08 pm
Ah, Glasgow, where, if the rain misses you on the way down, it gets you when it bounces back up off the pavement. Loved the people though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 07 May, 2022, 09:07:09 am
I am currently in that Manchester.
And it's true. It's bloody pissing down.
I don’t miss the rain. Edinburgh is so much drier.

My water bill more than doubled moving from Derbyshire to Ely, there is an RHS garden over this way that is made up of plants suited to arid conditions, which says quite a bit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 07 May, 2022, 11:20:03 am
As I mentioned in another thread, I don't think it rained on us at all in April. We're on Sheppey in North Kent where it's probably as dry as Ely. We have 6 water butts that get a lot of use.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 07 May, 2022, 08:54:41 pm
That ships still pay a lighthouse fee when docking in Irish and UK ports.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 May, 2022, 11:29:54 pm
Today I are learning that the current Canadian fleg was only adopted in 1965.  And none of the proposals for the said fleg had a BEAR on them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 07 May, 2022, 11:56:18 pm
And none of the proposals for the said fleg had a BEAR on them.

Didn't want to get sued by Surrey.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 May, 2022, 12:03:40 am
Today I are mostly learning that the fleg of Surrey looks like something you’d use to signal the end of a motor race in Ukraine:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Surrey.svg/320px-Surrey.svg.png)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 May, 2022, 12:05:41 am
Today I are mostly learning that the fleg of Surrey looks like something you’d use to signal the end of a motor race in Ukraine:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Surrey.svg/320px-Surrey.svg.png)

If you stare at that and dis-align your eyeballs in a stereogram stylee you can see TEH BEAR give yourself a headache.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 May, 2022, 10:21:11 am
Today I are learning that the current Canadian fleg was only adopted in 1965.  And none of the proposals for the said fleg had a BEAR on them.
It is widely believed in Poland that the red and white colours were chosen as a nod to the Polish diaspora in Canada. This probably says more about Poland than Canada.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 May, 2022, 10:21:37 am
Today I are mostly learning that the fleg of Surrey looks like something you’d use to signal the end of a motor race in Ukraine:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Surrey.svg/320px-Surrey.svg.png)
Looks like a police car.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 08 May, 2022, 03:09:21 pm
A blueberry and lemon curd sandwich.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 11 May, 2022, 02:25:04 pm
That the forum search is context sensitive. e.g. "TailFin" returns many results, "tail fin" a few and "tailfin" 200 pages, most of which seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with the subject.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 11 May, 2022, 03:13:37 pm
That the forum search is crap and returns many results, most of which seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with the subject.

FTFY.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 11 May, 2022, 05:27:01 pm
That the forum search is context sensitive. e.g. "TailFin" returns many results, "tail fin" a few and "tailfin" 200 pages, most of which seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with the subject.

Open google
Type searchterm site:yacf.co.uk
Enjoy
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 May, 2022, 08:22:22 pm
Today I are learning that the first milk CHOKLIT was developed in Dresden in 1839 and used donkey milk.

I reckon Hershey uses dogs' milk.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 13 May, 2022, 08:33:03 pm
It might come out of dogs but I don't think it's milk.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 13 May, 2022, 08:39:17 pm
Butyric acid in Hershey's innit? Back from ye olden days before chilled tankers. Apparently the USanians like the taste & smell of vom so much they decided to keep it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 13 May, 2022, 08:45:00 pm
Mmm, rancidity. It would explain a few things, I'd mostly put the taste down to Hershey's proximity to Three Mile Island.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 May, 2022, 07:46:50 am
...where the containment dome was made of "chocolate".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 14 May, 2022, 09:05:33 pm
About Harriet Tubman
Courtesy of Radio 6, The Crown by Gary Bird and the GB Experience, and Google/Wikipedia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 May, 2022, 11:43:43 pm
Today I are learning that TV's Kenneth Kendall was gay.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 May, 2022, 12:23:35 pm
That there is a town with two exclamation marks in its name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Louis-du-Ha!_Ha!

Today I are learning what a Ha-ha is (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-ha).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 17 May, 2022, 10:05:43 am
About Harriet Tubman
Courtesy of Radio 6, The Crown by Gary Bird and the GB Experience, and Google/Wikipedia.
I love that record.  The lyrics are so 80s, with the popular culture references to films and Memorex.  And Stevie Wonder giving it a musical shot in the arm halfway through, of course.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 May, 2022, 10:11:00 am
Ha! Yeah, it's like that point where disco and funk started morphing into rap. Plus the self-improving, striving, moral message. Totally 80s-tastic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 19 May, 2022, 11:27:52 am
That your sense of smell switches off when you're asleep - hence why smoke alarms are a good idea in the home.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 19 May, 2022, 06:38:03 pm
That HP-42 G-AAGX, Hannibal, made a forced landing at Five Oak Green in Kent.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 May, 2022, 06:56:43 pm
Today I are learning what an HP-42 is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 19 May, 2022, 11:48:50 pm
Some sort of reverse-polish calculator, isn't it?  Never a good day when you have to make a forced landing with one of those.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 May, 2022, 01:11:43 am
That was what I thought too.  I'm sure Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.) had one in 1972.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 20 May, 2022, 01:47:38 am
Apparently it is a type of corner moulding which makes me wonder how it got airborne in the first place.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 20 May, 2022, 09:21:44 am
A renovated original or a copy?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 20 May, 2022, 10:05:28 am
I've learned a lot about Miele Dishwasher Draining, and the importance of a digit.

The issue was the dishwasher not draining, I didn't believe Teh Wisdom of Teh Internets, that it was the drain motor (£100, thank you) and investigated further. Ignoring the time I pulled the drain hose out while lifting the hoses pushing it back into situ (Nothing to see here, splash on by), I finally determined that the root cause appears to be a worn rubber gasket seal on the non-return valve. Looking up the part number, most places were around the £50+ mark (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Miele-dishwasher-valve-5750093/dp/B01CNXRMMK), I found a single supplier in foreigns, on eBay, who listed the gasket only, for €10. Only not only did they not ship to the UK, but they didn't even accept incoming queries on the item. Step forward a forumite in that country who kindly agreed to be the recipient and forwarder of this part, thank you again most kindly if you are reading this! Time will tell if I have made the correct diagnosis, but I think I have

Onto that digit. I had observed that Miele part numbers seem to use the last digit as an increment for the same item. I'd searched for the part number with a zero at the end, 1, 2 and 3 and achieved similar results on cost. What I hadn't done, is go up to "5" at the end or search on the Miele site for "non return valve" as then I would have the full item from them for £33, which would have been more acceptable and possibly easier in the long run. Who lives, may learn.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 20 May, 2022, 10:23:07 am
Butyric acid in Hershey's innit? Back from ye olden days before chilled tankers. Apparently the USanians like the taste & smell of vom so much they decided to keep it.

Indeed. Initially it was only Hersheys that did this to make the chocolate cheap and increase profit (didn't have to throw away milk after 72 hours). They then won a massive contract to supply chocolate for American troops ration packs in WWII. After several years eating the stuff the troops came back with a taste for it and then the other US chocolate makers followed suite. USians are so used to it they don't notice the sightly rancid taste.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 May, 2022, 10:49:59 am
Sure it’s not dog's milk?

Quote
Nothing wrong with dog's milk.  Full of goodness, full of vitamins, full of marrowbone jelly.  Lasts longer than any other type of milk, dog's milk. […] Plus the advantage of dog's milk is when it goes off it takes exactly the same as when it's fresh.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 20 May, 2022, 12:11:41 pm
I saw a sign advertising camels' milk on yesterday's ride.  Which begged the obvious question, to which I suppose the answer is "very carefully".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 20 May, 2022, 12:22:48 pm
The song Gimme hope Jo'anna is an anti apartheid song

When you actually listen to it then its fairly obvious but I'd clearly never really listened to it before

Did have to find out who Jo'anna was and turned out to be what and Johannesburg
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 20 May, 2022, 12:35:43 pm
Eddie Grant did a great version at the 1988 Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Concert at Wembley. The official video makes the apartheid connection very clear.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 May, 2022, 01:01:10 pm
My erstwhile chum Samfast, a FLJS of no fixed ethical standards and last heard of slumming it in Australia, once interviewed Eddy Grant and as a result has a standing invitation to stay at his private island off Guyana.  The bastard.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 May, 2022, 02:38:49 pm
I saw a sign advertising camels' milk on yesterday's ride.  Which begged the obvious question, to which I suppose the answer is "very carefully".
I understand it's pink, which is actually because it contains traces of blood. Camel blood, obvs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 20 May, 2022, 05:07:39 pm
Anyone for camelpox?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 20 May, 2022, 08:20:44 pm
Anyone for camelpox?

Apparently it gives you the right hump
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 20 May, 2022, 08:41:40 pm
Anyone for camelpox?

Apparently it gives you the right hump

If you drink enough it gives you two
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Zipperhead on 20 May, 2022, 10:25:34 pm
Anyone for camelpox?

Apparently it gives you the right hump

If you drink enough it gives you two
But what does it do to your toes?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 21 May, 2022, 09:29:38 am
Makes them grow short, curly hair, obvs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 May, 2022, 09:58:48 am
That sounds more like hobbititis.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 21 May, 2022, 11:57:38 am
That toast alarms smoke detectors have a replace by date. I mean it's obvious they would if you think about it but I never did until I noticed it when replacing a battery this morning.

The two I've checked should both have gone in early 2013.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 May, 2022, 12:36:48 pm
Related factoid: The half-life of Amerecium 241 is 432.2 years.  The expiry date on smoke detectors is determined by the expected time the electronics will stay functional and correctly calibrated, and applies to optical and heat sensors as much as the ionisation type.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: perpetual dan on 21 May, 2022, 01:09:31 pm
There seems to be a smoke alarm shortage at the moment, so unless it’s fried itself (like two of mine) you might want to hold off the replacements!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 21 May, 2022, 04:03:22 pm
There seems to be a smoke alarm shortage at the moment, so unless it’s fried itself (like two of mine) you might want to hold off the replacements!

Like many things electronic they’re made in China.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 22 May, 2022, 07:48:51 am
Coincidences.  On the idiot box yestere'en a programme about rail freight from which I learnt that Mr. Hershey, he of the !chocolate, built (or had built) a railway and a town both of which were named after him (how modest) on Cuba to take advantage of the readily available sugar supplies.  The railway is still operational and the town of Hershey is still inhabited.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 May, 2022, 10:09:54 am
Henry Ford tried something similar with rubber in Brazil.  Fordlândia was officially abandoned in 1934, though the houses built for the rubber tappers are still in use.  Wikinaccurate says:

Quote
The town had a strict set of rules imposed by the managers. Alcohol, women, tobacco and even football were forbidden within the town, including inside the workers' own homes. Inspectors would go from house to house to check how organised the houses were and to enforce these rules.

Banning football?  In Brazil?  No wonder it went titsup.com.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 22 May, 2022, 10:22:09 am
Fordlandia is one of the places that features on Abandoned Engineering - a generally interesting programme if a little irritating in style as it dumbs things down and tries to build up suspense of "what on earth could that have been for?" before the generally obvious reveal.
(Most of the time it was the Nazis. Or someone fighting the Nazis).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 22 May, 2022, 11:22:44 am
It’s possible to change a set of guitar strings without bloodshed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 May, 2022, 11:35:30 am
Fordlandia is one of the places that features on Abandoned Engineering - a generally interesting programme if a little irritating in style as it dumbs things down and tries to build up suspense of "what on earth could that have been for?" before the generally obvious reveal.
(Most of the time it was the Nazis. Or someone fighting the Nazis).

My chum Fergus would refer generically to the broadcasters carrying such Stuffs as “The Nazi Channel”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 22 May, 2022, 12:42:04 pm
There seems to be a smoke alarm shortage at the moment, so unless it’s fried itself (like two of mine) you might want to hold off the replacements!
I've just managed to order a couple from Tool Station.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pedaldog. on 22 May, 2022, 11:35:15 pm
It’s possible to change a set of guitar strings without bloodshed.

Ijust get my sister (Sprogs) to do it. New strings and I shed no blood.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 May, 2022, 08:48:57 am
That before paradise meant heaven, it meant a garden. Actually derived from Old Persian word referring to both the garden and the wall or other enclosure round it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 23 May, 2022, 08:28:21 pm
That there is an A Team episode in which Boy George plays a major role.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 May, 2022, 08:52:34 pm
That there is an A Team episode in which Boy George plays a major role.

I remember that one!  Some sort of booking cockup, I believe.

I assume it ends, as most things do in the A-Team universe, in an astoundingly incompetent gunfight.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 23 May, 2022, 09:12:43 pm
I've never watched any A Team, but I may seek out this one to see if it amuses.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 23 May, 2022, 09:27:49 pm
The great thing about 80s tv was that each needed just the one plot which could be reliably rolled out each episode. They'd sometimes spice things up with the recap episode of course, where they splice together clips from previous episodes with five seconds of new material that they'd found on the cutting room floor to get essentially a free episode.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 24 May, 2022, 07:53:30 am
I've just taken delivery of a box set of all of the episodes of Strangers, a detectivvy sort of thing that ran in the 70s and 80s which, at the time, I thought was the dog's doo-dahs.
10 discs.
I managed about 15 minutes of it before deciding that it is a pile of dire shite.
Next stop for the box set is the charity shop.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 24 May, 2022, 08:32:58 am
Just had a quick look at Amazon reviews to see if I remembered it. Don't think I do, though I must have seen it. One review suggests it gets much better once it settles in, so maybe dip into one of the middle disks?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 May, 2022, 09:03:33 am
That was the one with Don Henderson as scruffy oik DS Bulman, no?  I rather enjoyed it back in the day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 24 May, 2022, 09:05:19 am
That was the one with Don Henderson as scruffy oik DS Bulman, no?  I rather enjoyed it back in the day.
That's the one - with a Vick inhaler permanently stuck up his nez.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 May, 2022, 09:56:50 am
Today I are learning that Eleanor Roosevelt's maiden name was…



… Roosevelt.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 May, 2022, 10:11:27 am
That was the one with Don Henderson as scruffy oik DS Bulman, no?  I rather enjoyed it back in the day.
That's the one - with a Vick inhaler permanently stuck up his nez.

Reminds me of that bit in Les Ripoux where they spike the commissaire's inhaler with cocaine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 May, 2022, 04:42:31 pm
That there is an A Team episode in which Boy George plays a major role.
I really want to see Boy George and Mr T side by side.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 May, 2022, 05:36:38 pm
That Christianity makes you eat meat. Apart from the Seventh Day Adventists.
Quote
Christianity is often regarded as a staunch opponent of veganism – after all, most Christian denominations are highly carnivorous in their dietary ethics. Many proclaim liberty to consume animal flesh as they assume animals to be a gift created for food by God.
https://theconversation.com/why-seventh-day-adventists-are-so-often-vegan-or-vegetarian-177298

 ???
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 May, 2022, 07:43:47 am
Gee, Martha, I'd never have guessed:

Scientists Found an Animal That Walks on Three Limbs. It’s a Parrot. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/science/parrots-three-limbs.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iWka3DIDm8diP8eAoWG8EqKfaN5fdwvxHGHRMVMPforRfl41alfI0lpAUGOk6ezpa4kcW8zuJ7hGSQ_xY7MVrQ1tmHgNjfod-wngeG2tRjDbTPrC7iMhXNyOAhiosBhIV2q0CNYkrzXUbIggqkI1vYmBZl-TTgFdXPK66GuU0MiTY3AOhLM6QA2WPVbXSXTmbOf7rEHdAZVATHWXS81oDZ8uJ4HZoRhbOuoJAUgecH-nbwVFmduSY-vDJE2TITf_K54YXxAMxB_MOfsfXrVHImSSQ&smid=url-share&utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=035058e3fd-briefing-dy-20220525&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-035058e3fd-46873974)

I know a better one: water's wet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 26 May, 2022, 09:57:30 am
Gee, Martha, I'd never have guessed:

Scientists Found an Animal That Walks on Three Limbs. It’s a Parrot. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/science/parrots-three-limbs.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iWka3DIDm8diP8eAoWG8EqKfaN5fdwvxHGHRMVMPforRfl41alfI0lpAUGOk6ezpa4kcW8zuJ7hGSQ_xY7MVrQ1tmHgNjfod-wngeG2tRjDbTPrC7iMhXNyOAhiosBhIV2q0CNYkrzXUbIggqkI1vYmBZl-TTgFdXPK66GuU0MiTY3AOhLM6QA2WPVbXSXTmbOf7rEHdAZVATHWXS81oDZ8uJ4HZoRhbOuoJAUgecH-nbwVFmduSY-vDJE2TITf_K54YXxAMxB_MOfsfXrVHImSSQ&smid=url-share&utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=035058e3fd-briefing-dy-20220525&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-035058e3fd-46873974)

I know a better one: water's wet.

And one that walks on 5 - the kangaroo
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 26 May, 2022, 08:33:30 pm
That traditionally made Soy sauce takes up to four years to mature in timber barrels. A quick Google reveals 1,000 day sauce for sale.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 26 May, 2022, 09:19:06 pm
R G Jarvis, the BR engineer who rebuilt the Southern Railway Merchant Navies into what is generally regarded as being a much less troublesome form, also worked on the design of the HST.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 26 May, 2022, 09:19:46 pm
That traditionally made Soy sauce takes up to four years to mature in timber barrels. A quick Google reveals 1,000 day sauce for sale.
Meh, I reckon there's 8 year old soy sauce in the back of my kitchen cupboard.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 26 May, 2022, 09:38:09 pm
That traditionally made Soy sauce takes up to four years to mature in timber barrels. A quick Google reveals 1,000 day sauce for sale.
Meh, I reckon there's 8 year old soy sauce in the back of my kitchen cupboard.

Yes, Rog, but if it is your house, what's the chances it is mature?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 26 May, 2022, 09:46:02 pm
That traditionally made Soy sauce takes up to four years to mature in timber barrels. A quick Google reveals 1,000 day sauce for sale.
Meh, I reckon there's 8 year old soy sauce in the back of my kitchen cupboard.

Yes, Rog, but if it is your house, what's the chances it is mature?
It's still reading Viz and making fart noises.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 27 May, 2022, 01:32:18 am
That Christianity makes you eat meat. Apart from the Seventh Day Adventists.
Quote
Christianity is often regarded as a staunch opponent of veganism – after all, most Christian denominations are highly carnivorous in their dietary ethics. Many proclaim liberty to consume animal flesh as they assume animals to be a gift created for food by God.
https://theconversation.com/why-seventh-day-adventists-are-so-often-vegan-or-vegetarian-177298

 ???

Yeah but that group came in to existance when some called the end of the world twice.  Both times they were wrong.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Gattopardo on 27 May, 2022, 01:34:12 am
I've just taken delivery of a box set of all of the episodes of Strangers, a detectivvy sort of thing that ran in the 70s and 80s which, at the time, I thought was the dog's doo-dahs.
10 discs.
I managed about 15 minutes of it before deciding that it is a pile of dire shite.
Next stop for the box set is the charity shop.

Dpn't remember that, why not share it round here?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 27 May, 2022, 05:41:17 pm
You can actually buy Brawndo now.  The same firm is working on Sex Panther.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 30 May, 2022, 10:12:32 am
I have learned at first hand that the current weather in the Scottish Highlands is, officially, pish.  :(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 30 May, 2022, 12:36:50 pm
I have learned at first hand that the current weather in the Scottish Highlands is, officially, pish.  :(
Furryboots are you then?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 30 May, 2022, 12:48:08 pm
I have learned at first hand that the current weather in the Scottish Highlands is, officially, pish.  :(
Furryboots are your then?

grantown on Spey caravan park, to be precise. On the other side of the Cairngorm national park from Brenda.

If we end up down your parts, I'll wave.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 May, 2022, 12:48:23 pm
From the sound of it somewhere furry boots are needed to prevent one’s toes from turning blue and falling off.

Edit: if it’s any consolation it's raining in East Londonton too, but fortunately didn’t start until after I'd ridden back from Mr Sainsbury’s House of Toothy Comestibles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 30 May, 2022, 02:01:29 pm
That a) Eric Coates composed it, and b) the inspiration for "By the Sleepy Lagoon"*  came from looking across the sea from Selsey to Bognor.

* Desert Island Discs theme music
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 30 May, 2022, 03:43:36 pm
That in the 1938 Old Trafford Ashes test match, which because of rain was abandoned without a ball being bowled, one of the umpires was A Dolphin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 30 May, 2022, 03:46:08 pm
... and that matches in that series were scheduled to last 4 days, except the last one, which was a 'timeless' test, but which was nevertheless concluded in 4 days.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 30 May, 2022, 07:00:25 pm
From the sound of it somewhere furry boots are needed to prevent one’s toes from turning blue and falling off.

Edit: if it’s any consolation it's raining in East Londonton too, but fortunately didn’t start until after I'd ridden back from Mr Sainsbury’s House of Toothy Comestibles.

I'll just note that the temperature on the Scottish border as we passed through yesterday at around 10:30 was 4 and one half of your finest Celsius degrees.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 30 May, 2022, 07:12:31 pm
From the sound of it somewhere furry boots are needed to prevent one’s toes from turning blue and falling off.

Edit: if it’s any consolation it's raining in East Londonton too, but fortunately didn’t start until after I'd ridden back from Mr Sainsbury’s House of Toothy Comestibles.

I'll just note that the temperature on the Scottish border as we passed through yesterday at around 10:30 was 4 and one half of your finest Celsius degrees.

Yes, the temperature profile on my 400k ABZ-EDI-ABZ the other day was fairly chilly.

Setting off at 6am, the air temperature was below 7 degrees and there was a bitingly cold wind. It did warm up after about 10am, but as the day grew old, the temperature went into terminal decline, falling steadily through the night.  It dropped below 10 degrees before sunset, and fell to 2 degrees overnight.

I was wearing all my kit by this point: Winter-weight longs, merino thermal, two winter-weight tops, and a full waterproof to keep the wind off me.
(I'd planned a drop-bag in Edinburgh and changed into the overnight kit there.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 May, 2022, 07:35:17 pm
(https://live.staticflickr.com/1856/29480257217_96fd3ef014_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/LV52oR)
"We have two seasons here; Winter and August" (https://flic.kr/p/LV52oR) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr

September 1st, Chicken AK :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 May, 2022, 08:35:49 pm
Today I are learning that there is a band called Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, who clearly merit further investigation.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 31 May, 2022, 11:01:18 pm
Today I are learning that there is a band called Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, who clearly merit further investigation.
Wasn't he the bloke that crashed his ship, and several others, into the Isles of Scilly in Thee Olden Days?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 June, 2022, 12:19:43 am
Today I are learning that there is a band called Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, who clearly merit further investigation.
Wasn't he the bloke that crashed his ship, and several others, into the Isles of Scilly in Thee Olden Days?

He was, in 1707.  Aiming for Portsmouth, but missed.  That was where I knew the name from.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 June, 2022, 07:39:08 am
Today I are learning that there is a band called Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, who clearly merit further investigation.
Wasn't he the bloke that crashed his ship, and several others, into the Isles of Scilly in Thee Olden Days?

He was, in 1707.  Aiming for Portsmouth, but missed.  That was where I knew the name from.

I remember him from one of Addison's essays:

"Sir Cloudesley Shovel's monument has very often given me great offence: instead of the plain rough English Admiral which was the distinguishing character of that plain gallant man, he is represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy of state. The inscription is answerable to the monument; for instead of celebrating the many remarkable actions he had performed in the service of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it is impossible for him to reap any honour."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 01 June, 2022, 08:07:41 am
Quote from: Mr Larrington
Quote from: Tim Hall
Quote from: Mr Larrington
Today I are learning that there is a band called Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, who clearly merit further investigation.
Wasn't he the bloke that crashed his ship, and several others, into the Isles of Scilly in Thee Olden Days?

He was, in 1707.  Aiming for Portsmouth, but missed.  That was where I knew the name from.
And, *if* I remember the relevant passage in Dava Sobell's, "Longitude" correctly, a posthumous candidate for the super twat thread.  Having been most respectfully been advised by a lower deck oik that he was in danger of running the fleet onto the rocks he ignored said advice and (increasingly unreliable memory says) had the oik flogged (or hanged) for breaching a regulation prohibiting lower deck oiks from reckoning the ship's postion.  He then ran the fleet into the rocks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 June, 2022, 08:45:29 am
I have learnt that there is a district of Toronto yklept with the wonderful name Cabbagetown.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 June, 2022, 09:27:23 am
I have learnt that there is a district of Toronto yklept with the wonderful name Cabbagetown.

There's on near us called Krautwiller, which comes to much the same thing.  Kraut may also mean herb, though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 01 June, 2022, 09:36:33 am
Quote from: Mr Larrington
Quote from: Tim Hall
Quote from: Mr Larrington
Today I are learning that there is a band called Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, who clearly merit further investigation.
Wasn't he the bloke that crashed his ship, and several others, into the Isles of Scilly in Thee Olden Days?

He was, in 1707.  Aiming for Portsmouth, but missed.  That was where I knew the name from.
And, *if* I remember the relevant passage in Dava Sobell's, "Longitude" correctly, a posthumous candidate for the super twat thread.  Having been most respectfully been advised by a lower deck oik that he was in danger of running the fleet onto the rocks he ignored said advice and (increasingly unreliable memory says) had the oik flogged (or hanged) for breaching a regulation prohibiting lower deck oiks from reckoning the ship's postion.  He then ran the fleet into the rocks.


You do.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 June, 2022, 11:27:13 am
It transpires that Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell are a stoner met'l band from Hastings so I shall require Miss von Brandenburg to check them out once she’s moved down there, subject to surveys and Plague obv.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 June, 2022, 04:10:17 pm
That Tiananmen Square tank man didn't get run over. In my memory the tank tried to swerve round him but failed and squashed him. In fact it seems it stopped, he climbed on top and tried to get in, and then was dragged away by soldiers coming out of the hatches. Possibly it got mixed up in my memory with another incident, possibly just wrong!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 June, 2022, 06:46:31 pm
Today I are learning that if you RTFM of your Zippo lighter and trim the manky charred bits off the end of the wick it will burn Poundland lighter fuel just as readily as the pukka high-octane Zippo stuff at three times the price.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 08 June, 2022, 06:49:13 pm
Not today, but yesterday.
It's surprisingly difficult trying to paint a fence while being attacked by a fence adjacent shrubbery.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 08 June, 2022, 09:49:34 pm
After reading the Div thread and having my linguistic (Scottish division)  curiosity tweaked, what a dwang is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ashaman42 on 08 June, 2022, 10:56:29 pm
A dwang is a thing I've googled at least three times as a result of this place and forgotten by the next time it appears. Maybe this time it'll stick.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 June, 2022, 11:01:58 pm
I am disappointed to learn that “dwang” is not actually anything smutty.

Edit: except for viewers in Swindon, obv.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 09 June, 2022, 11:17:44 am
I worked with a fellow architectural technician who hailed from Oban, and he always annotated his drawings using Scots terminology, mainly to wind up our manager, who was a prick of the first order.  It was rife with dwangs, ingoes and halfits.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 09 June, 2022, 11:57:20 am
That the UK agent for Exped (and several others) is Lyon Equipment based in Penrith. Most helpful.
https://www.lyon.co.uk/contact-lyon-equipment-ltd
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 09 June, 2022, 12:40:48 pm
The difference between a meteorite and a meteoroid (and that there was such a word as meteoroid).

And, yesterday, that the word "isochronous" actually does exist. I don't think it would translate well for our Japanese colleagues.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 09 June, 2022, 11:48:41 pm
What an IDP is (prompted by  Mr Larrington (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=115502.msg2728255#msg2728255)) and that we don't need one for next month.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 June, 2022, 09:24:27 am
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.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 10 June, 2022, 12:07:59 pm
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?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 10 June, 2022, 12:33:24 pm
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.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 June, 2022, 12:46:02 pm
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).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 10 June, 2022, 12:49:08 pm
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!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 10 June, 2022, 01:06:24 pm
They come as standard with Continental tubes

OMG , so they do!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 June, 2022, 02:17:43 pm
Grommets, eh?  Aren't they, like, people who really enjoy their food?

["No. No they are not." - Ed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 June, 2022, 05:08:52 pm
Yesterday: that my favourite pizzeria for lunch on a favourite 150-200k bummel is closed at lunchtime on Saturdays.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 13 June, 2022, 08:58:11 pm
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.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 June, 2022, 12:01:05 am
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.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 14 June, 2022, 06:39:34 am
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.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 14 June, 2022, 11:56:45 am
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.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 14 June, 2022, 12:44:25 pm
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.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 June, 2022, 04:10:57 pm
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.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 14 June, 2022, 07:48:33 pm
What Donk- and Swampbuggy- and Crown Vic-on-nitrous- racing are. In Florida, natch.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 June, 2022, 11:18:04 am
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.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 17 June, 2022, 12:32:10 pm
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
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 June, 2022, 12:38:28 pm
Lease the fishing rights ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 17 June, 2022, 12:44:00 pm
Lease the fishing rights ;D

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
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 June, 2022, 02:36:14 pm
There is a snail farm in the next village but one from ours, about 3 km away.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 June, 2022, 03:46:55 pm
at least you'll have time to pack if they go rogue and escape  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 17 June, 2022, 05:40:16 pm
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
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 22 June, 2022, 07:12:23 pm
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
 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 22 June, 2022, 09:40:45 pm
The logical conclusion from that is we should all be kissing more often to improve their chances of survival. :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 June, 2022, 10:41:06 am
Today I are learning that the “Steve” part of Cold War Steve's moniker refers to TV's Steve McFadden, who always appears in his collages.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 25 June, 2022, 10:58:49 am
Today I are learning who Steve McFadden is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: bhoot on 25 June, 2022, 09:13:12 pm
That the Woolwich Ferry no longer runs at weekends.... apparently since early June until further notice. I assume it's a TfL cut as they have also reduced to a one boat service every day (was two Mon-Fri). Not a big problem as a cyclist as it is always quicker to go under the river, andthe lifts are moderately reliable there, but sometimes it was nice to use the ferry.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 26 June, 2022, 08:25:32 am
Today I are learning who Steve McFadden is.

Ditto since you mentioned it.  I'll have forgotten by lunchtime.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 26 June, 2022, 12:36:26 pm
That the Woolwich Ferry no longer runs at weekends.... apparently since early June until further notice. I assume it's a TfL cut as they have also reduced to a one boat service every day (was two Mon-Fri). Not a big problem as a cyclist as it is always quicker to go under the river, andthe lifts are moderately reliable there, but sometimes it was nice to use the ferry.
They've also cut down on the staffing levels to the point where it only takes a couple of staff to call in sick, causing them  to have insufficient crew to operate the service safely.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 28 June, 2022, 07:28:42 am
That somebody makes a seat pack with a £200 price tag

https://www.bikester.co.uk/revelate-designs-spine-s-saddle-bag-10l-M848158.html?vgid=G1193629&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=220627_CW25_BKU_summer_vacation&_cid=32_1&sc_src=email_6324&sc_lid=892887&sc_uid=X1LhakJ9QF&sc_llid=244&sc_customer=fc3920ad43c198f3a8635b5d3751f4d41a9a880967c2509be9e1336624fa0581 (https://www.bikester.co.uk/revelate-designs-spine-s-saddle-bag-10l-M848158.html?vgid=G1193629&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=220627_CW25_BKU_summer_vacation&_cid=32_1&sc_src=email_6324&sc_lid=892887&sc_uid=X1LhakJ9QF&sc_llid=244&sc_customer=fc3920ad43c198f3a8635b5d3751f4d41a9a880967c2509be9e1336624fa0581)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 June, 2022, 07:33:15 am
Bloody 'ell.  The bastard should pedal the bike for that price.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 28 June, 2022, 08:42:27 am
That the Woolwich Ferry no longer runs at weekends.... apparently since early June until further notice. I assume it's a TfL cut as they have also reduced to a one boat service every day (was two Mon-Fri). Not a big problem as a cyclist as it is always quicker to go under the river, andthe lifts are moderately reliable there, but sometimes it was nice to use the ferry.
They've also cut down on the staffing levels to the point where it only takes a couple of staff to call in sick, causing them  to have insufficient crew to operate the service safely.

Every time I've been over that way recently it's been suspended, probably for this reason. I don't think I've seen it running since they added the new boats.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 28 June, 2022, 09:07:11 am
TfL website says one boat service 07.00-18.00 Mon-Fri only.

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/river/woolwich-ferry?intcmp=16238 (https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/river/woolwich-ferry?intcmp=16238)

Seem to recall there being some dispute with the operating staff.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 28 June, 2022, 09:09:54 am
TfL website says one boat service 07.00-18.00 Mon-Fri only.

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/river/woolwich-ferry?intcmp=16238 (https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/river/woolwich-ferry?intcmp=16238)

Seem to recall there being some dispute with the operating staff.
I think that the staff's gripe was along the lines of he can only operate one boat at a time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 28 June, 2022, 09:18:07 am
I'm not sure why they bothered replacing the boats (at presumably great expense), that's effectively no longer a ferry service.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 June, 2022, 10:05:35 am
They put Chris Grayling in charge?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 28 June, 2022, 12:32:54 pm
That somebody who isn't Radical Designs or Brompton makes a seat pack with a £200 price tag

FTFY   ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 June, 2022, 01:24:35 pm
That the Faroe islands had prohibition of alcohol from 1907 to 1992, following a referendum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1907_Faroese_alcohol_referendum
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CommuteTooFar on 01 July, 2022, 06:23:18 pm
Today I had a dividend from a share I hold.

Suppose I owned 1000 shares.  A dividend of 2.07p per share. I would expect £20.70

The share website showed the payment split in two. So a truncation error occurred and I got a total of £20.69.

Theft! they have stolen a penny from me :-)

So I enquired, WTF.

Apparently the dividend was made up of normal share income and interest payments so the dividend had to be split.  Always good to learn something. My dividend calculation of my spreadsheet has got a little less ignorant.
 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 July, 2022, 05:03:50 pm
If you need to oil your front derailleur, do it the night before you ride and not immediately beforehand.  Mine was sticky for the first 40k and fine thereafter: it took that long for the oil to penetrate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 02 July, 2022, 09:00:34 pm
That John Ashe, the brother of Arthur Ashe, volunteered for a second tour of Vietnam so that Arthur wouldn’t need to serve there and could continue his tennis career.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 03 July, 2022, 11:46:46 am
Watching some wallpaper (well, reading whilst my wife fell asleep to some wallpaper) I learnt that there is a very un-wolf like Spotted Wolf (more like a short haired hyena). Also that on the Galapagos there is a Vampire Finch that pecks at Boobies, principally to annoy them off the nest so eggs can be stolen, but that takes advantage by drinking the blood it draws.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Zipperhead on 05 July, 2022, 05:39:51 pm
By the end of the last little disagreement between the Germanic tribes and almost everybody else, a brown bear had been promoted to the rank of Corporal in the Polish army (https://www.argunners.com/wojtek-the-bear-that-fought-in-world-war-2/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 05 July, 2022, 06:11:57 pm
I discovered you can put '&' in xlookup in Excel to combine two lookup criteria. This gave me inordinate pleasure. Still, spare a moment for those array formulae, now left to contemplate the void.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 06 July, 2022, 10:04:51 pm
The Bortle scale of light pollution. A  9 level scale of the background night light level.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Lightning Phil on 06 July, 2022, 10:14:32 pm
When formatting hours and minutes in Excel , the format [hh]:mm , ensures that hours are not mod 24.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 06 July, 2022, 10:28:02 pm
When formatting hours and minutes in Excel , the format [hh]:mm , ensures that hours are not mod 24.

Doing stuff with time in excel is so fraught with pitfalls, I tend to write down what I've done to make it work, such as how I can get actual hours:min:sec, rather than taking (hours-hours in whole days):min:sec, or is tha what you meant?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 July, 2022, 11:29:26 am
That former World Chess Champion Mikhail Tal had only 3 digits on his right hand.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 07 July, 2022, 11:52:16 am
When formatting hours and minutes in Excel , the format [hh]:mm , ensures that hours are not mod 24.

Doing stuff with time in excel is so fraught with pitfalls, I tend to write down what I've done to make it work, such as how I can get actual hours:min:sec, rather than taking (hours-hours in whole days):min:sec, or is tha what you meant?

That's what I'd understand "mod 24" to mean - the remainder after division by 24.  It's an operator in most programming languages, often represented by the '%' symbol (though it's 'Mod' in Excel VBA).

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 07 July, 2022, 12:33:26 pm
Taking the output of various scripts, jiggling it in Excel, so I can insert graphs in Powerpoint is like a terrifying rollercoaster, just without the potential relief of being flung free of the car and into a field of thorn bushes and hungry tigers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 July, 2022, 09:24:32 pm
That the Albanian surname Hoxha, as in Enver Hoxha, is, like so many surnames, associated with a particular profession; in this case, teacher.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 July, 2022, 05:59:00 pm
The retroreflective bits on clothing are visible on x-rays.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 July, 2022, 06:37:15 pm
The retroreflective bits on clothing are visible on x-rays.
Not posted from A&E I hope?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 July, 2022, 07:37:07 pm
The retroreflective bits on clothing are visible on x-rays.
Not posted from A&E I hope?

Nope.  Barakta was having her bone healing checked (more to come in another thread, I expect).  She'd cunningly worn some loose-fitting Decathlon running trousers that we'd preemptively bought for ease of physioterrorism, etc.  so was able to head off the initial line of inaudible radiographer questioning with "There's no metal in these trousers, and my last period was n days ago".  We hadn't anticipated the Kalenji logo hovering above the image of her right knee, thobut.

Apparently it's becoming a real problem with $stripey_sportswear_brand.  Something to bear in mind if you're trying to avoid having to undress for x-rays.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 17 July, 2022, 06:32:19 pm
That there is an item of clothing called a "shacket". No. Just no.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: perpetual dan on 17 July, 2022, 07:09:49 pm
That there is an item of clothing called a "shacket". No. Just no.
Combined shorts and jacket?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 17 July, 2022, 07:13:37 pm
That there is an item of clothing called a "shacket". No. Just no.
Combined shorts and jacket?

Shirt/Jacket surely?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 18 July, 2022, 05:51:50 am
Shawl/jacket?

I may have seen one in the wild, without knowing it
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Hot Flatus on 18 July, 2022, 06:41:26 am
That there is an item of clothing called a "shacket". No. Just no.

I've got about 4 of them. They are great 👍
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 18 July, 2022, 07:26:06 am
I was thinking it might be along the lines of the men's onesie shirt - a polo shirt with snaps under the crotch to stop it coming out of your trousers. An awesome look.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 July, 2022, 07:31:56 am
How to tie a Prusik. Nifty.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 18 July, 2022, 10:37:13 am
I have always wondered why kids are not taught a few basic knots at school as a life skill.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 July, 2022, 10:43:06 am
"Please, miss, Ralfie just hanged Jeanette."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 July, 2022, 10:48:11 am
That there is an item of clothing called a "shacket". No. Just no.

Cursory use of a FWSE suggests it’s a jacket with MOAR buttons.  If I wanted a jacket with MOAR buttons I for one would get a Mao jacket and wear it while brandishing my old red passport at the head of a column of AFVs in central London.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 18 July, 2022, 10:57:44 am
"Please, miss, Ralfie just hanged Jeanette."
I must confess I did not have a noose in mind.  :-D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 July, 2022, 04:06:32 pm
The Edwardian nipple rule in planning regulations:
Quote
In many parts of the UK, homes that face each other at the rear are required to be built 21 metres apart... The 21-metre rule is, according to the Stirling prize-winning architect Annalie Riches, a bizarre hangover from 1902, originally intended to protect the modesty of Edwardian women. The urban designers Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker walked apart in a field until they could no longer see each other’s nipples through their shirts. The two men measured the distance between them to be 70ft (21 metres), and this became the distance that is still used today, 120 years later, to dictate how far apart many British homes should be built.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 20 July, 2022, 04:19:40 pm
The Edwardian nipple rule in planning regulations:
Quote
In many parts of the UK, homes that face each other at the rear are required to be built 21 metres apart... The 21-metre rule is, according to the Stirling prize-winning architect Annalie Riches, a bizarre hangover from 1902, originally intended to protect the modesty of Edwardian women. The urban designers Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker walked apart in a field until they could no longer see each other’s nipples through their shirts. The two men measured the distance between them to be 70ft (21 metres), and this became the distance that is still used today, 120 years later, to dictate how far apart many British homes should be built.

I have a telephoto lens that could see nipples much further away than that  :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 20 July, 2022, 06:16:39 pm
That Dolby Digital sound on 35 mm film was encoded as 2D barcode in between the sprocket holes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 20 July, 2022, 08:02:29 pm
That Glasgow is in England.  Well it is according to Joe Biden. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 July, 2022, 08:02:06 pm
Today I are learning that, except at the start, inflatable structures are forbidden by the UCI.  This following A Yates being attacked by Thee Bouncy Castle ov Doom on the Tour that time.  yeh.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 22 July, 2022, 08:59:33 pm
I remember that, but not TEH ROOLZ change
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 July, 2022, 11:59:34 pm
Nice* C Boardman has been turning a trawl through the UCI rule book into a series of featurettes for the Tour highlights show; this one came up tonight.

* At least, I think it’s Nice C rather than Evil C.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 23 July, 2022, 02:11:41 am
Electricity. So many lies. It’s not even in the wires. They don’t tell you that. Poynting vectors. Sneaky.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 July, 2022, 06:45:11 am
Crappy holiday camps too, from what I've heard.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 25 July, 2022, 08:25:42 pm
Try putting your glasses on, you idiot, then you won’t need to spend 10 minutes wondering why a USB-C plug won’t fit in a Micro USB socket.

This reminds me of a thing I learned last week:

If you're groping around blindly at the back of a Babbage-engine, a USB-C plug will, apparently, fit in a USB-A socket.  With *hilarious* consequences.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 26 July, 2022, 11:54:38 am
That a "cyclorameur" is a thing: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284889092332
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 July, 2022, 12:01:54 pm
Not knowing the French for rowing, I would just have assumed that was a cyclorama. But no.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 July, 2022, 12:15:15 pm
That Reach plc owns the Express and Star families. I was only aware of the local titles. Also that they regard print titles as still being their "cash engine".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 29 July, 2022, 12:34:56 pm
From a local chap on Next Door.

Just found out Richmond Park has more trees older than 500 years than the whole of France and Germany combined (oak being the majority).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 July, 2022, 01:06:58 pm
Why computer people get excited by the Eurovision Song Contest:
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=55443#more-55443
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 July, 2022, 01:32:01 pm
That link appears to be about the Euphemism Song Contest.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 July, 2022, 02:21:31 pm
That link appears to be about the Euphemism Song Contest.
;D :D ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 01 August, 2022, 10:18:27 am
That Annemiek Van Vleuten is from Vleuten.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 01 August, 2022, 12:08:58 pm
That Postman Pat's black-and-white mog, Jess, is a male cat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 August, 2022, 10:42:49 pm
That various unremarkable kitchen items appear interesting colours when the kitchen lighting goes to purple alert.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 06 August, 2022, 08:49:03 pm
The origin of “to wait one’s turn” dates from waiting to have your grain milled.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 06 August, 2022, 08:56:54 pm
What is?

the kitchen lighting goes to purple alert.
???
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 06 August, 2022, 10:52:42 pm
What is?

the kitchen lighting goes to purple alert.
???

In a vague attempt to make the kitchen more pleasant, I have augmented the landlord-issue central pendant that casts a shadow on whatever you're doing with:

- A smart bulb in a basic ES lamp holder screwed to a Mk 1 Useful Bit Of Wood™ from ye shedde.  This is plonked on top of the fridge, pointing upwards into the gloomy corner.

- Some of that 12V LED strip stuff, stuck to the underside of the cupboards above the useful bit of work surface.  Driven by a Chinesium LED strip controller.

Both of these are running Tasmota (https://tasmota.github.io/docs/)[1], with some rules that turn them on automagically when there's someone in the room in hours of gloom.  So far, so sensible.

But since they're both capable of full RGBW colour-mixing[2], I've added assorted rules to change their colour to something garish and primary to indicate things-the-alerting-system-is-trying-to-draw-barakta's-attention-to.  Doorbell, fire alarm, phone ringing, that sort of thing.  Purple Alert was a late addition for barakta's hip surgery last year, which is triggered by one of those hospital nursey-call-button thingers, with a view to me getting some decent sleep in the proper bed upstairs while she was living in the dining room.  I've never actually seen it happen from the kitchen (I copy&pasted the colour rules from the landing light) before, until testing something last week.


[1] Internet-of shit devices without the internet, basically.
[2] Without changing the bulb, like they have to do in Starbug.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 07 August, 2022, 08:11:44 am
That pulling a hard vacuum is both incredibly difficult and thus extremely expensive. When you get towards extremely low vacuum values you enter the realms of probability as you try to capture the remaining molecules. You need at least four different types of pump as you go through the various stages and the outputs of the later pumps need to be connected to the inputs of the previous pumps because of the pressure gradient. It’s an unbelievably complex and fascinating subject.

Oh, and the seemingly arbitrary hight where space officially starts is called the Karmen line, and isn’t quite as arbitrarily selected as its height would suggest (100k). More science.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 August, 2022, 09:04:41 am
some rules that turn them on automagically when there's someone in the room in hours of gloom. 
When there's someone in the room
In the hours of gloom
Boris Johnson in the fridge
Will meet his doom




sorry
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 11 August, 2022, 08:53:20 pm
That 30% of WW2 dead were Chinese, in fighting Japan. On a side note “Inside Japan’s War” on PBS is fascinating.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: meddyg on 11 August, 2022, 10:56:06 pm
The origin of “to wait one’s turn” dates from waiting to have your grain milled.

cf. Welsh expression 'Y cyntaf i'r felin caiff falu'
first to the mill gets ground/milled first

(approx 'early bird catches the worm.')
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 17 August, 2022, 09:57:38 pm
The UK arm of SKF (as in bearings) was originally the Skefko Ball Bearing Company Ltd.  Skefko appears to be an interesting expansion of the abbreviation, which originally came from Svenska Kullagerfabriken.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 August, 2022, 07:14:58 pm
Today I are learning that the WI was invented in Canada :jurek:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 24 August, 2022, 09:05:23 pm
More yesterday than today, learning that John Betjeman was a long time resident of Wantage, where King Alfred was born.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 August, 2022, 09:29:41 pm
Also Uffington.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 25 August, 2022, 12:32:27 pm
More yesterday than today, learning that John Betjeman was a long time resident of Wantage, where King Alfred was born.
When I was a lad we had friends who lived in Wantage. The Betjeman house was at the bottom of their garden.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 August, 2022, 10:05:38 am
That the farmer in American Gothic was modelled by a dentist.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 28 August, 2022, 12:00:24 pm
That El Al fly to/from Luton airport.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 August, 2022, 03:36:58 pm
That the glue holding my bedside table together has reached the end of its bonding life.  Time to bung it full of Titebond and dowel it with toothpicks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 28 August, 2022, 05:52:34 pm
Oops.Today I have learned how to post in the wrong thread.  <heads off to the fettling thread for the real story>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 01 September, 2022, 02:27:11 pm
Jōvan "Pagan Man" aftershave is still sold in Poland.

Jōvan was one of those very 1980s uses of Peignot, my favourite kitsch font.  The diacritic is as superfluous as the one in Spinal Tap, which my phone can't type.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 September, 2022, 03:16:15 pm
I don't remember ever seeing it there, but then I was unaware of its existence till now. All a search found was some women's cologne of that name but made by a firm called Mayfair, who doubtless have no London connections whatsoever.
https://www.perfum-klik.pl/Mayfair-Pagan-Woda-Kolońska-100ml-Spray-s16738/
61% off, what a bargain!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 September, 2022, 09:26:42 pm
Today I are learning that the name of the “Rock-Ola” brand of jukebox is not some terrible neologism combining Rock'n’Roll and the suffix “-ola”, daddio, but rather derives from the name of the company founder, viz. David Cullen Rockola.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 02 September, 2022, 06:14:21 pm
According to the daily quiz in Thursdays I newspaper,  the B52s were not named after the aircraft.  They were named after the hairstyle that was so named due to its similarity to the nose cone of said aircraft.

Hmm. OK, if you say so.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 03 September, 2022, 09:32:14 pm
Today I did learn that Mr Waitrose's Emporium of Slightly More Expensive Toothy Comestibles in Horsham doesn't have a café. It has a wine bar
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 04 September, 2022, 12:05:28 pm
The Greek for gilder, or sailplane, is "Ανεμόπτερο".  Which can be rendered in English as "windwing" or, if you are of a poetical frame of mind, "windfeather".  I am really rather charmed by this.

Of course the "οπτερο" part could be (probably is) back-formed from the Latin opter (operate / work as per helicopter),  which gives a more prosaic "windpowered/driven" but I prefer my interpretation.  :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 05 September, 2022, 04:13:42 pm
Of course the "οπτερο" part could be (probably is) back-formed from the Latin opter (operate / work as per helicopter),  which gives a more prosaic "windpowered/driven" but I prefer my interpretation.  :)
Someone on here smarter than me (yes, yes, form a line) explained that there isn't an 'opter' in helicopter, it's 'helico' and 'pter' translating (roughly, IIRC) as circular wing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 05 September, 2022, 04:37:23 pm
Excellent news.  That means my poetical interpretation (hullo birds, hullo clouds, hello sky) is right.  FCVO of right.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 05 September, 2022, 05:05:02 pm
Black holes are not black (they are rather bright).

There is a supermassive black hole at the centre of every galaxy.

Courtesy of (the first two chapters) 'A brief history of black holes' by Dr Becky Smethurst
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 September, 2022, 05:13:34 pm
You can melt cheese with a heat gun but radiant heat works better for toasting.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 September, 2022, 08:00:23 pm
You can melt cheese with a heat gun but radiant heat works better for toasting.
Have you been practising cuisine a l'outil?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 05 September, 2022, 08:26:44 pm
Norwegian brown cheese apparently makes very good fuel. A lorry load of it caught fire in a tunnel a while back necessitating relining.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 06 September, 2022, 07:13:00 am
Muesli with pineapple juice and milk tastes weird.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 06 September, 2022, 07:55:53 am
You can melt cheese with a heat gun but radiant heat works better for toasting.
Have you been practising cuisine a l'outil?

Yeah, but I made a Bosch of it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 September, 2022, 08:34:59 am
You can melt cheese with a heat gun but radiant heat works better for toasting.
Have you been practising cuisine a l'outil?

Yeah, but I made a Bosch of it.
;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 06 September, 2022, 09:32:40 am
Muesli with pineapple juice and milk tastes weird.

Wouldn't that curdle the milk?  :sick:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 06 September, 2022, 12:40:29 pm
It was only a tiny splash of juice before I realised my mistake but enough to notice the taste. No curdling.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 07 September, 2022, 03:19:04 pm
That British Racing Green and Ferrari Red etc. were due to racing requirements for cars to be colour-coded according to country.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 September, 2022, 03:30:00 pm
Indeed, though any shade of green will suffice.  And the likes of Ecurie Ecosse and Rob Walker were rather naughty in appropriating the racing colours of Austria :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 07 September, 2022, 04:53:11 pm
British Racing green is such a dark shade because one of the early team owners thought green was an unlucky colour and picked a shade as close to black as possible
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 September, 2022, 06:07:58 pm
The version I heard was that Selwyn Francis Edge was given green – considered a lucky colour sur le continong – for his Gordon Bennett Napier to offset his having been awarded the race number 13.  Although Edge was actually born in Australia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 11 September, 2022, 05:49:27 pm
It's a very long way from Balmoral to Auld Reekie.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 11 September, 2022, 06:23:18 pm
That there are two versions of the Royal Standard - one for Scotland and one for the rest of the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Standard_of_the_United_Kingdom

Once again, Wales' presence on a flag is absent... :-\
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CarlF on 11 September, 2022, 06:32:48 pm
It's a very long way from Balmoral to Auld Reekie.
Especially if you start off by going fifty miles in the wrong direction
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 11 September, 2022, 07:10:26 pm
It's a very long way from Balmoral to Auld Reekie.

It's only about 103 miles direct but the way they went via Aberdeen made it closer to 160 - and at hearse speed took a loooong time
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 11 September, 2022, 08:25:31 pm
That there are two versions of the Royal Standard - one for Scotland and one for the rest of the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Standard_of_the_United_Kingdom

Once again, Wales' presence on a flag is absent... :-\

I assume that's 'cause Wales is a principality whereas Scotland is/was a kingdom in its own right?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 12 September, 2022, 01:32:25 pm
That there are two versions of the Royal Standard - one for Scotland and one for the rest of the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Standard_of_the_United_Kingdom

Once again, Wales' presence on a flag is absent... :-\

I assume that's 'cause Wales is a principality whereas Scotland is/was a kingdom in its own right?

Apparently so (https://www.royal.uk/royal-standard). I still think it's wrong that England* gets two bits of flag whilst Wales gets none! :(

*Or Scotland, depending on which version of said flag is used.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 September, 2022, 01:38:45 pm
This royalty stuff isn't half complicated.  I suppose it's what they used to do before they invented computers or the financial services industry.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 14 September, 2022, 10:13:29 pm
The word Catafalque.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 14 September, 2022, 10:21:56 pm
Psychopomp. I like that word.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 15 September, 2022, 09:16:31 am
Psychopomp. I like that word.

In actuality, glorified bus conductors.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 15 September, 2022, 12:54:40 pm
The origin of “to wait one’s turn” dates from waiting to have your grain milled.

cf. Welsh expression 'Y cyntaf i'r felin caiff falu'
first to the mill gets ground/milled first

(approx 'early bird catches the worm.')
Similarly in German "Wer zuerst kommt mahlt zuerst" (I think I've got that right) - "who comes first grinds (their corn) first" - meaning "First come, first served".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 15 September, 2022, 01:44:19 pm
That Bemondsey has a beach. Or, more likley, a stretch of rubble strewn mud called the beach.

Oh, and what Milo is, although that was technically yesterday's nugget.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 September, 2022, 03:51:51 pm
The origin of “to wait one’s turn” dates from waiting to have your grain milled.

cf. Welsh expression 'Y cyntaf i'r felin caiff falu'
first to the mill gets ground/milled first

(approx 'early bird catches the worm.')
Similarly in German "Wer zuerst kommt mahlt zuerst" (I think I've got that right) - "who comes first grinds (their corn) first" - meaning "First come, first served".

And in French there's an expression "entrer comme dans un moulin" or "go in [somewhere] as if it's a mill", implying that anyone could walk into a mill any time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 19 September, 2022, 12:47:30 pm
That the Native American style chant at the start of Quantum Jump's The Lone Ranger from 1976/1979 is actually the Maori name for a hill in New Zealand.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: campagman on 19 September, 2022, 08:42:29 pm
that ancient Oaks are over 400 yrs old.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 19 September, 2022, 09:53:38 pm
The oldest yews are more than 2000 years old. We’d chop them down in minute to make room for another parking space.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 19 September, 2022, 09:58:16 pm
The oldest yews are more than 2000 years old. We’d chop them down in minute to make room for another parking space.
Parking spaces at the Tree Museum car park are in short supply.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 September, 2022, 10:27:28 pm
The oldest yews are more than 2000 years old. We’d chop them down in minute to make room for another parking space.

There’s a few bristlecone pines over thataway //// that are more than 4000 years old, though since even the living ones look dead I'm not sure how they tell.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 20 September, 2022, 03:50:42 am
The oldest yews are more than 2000 years old. We’d chop them down in minute to make room for another parking space.

There’s a few bristlecone pines over thataway //// that are more than 4000 years old, though since even the living ones look dead I'm not sure how they tell.

Someone took a core sample of the oldest one in 1957. I bicycled up to the Schulman Grove of bristlecone pines a few times in the late '80s/early '90s from the town of Big Pine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 September, 2022, 08:54:51 am
The oldest yews are more than 2000 years old. We’d chop them down in minute to make room for another parking space.
Parking spaces at the Tree Museum car park are in short supply.
But the apples in the cafeteria are so glossy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 20 September, 2022, 10:52:51 am
The oldest yews are more than 2000 years old. We’d chop them down in minute to make room for another parking space.
Parking spaces at the Tree Museum car park are in short supply.


What do you expect for a dollar and a half?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 September, 2022, 04:00:44 pm
The oldest yews are more than 2000 years old. We’d chop them down in minute to make room for another parking space.

There’s a few bristlecone pines over thataway //// that are more than 4000 years old, though since even the living ones look dead I'm not sure how they tell.

Someone took a core sample of the oldest one in 1957. I bicycled up to the Schulman Grove of bristlecone pines a few times in the late '80s/early '90s from the town of Big Pine.

Only went there once.  It snowed…
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 21 September, 2022, 09:24:06 am
That 90s Aussie songstress Tina Arena's real name is, sadly, not Tina Arena.  It's even better than that. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_Arena)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The French Tandem on 21 September, 2022, 10:55:42 am
The origin of “to wait one’s turn” dates from waiting to have your grain milled.

cf. Welsh expression 'Y cyntaf i'r felin caiff falu'
first to the mill gets ground/milled first

(approx 'early bird catches the worm.')
Similarly in German "Wer zuerst kommt mahlt zuerst" (I think I've got that right) - "who comes first grinds (their corn) first" - meaning "First come, first served".

And in French there's an expression "entrer comme dans un moulin" or "go in [somewhere] as if it's a mill", implying that anyone could walk into a mill any time.

That's because the Frenchs won't queue politely before the mill the way the Brits or Germans will do  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 September, 2022, 12:37:42 am
That hogeheg quills glow under UV light.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 24 September, 2022, 04:13:24 pm
Quote from: The French Tandem
That's because the Frenchs won't queue politely before the mill the way the Brits or Germans will do  ;D

Ahem.

"The French initiated the line-of-people meaning in the 1790s, and the first uses noted by the OED either italicized it as a foreign word or used it in a Gallic context, as in this quote from Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution (1837): 'That talent … of spontaneously standing in queue, distinguishes … the French People.'"

See https://notoneoffbritishisms.com/2022/09/20/the-queue/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 24 September, 2022, 06:03:25 pm
Quote from: The French Tandem
That's because the Frenchs won't queue politely before the mill the way the Brits or Germans will do  ;D

Ahem.

"The French initiated the line-of-people meaning in the 1790s, and the first uses noted by the OED either italicized it as a foreign word or used it in a Gallic context, as in this quote from Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution (1837): 'That talent … of spontaneously standing in queue, distinguishes … the French People.'"

See https://notoneoffbritishisms.com/2022/09/20/the-queue/

Not in my experience!

Same with the Italians, look all nice and sedate until the gate is called, then its more elbows than a convention of octopodes
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 24 September, 2022, 09:51:36 pm
That what I thought were miniature jellyfish were, in fact, sea gooseberries.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 24 September, 2022, 09:57:09 pm
That an inebriate friend I'd found difficult company 10 years ago is almost impossible company today.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 28 September, 2022, 10:35:30 am
That the plural of artefact is artifacts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jaded on 28 September, 2022, 11:07:38 am
Quote from: The French Tandem
That's because the Frenchs won't queue politely before the mill the way the Brits or Germans will do  ;D

Ahem.

"The French initiated the line-of-people meaning in the 1790s, and the first uses noted by the OED either italicized it as a foreign word or used it in a Gallic context, as in this quote from Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution (1837): 'That talent … of spontaneously standing in queue, distinguishes … the French People.'"

See https://notoneoffbritishisms.com/2022/09/20/the-queue/

Ov coarse everyone on facebooK kno that it spelled que
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 28 September, 2022, 02:17:28 pm
I have learnt not to select 'images' after Googling 'whitlow'.  :hand:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 28 September, 2022, 10:36:17 pm
All about the Abinger Magnetic Observatory (http://www.royalobservatorygreenwich.org/articles.php?article=911)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 29 September, 2022, 07:52:28 am
Southern Railway tavern cars:

https://alongthesetracks.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-tavern-that-travelled-on-rails.html?m=1

You thought olde-worlde tackiness was invented in the 1970s for shopping centre pubs?  Nope.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 01 October, 2022, 12:19:23 pm
That DIN paper sizes included B, C and, possbly, D series as well as A. ISO now appears to specify A and B only.
They are/were all rectangles in the proportions 1:1.41...

It turns out that I've been working on B1, B2 and B6 for years!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 01 October, 2022, 03:38:05 pm
That DIN paper sizes included B, C and, possbly, D series as well as A. ISO now appears to specify A and B only.
They are/were all rectangles in the proportions 1:1.41...

It turns out that I've been working on B1, B2 and B6 for years!

IIRC "C" is reserved for envelopes and pockets.    Trivia quiz: does anyone know the difference between an "envelope" and a "pocket" ? 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 01 October, 2022, 08:44:17 pm
Pockets have the opening on a short edge.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 01 October, 2022, 09:13:09 pm
I would have guessed flaps / non existence thereof.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 01 October, 2022, 09:19:48 pm
When Life Gives You Lemons use them to clean the rust off your handlebars.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 01 October, 2022, 09:22:35 pm
That DIN paper sizes included B, C and, possbly, D series as well as A. ISO now appears to specify A and B only.
They are/were all rectangles in the proportions 1:1.41...

It turns out that I've been working on B1, B2 and B6 for years!

IIRC "C" is reserved for envelopes and pockets.    Trivia quiz: does anyone know the difference between an "envelope" and a "pocket" ?

None for wages:  they arrive and depart via pockets.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 October, 2022, 09:29:25 pm
Sheer luxury.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 02 October, 2022, 06:32:02 am
That DIN paper sizes included B, C and, possbly, D series as well as A. ISO now appears to specify A and B only.
They are/were all rectangles in the proportions 1:1.41...

It turns out that I've been working on B1, B2 and B6 for years!
And that Germans always use the word DIN when referring to the size. I would say “I need to buy some A4 paper” but they would always say “I need to buy some DIN A4 paper”. Local pride I guess!

Deutsches Institut für Normung
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 02 October, 2022, 07:49:57 am
Pockets have the opening on a short edge.

Correct, but no prizes I'm afraid.

Perhaps we should have a quiz on the names/sizes of the old Imperial paper sizes (pre DIN)?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 October, 2022, 08:11:15 am
That DIN paper sizes included B, C and, possbly, D series as well as A. ISO now appears to specify A and B only.
They are/were all rectangles in the proportions 1:1.41...

It turns out that I've been working on B1, B2 and B6 for years!
And that Germans always use the word DIN when referring to the size. I would say “I need to buy some A4 paper” but they would always say “I need to buy some DIN A4 paper”. Local pride I guess!

Deutsches Institut für Normung

Yeah, they even have a DIN norm for English*.

* lie**

** possibly
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 October, 2022, 06:33:49 pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisencolinensinainciusol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2022, 06:47:48 pm
That's a lot more convincing than I was expecting. The rhythm of a language is one of the hardest aspects to get, but he does it pretty well. Mind you, it being a song and gibberish are both factors that make it easier.

The video, however, would have been impossible to make much later than 1972. Well maybe 1982. Okay, 2022. But very much of its time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 02 October, 2022, 06:49:11 pm
During his early career when nothing he did with Taupin was anything other than a hit, Elton John wrote a nonsense song, just to see if he could make even that a hit,  he couldn't

Solar Prestige A Gammon, on the Caribou album
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 02 October, 2022, 08:35:55 pm
Loosely translated as "The Sun Shines Out Of My Arse"?  Obviously didn't that time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 October, 2022, 09:32:15 pm
Today I are learning that Richard Nixon was a Quaker.  Or at least he started out as one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 02 October, 2022, 09:52:03 pm
Today I are learning that Richard Nixon was a Quaker.  Or at least he started out as one.
Ooh, I knowed that. There was a series of plays on The Home Service yclept The Republicans, one which had the story of Tricky Dicky. <Fx:tappity tap> still available on BBC Sounds.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 October, 2022, 08:04:45 am
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisencolinensinainciusol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8

Like Armageddon Pierstaff in Lucky Jim.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 October, 2022, 09:53:53 am
Today I are learning that Richard Nixon was a Quaker.  Or at least he started out as one.
I did not know that but I did know that Herbert Hoover was.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 October, 2022, 09:56:56 am
We all know that "Zed's dead" and "it's not a motorcycle, it's a chopper" but Zed was the name of one the brothers-in-law of President Habyarimana of Rwanda, who died in 1994, the year Pulp Fiction came out. Zed didn't die then though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 03 October, 2022, 02:19:16 pm
That dusting, while not exactly fun, can be rewarding with the right tool. I've bought one of those dusters with disposable fluffy bits that sucks up the dust miraculously. I even used it in the car, such was my enthusiasm. Whether my enthusiasm persists is another, questionable matter...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 03 October, 2022, 02:51:44 pm
Today I are learning that Richard Nixon was a Quaker.  Or at least he started out as one.
I did not know that but I did know that Herbert Hoover was.

I knew about Nixon, but not about Hoover.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 October, 2022, 04:07:35 pm
Today I are learning that Richard Nixon was a Quaker.  Or at least he started out as one.
I did not know that but I did know that Herbert Hoover was.

I knew about Nixon, but not about Hoover.
Together, we would achieve total ignorance.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 05 October, 2022, 11:01:33 am
During his early career when nothing he did with Taupin was anything other than a hit, Elton John wrote a nonsense song, just to see if he could make even that a hit,  he couldn't

Solar Prestige A Gammon, on the Caribou album
A strange album that also includes perhaps the only song ever written that celebrates Grimsby.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 05 October, 2022, 07:13:46 pm
During his early career when nothing he did with Taupin was anything other than a hit, Elton John wrote a nonsense song, just to see if he could make even that a hit,  he couldn't

Solar Prestige A Gammon, on the Caribou album
A strange album that also includes perhaps the only song ever written that celebrates Grimsby.

Yes, I'm a big fan of 70's Elton, but that is definitely not my most listened to album
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 06 October, 2022, 06:47:10 am
During his early career when nothing he did with Taupin was anything other than a hit, Elton John wrote a nonsense song, just to see if he could make even that a hit,  he couldn't

Solar Prestige A Gammon, on the Caribou album
A strange album that also includes perhaps the only song ever written that celebrates Grimsby.
Strange indeed, but Ticking is a brilliant piece of music.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 08 October, 2022, 08:39:15 pm
Today I are learning that Richard Nixon was a Quaker.  Or at least he started out as one.
I did not know that but I did know that Herbert Hoover was.
Wasn't he the terribly nice and out-of-place Delta president in "Animal House"?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 October, 2022, 11:19:45 pm
He was Robert Hoover, according to IMDb.  Thanks to whom I also discovered that one of Otis Day's band members was played by an uncredited Robert Cray.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 10 October, 2022, 02:12:12 pm
That WD40 is good for cleaning the white corrosion crud off the connections in a non-functioning TV remote.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 October, 2022, 01:05:47 pm
Today I are learning that the title role on the original album version of “Jesus Christ Superstar” was sung by Ian Gillan.  No wonder he was a Rubbish during his stint in Black Sabbath ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 October, 2022, 10:48:36 am
That my old Gore-Tex jacket no longer keeps even a light shower out but is still capable of making me sweat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 14 October, 2022, 10:51:39 am
That there was a sub genre of music - Bleep Techno - that was particularly rooted in the North of England, and more specifically, Yorkshire, it's epicentre being Sheffield.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 14 October, 2022, 01:30:40 pm
What the E stands for. Allegedly.

This clue was in yesterday's Guardian crossword:
Reserved hotel inside for Wile Ethelbert? (6)

To which the solution was:
COYOTE
(For those who don't do cryptic crosswords, it breaks down as: Reserved = COY + the "inside" of [h]OTE[l], and "Wile Ethelbert" is the definition.)

Despite being a big fan of the Warner Bros cartoons, I've never encountered this factoid before. I've always assumed it was just a homophonic pun on wily. This Ethelbert business sounds decidedly non-canonical to me, and so it proved to be, although apparently it gained currency after being used in a question on Jeopardy.

Here's the story, from the horse's mouth:
https://web.archive.org/web/20071014121501/http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2007_02_20.html#012965

And this is the source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20131024055826/http://www.goldenagecartoons.com/miscjunk/ETHELBERT.JPG

Definitely counts as apocrypha for me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 14 October, 2022, 01:39:08 pm
That one can definitely be filed under "This may prove useful to some of you some day, perhaps, in a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances."*

* ©The Harvard Bard
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 14 October, 2022, 03:09:23 pm
That the song Lily the pink* was based on a real person and her 'medicinal compound'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Pinkham#Lydia_E._Pinkham's_Vegetable_Compound (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Pinkham#Lydia_E._Pinkham's_Vegetable_Compound)

Brought to the UK as a drinking song by WW1 canadian squaddies.

* Children - ask your parents/grandparents
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 14 October, 2022, 06:09:22 pm
What the E stands for. Allegedly.

This clue was in yesterday's Guardian crossword:
Reserved hotel inside for Wile Ethelbert? (6)

To which the solution was:
COYOTE
(For those who don't do cryptic crosswords, it breaks down as: Reserved = COY + the "inside" of [h]OTE[l], and "Wile Ethelbert" is the definition.)

Despite being a big fan of the Warner Bros cartoons, I've never encountered this factoid before. I've always assumed it was just a homophonic pun on wily. This Ethelbert business sounds decidedly non-canonical to me, and so it proved to be, although apparently it gained currency after being used in a question on Jeopardy.

Here's the story, from the horse's mouth:
https://web.archive.org/web/20071014121501/http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2007_02_20.html#012965

And this is the source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20131024055826/http://www.goldenagecartoons.com/miscjunk/ETHELBERT.JPG

Definitely counts as apocrypha for me.
Inserts surprised avatar
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 15 October, 2022, 01:16:27 am
What the E stands for. Allegedly.

This clue was in yesterday's Guardian crossword:
Reserved hotel inside for Wile Ethelbert? (6)

To which the solution was:
COYOTE
(For those who don't do cryptic crosswords, it breaks down as: Reserved = COY + the "inside" of [h]OTE[l], and "Wile Ethelbert" is the definition.)

Despite being a big fan of the Warner Bros cartoons, I've never encountered this factoid before. I've always assumed it was just a homophonic pun on wily. This Ethelbert business sounds decidedly non-canonical to me, and so it proved to be, although apparently it gained currency after being used in a question on Jeopardy.

Here's the story, from the horse's mouth:
https://web.archive.org/web/20071014121501/http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2007_02_20.html#012965

And this is the source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20131024055826/http://www.goldenagecartoons.com/miscjunk/ETHELBERT.JPG

Definitely counts as apocrypha for me.

Me too, also.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 16 October, 2022, 06:16:07 am
The game Musical Chairs exists in Germany but is called die Reise nach Jerusalem (the journey to Jerusalem).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 October, 2022, 09:54:28 am
The game Musical Chairs exists in Germany but is called die Reise nach Jerusalem (the journey to Jerusalem).

I did not know that, maybe because in the company I worked for it was restricted to the boardroom.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 16 October, 2022, 03:34:04 pm
What a servitor is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 October, 2022, 05:09:31 pm
What a servitor is.

I did that crossword too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 17 October, 2022, 01:34:45 am
That violin bows are made from Pernambuco Wood which is the wood from Brazil which is dark red in colour. This wood was named in portugese “braza” which means ember after the colour and is the reason Brazil is called Brazil and not Holy Cross.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 20 October, 2022, 04:33:05 pm
That XTC are/were a Swindon band. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 20 October, 2022, 07:05:00 pm
That violin bows are made from Pernambuco Wood which is the wood from Brazil which is dark red in colour. This wood was named in portugese “braza” which means ember after the colour and is the reason Brazil is called Brazil and not Holy Cross.

I think you'll find that Brazil is actually named after the nut.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 20 October, 2022, 07:58:44 pm
That violin bows are made from Pernambuco Wood which is the wood from Brazil which is dark red in colour.

Not all of them. Mine's a go-faster carbon fibre one. ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 20 October, 2022, 08:00:32 pm
That violin bows are made from Pernambuco Wood which is the wood from Brazil which is dark red in colour.

Not all of them. Mine's a go-faster carbon fibre one. ;D
That's  cool.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 21 October, 2022, 01:58:56 am
That violin bows are made from Pernambuco Wood which is the wood from Brazil which is dark red in colour.

Not all of them. Mine's a go-faster carbon fibre one. ;D
The use of other materials I understood was partly caused by the loss of pernambuco wood as part of deforestation and the export of the wood to Europe. We have been staying in the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest for the last few days which has been amazing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 October, 2022, 08:12:24 pm
That violet light actually appears slightly purple to people with normal cone cells, rather than just dark blue.  This is why rainbows have more distinct bands on an RGB display than they do in real life.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 21 October, 2022, 09:06:13 pm
That the Finns have a measure of distance called the "poronkusema" which is roughly 5-6 miles, and it was based on how far a reindeer can travel before needing to stop to urinate (poronkusema translates as "a reindeer's piss").

It became obsolete when Finland adopted the metric system, but is still used to indicate a vaguely nearby distance - such as when children ask their parents how far they still have to walk when out hiking in the country.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 22 October, 2022, 08:43:21 pm
That our electric cool-box, which we are using a our main fridge until the new one arrives on Monday, has a 'heat' option as well as a 'cool' one.

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 23 October, 2022, 02:39:36 pm
That violin bows are made from Pernambuco Wood which is the wood from Brazil which is dark red in colour.

Not all of them. Mine's a go-faster carbon fibre one. ;D

Does it combine lateral stiffness with vertical compliance?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 October, 2022, 03:01:25 pm
That violin bows are made from Pernambuco Wood which is the wood from Brazil which is dark red in colour.

Not all of them. Mine's a go-faster carbon fibre one. ;D

Does it combine lateral stiffness with vertical compliance?

 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: delthebike on 24 October, 2022, 01:58:04 pm
If Sunak gets confirmed as PM @1400 o'clock PM today, assuming all Tory parliamentary MP's support, then his mandate will be;
7.7x10-6% of the voting age of the UK population.
That's nice isn't it?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 24 October, 2022, 03:46:00 pm
That the post office will only buy back their own euros.

Fascists.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 October, 2022, 06:00:59 pm
That the post office will only buy back their own euros.

How do they tell?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 24 October, 2022, 07:25:24 pm
That the post office will only buy back their own euros.

How do they tell?

. . .  you have to take the original transaction ticket.  (the "actual" Euros are of course not necessarily the ones the PO issued - it's the total value of the original purchase that can't be exceeded) - they don't want to provide their rates to other suppliers' Euros.

As an aside - why have actual notes - on our club trip (10 people, 12 days in France) we spent several thousand Euros but only about 20 in actual cash (a coffee round in a bar that "preferred not to take cards") - everything was on prepaid cashcards (Caxton & Post Office) - simple and easy to refund the leftovers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 October, 2022, 07:34:43 pm
As an aside - why have actual notes

Tyre boot for 650B tyres.   ;D

And in case your bank randomly decides that card use in ABROAD is a sign of FOREIGNS conducting fraud, rather than you travelling.  Even though you warned them in advance.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 October, 2022, 08:04:02 pm
Although the last time I tried to warn Horseybank plc that I was proposing to visit Abroad and use my cards to give money to FOREIGNS they shrugged and said “Oh, we don’t do holiday flags any more!”  Which IIRC was 2017.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 24 October, 2022, 11:05:18 pm
I may be somewhat out of touch, having not been in ABROAD since, fittingly, 2016.

The Euros I still have in the drawer have presumably aged fairly well.  As long as I don't try to take them back to the post oriface.  Which would be tricky, as it was recently knocked down.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 October, 2022, 11:12:12 pm
IIRC it was 2016 when I discovered that if you were going to Abroad you could only tell them one country at a time so your cards continuing to allow you to buy petril in Canuckistan when Horseybank thought you were still in USAnia was mostly down to luck.  Trying to use a mobile phone browser to change your holiday fleg in Dotonthemap, Saskatchewan seemed like an exercise in futility when said phone couldn't find a network to talk to in a city of more than 100,000 people.

Edit: Today I are learning that the reason that PC fan noise sounds like it's coming from directly in front of me when the PC is under the desk and off to the left is because the steering wheel attached  to said PC has a fan in it too :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 25 October, 2022, 07:55:51 am
As an aside - why have actual notes

Tyre boot for 650B tyres.   ;D

And in case your bank randomly decides that card use in ABROAD is a sign of FOREIGNS conducting fraud, rather than you travelling.  Even though you warned them in advance.

Ah - the reason for the prepaid cashcards (2 of*) loaded with Euros was to cover just that eventuality - and you don't get ripped with poor rates and transaction charges (cashcard rates are usually better than most as they have a load of dosh to use in a treasury function that's part of their business - earning on the balance held)

* we had 2 cards for the group kitty (a.k.a. the brown purse) and I had 2 more of my own for my personal bills.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 25 October, 2022, 11:56:23 am
That the post office will only buy back their own euros.

How do they tell?

. . .  you have to take the original transaction ticket.  (the "actual" Euros are of course not necessarily the ones the PO issued - it's the total value of the original purchase that can't be exceeded) - they don't want to provide their rates to other suppliers' Euros.

Aha! Yes, that makes sense.

As an aside - why have actual notes...
Because you just don't know (as your bar that preferred not to take cards exemplifies). Plus, the pool table didn't take cards.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 25 October, 2022, 11:29:45 pm
Having just been in Brazil my son offered me the use of his credit card with settlement to his U.K. bank at interbank rates when we get home. Should save about 3% he reckons which is not inconsiderable for 2 weeks here.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Deano on 28 October, 2022, 01:04:45 pm
Today I learned the difference between a crossed and an uncrossed postal order, after someone entered an audax using a crossed postal order and I tried to cash it at the Post Office counter  :facepalm:

(I think it's too late to cancel his entry, I might settle for giving him a bollocking tomorrow)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 28 October, 2022, 01:08:27 pm
That people still use postal orders.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 28 October, 2022, 01:11:07 pm
Listening to The Write Stuff this morning, I learnt that the term "the Wild West" was coined by that well known author of cowboy fiction, Charlotte Bronte.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Deano on 28 October, 2022, 01:12:41 pm
That people still use postal orders.

Yeah, that too. I was amused at first, but now I'm thinking it would be easier to frame and let him have a free entry rather than schlep down the bank and queue to pay it in.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 28 October, 2022, 01:16:26 pm
that well known author of cowboy fiction, Charlotte Bronte.

I'd totally read that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 October, 2022, 01:59:01 pm
Listening to The Write Stuff this morning, I learnt that the term "the Wild West" was coined by that well known author of cowboy fiction, Charlotte Bronte.
Referring to Lancashire?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 October, 2022, 02:06:04 pm
that well known author of cowboy fiction, Charlotte Bronte.

I'd totally read that.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: yorkie on 28 October, 2022, 03:07:40 pm
Listening to The Write Stuff this morning, I learnt that the term "the Wild West" was coined by that well known author of cowboy fiction, Charlotte Bronte.
Referring to Lancashire?


Definitely!!  :-D :-D :-D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 28 October, 2022, 03:26:50 pm
  • The Outlaw Josey Eyre

Calamity Jane Eyre, surely?

Also, her sister's famous work: The Good, The Bad and The Wuthering
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 28 October, 2022, 03:28:37 pm
Listening to The Write Stuff this morning...

What, people actually listen to that?

I suppose it could have been worse - it could have been Quote, Unquote. Or anything with Marcus Brigstocke.

Confession: I do sometimes listen to The Write Stuff. But it is so very Radio 4. And not in a good way.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 October, 2022, 03:47:09 pm
I gave up on Radio 4 about a year after returning to the UK. There is good stuff but you have to get though seven hours of news, news digest, news discussion, news analysis, news headlines, news repeats, current affairs, prospective affairs, reflective affairs, introspective affairs, comparison of news analysis techniques, et cetera, ect, and so on, in order to get to any of it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 28 October, 2022, 04:10:18 pm
I gave up on Radio 4 about a year after returning to the UK. There is good stuff but you have to get though seven hours of news, news digest, news discussion, news analysis, news headlines, news repeats, The Archers, current affairs, prospective affairs, reflective affairs, The Archers repeat, introspective affairs, comparison of news analysis techniques, The Archers Omnibus, et cetera, ect, and so on, in order to get to any of it.

FTFY ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 28 October, 2022, 04:28:35 pm
Radio 4, like most of the BBC's output, is best enjoyed retrospectively and highly selectively on the interwebs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 October, 2022, 04:53:53 pm
I gave up on Radio 4 about a year after returning to the UK. There is good stuff but you have to get though seven hours of news, news digest, news discussion, news analysis, news headlines, news repeats, The Archers, current affairs, prospective affairs, reflective affairs, The Archers repeat, introspective affairs, comparison of news analysis techniques, The Archers Omnibus, et cetera, ect, and so on, in order to get to any of it.

FTFY ;)
Not to mention the news as reported on The Archers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 October, 2022, 06:09:16 pm
  • The Outlaw Josey Eyre

Calamity Jane Eyre, surely?

Also, her sister's famous work: The Good, The Bad and The Wuthering

 :facepalm:

Insufficient Brown Drink.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 28 October, 2022, 07:58:47 pm
That are there are people who know (or think they know) which way up a Piet Mondrian painting should hang.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 28 October, 2022, 08:01:35 pm
That are there are people who know (or think they know) which way up a Piet Mondrian painting should hang.
Black lines parallel or perpendicular to the floor.
Always.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 October, 2022, 08:02:28 pm
Perhaps there’s a little arrow with the words “Deze kant omhoog*” on the back?

* blame Google Translate
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 28 October, 2022, 08:27:30 pm
That are there are people who know (or think they know) which way up a Piet Mondrian painting should hang.
Black lines parallel or perpendicular to the floor.
Always.

Jurek, be SERIOUS will you?  This is art we are talking about; we're not pissing about with wishy-washy concepts like quantum physics or molecular biology.  Define what you mean by "parallel" ... and floor!  Brian Sewell is turning in his spaceship.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 October, 2022, 08:29:17 pm
The painting should always be hung vertically. Unless it is displayed on a table or a cabinet top, or resting on an artist's easel.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 28 October, 2022, 08:32:56 pm
Listening to The Write Stuff this morning...

What, people actually listen to that?

I suppose it could have been worse - it could have been Quote, Unquote. Or anything with Marcus Brigstocke.

Confession: I do sometimes listen to The Write Stuff. But it is so very Radio 4. And not in a good way.

I do most* of my Radio 4 listening via a time machine. Or 4 Extra, as it's called. Quote Unquote will never darken my ears though, because Giles Brandreth.

*OK, apart from Toady while I'm having breakfast, switching over at eight to 6 Music for Cloudbusting, some of the six thirty comedy, Brian of Britain/RBQ/other quiz and the fly on the wall documentary about farmers. So quite a lot then.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 28 October, 2022, 08:41:03 pm
That are there are people who know (or think they know) which way up a Piet Mondrian painting should hang.
Black lines parallel or perpendicular to the floor.
Always.

Jurek, be SERIOUS will you?  This is art we are talking about; we're not pissing about with wishy-washy concepts like quantum physics or molecular biology.  Define what you mean by "parallel" ... and floor!  Brian Sewell is turning in his spaceship.

My bold.
My work here is done.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 28 October, 2022, 09:21:37 pm
 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: peterc on 30 October, 2022, 12:08:44 am
Today I found out, beech block is a bad material for making patterns for a GRP mould.

I may try again with MDF like a sensible person...

The painting should always be hung vertically.

Portraits, yes I'd agree with you. Landscapes? I'm less sure.

I'll get my coat
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jaded on 30 October, 2022, 07:47:16 am
That are there are people who know (or think they know) which way up a Piet Mondrian painting should hang.
Black lines parallel or perpendicular to the floor.
Always.

Apparently the sky goes at the top. Someone hd put it at the bottom.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 October, 2022, 09:08:06 am
That are there are people who know (or think they know) which way up a Piet Mondrian painting should hang.
Black lines parallel or perpendicular to the floor.
Always.

Apparently the sky goes at the top. Someone hd put it at the bottom.

Maybe 'cos that's what they thought the sun shone out of.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 30 October, 2022, 09:08:19 am
Quote from: Jaded
Quote from: Jurek
Quote from: Peter
That are there are people who know (or think they know) which way up a Piet Mondrian painting should hang.
Black lines parallel or perpendicular to the floor.
Always.

Apparently the sky goes at the top. Someone hd put it at the bottom.
Probably an Australian.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 30 October, 2022, 10:46:35 am
That there are three species of camel.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 October, 2022, 08:42:02 pm
That Gabon's environment minister is originally from Manchester. And in a fit of nom det, his name is White and he is white, which is only really worth remarking in the Gabonese context rather than the Mancunia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 01 November, 2022, 06:33:27 am
That are there are people who know (or think they know) which way up a Piet Mondrian painting should hang.
Of course, the famous example of this is Le Bateau by Matisse…
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 November, 2022, 11:37:36 am
Today I are learning that Daylight Saving Time was first implemented in Thunder Bay ON in 1908.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 November, 2022, 12:37:58 pm
Today I are learning that Daylight Saving Time was first implemented in Thunder Bay ON in 1908.
It must be a very sunny place now they've been saving daylight for 114 years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 November, 2022, 03:48:26 pm
(https://live.staticflickr.com/8216/29571767400_d85c3ce05f_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/M4a3bC)
P9220038 (https://flic.kr/p/M4a3bC) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr

2022-09-22, about lunchtime.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 03 November, 2022, 03:50:21 pm
That Walthamstow is the seventeenth coolest place in the World...


According to a bollcks survey in Time Out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: joy of essex on 03 November, 2022, 04:09:15 pm
I assume that mainly refers to the " Village".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 November, 2022, 06:09:09 pm
I certainly doubt it refers to the area around Larrington Towers :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 03 November, 2022, 07:42:56 pm
It certainly cannot refer to the business estate on which I work.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2022, 02:54:34 pm
That the average age of cars in Denmark is 8.4 years, in Finland 12.5 years and in Poland 17.3 years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 November, 2022, 05:52:13 pm
10.7 for Norway, which is perhaps surprising given how enthusiastic they are about electric ones.  7.5 in Oslo, thobut.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2022, 06:41:38 pm
I have 10.5 for Norway:

Number of cars: 4,8 MN
Average age of car fleet: 9,9 years
Population: 10,2 MN
Sweden

Number of cars: 2,8 MN
Average age of car fleet: 10,5 years
Population: 5,5 MN Norway

Number of cars: 2,5 MN
Average age of car fleet: 8,4 years
Population: 5,7 MN
Denmark

Number of cars: 3,1 MN
Average age of car fleet: 12,5 years
Population: 5,5 MN
Finland

Number of cars: 22,5 MN
Average age of car fleet: 17,3 year
Population: 37,9 MN
Poland

Number of cars: 0,7 MN
Average age of car fleet: 16,7 years
Population: 1,3 MN
Estonia

Number of cars: 0,6 MN
Average age of car fleet: 14,1 year
Population: 1,9 MN
Latvia

Number of cars: 1,1 MN
Average age of car fleet: 16,9 years
Population: 2,7 MN
Lithuania

Copied off a powerpoint hence formatting
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 November, 2022, 06:42:20 pm
Your figures are probably more up to date than the ones I was struggling to find by googling.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2022, 06:49:48 pm
It's also striking how the Baltics and Sweden have much lower car ownership than the others (and Poland the highest).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 04 November, 2022, 07:37:29 pm
Figures for UK? 
I spose I should JFGI, but can't be bottomed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2022, 10:29:24 pm
Then that would be a thing you have learned today. It's not a thing I have learned today.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 November, 2022, 07:59:12 pm
Figures for UK? 
I spose I should JFGI, but can't be bottomed.
8.4 years according to SMMT.
Quote
Total vehicles in use on UK roads falls to 40.35m units – the first drop since 2009.
Average age of car rises to 8.4 years old – the oldest on record – with almost 10m vehicles from 2008 and earlier still in service.
Vans reach historic highs, up to 4.6m, but declines recorded in truck, bus and coach numbers.
Number of BEVs and PHEVs increase by more than 168,000 cars, but account for just 1.3% of the parc – demonstrating scale of task ahead to meet ambitious green targets.
https://www.smmt.co.uk/2021/05/britains-cars-getting-older-but-van-ownership-reaches-historic-highs/

Meanwhile, these figures for the EU slightly contradict those above:
https://www.acea.auto/figure/average-age-of-eu-vehicle-fleet-by-country/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 06 November, 2022, 08:05:23 am
There are around 3,000 independent traditional bakeries in the US, and around 30,000 in France, according to a USAnian yammering about disgusting American bread on YT.

I can believe the first figure, but the second seems a bit low.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 06 November, 2022, 12:50:01 pm
Courtesy of my wife, who heard it on the wireless, that 200,000 people died in the English civil war.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 07 November, 2022, 10:12:56 pm
That ducks love to eat garden peas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JX7F9yJlaQ
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 08 November, 2022, 01:18:48 pm
That my husband distinguishes between Christmas Lights, which may be put up before Christmas, and the Christmas Tree, which should only go up on Christmas Eve.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 November, 2022, 02:31:25 pm
That my husband distinguishes between Christmas Lights, which may be put up before Christmas, and the Christmas Tree, which should only go up on Christmas Eve.

Ditto.  Dunno why, my parents didn't. Well, it is the German tradition and Christmas trees are German Albert's fault, but in my case it's laziness and Albert's my excuse.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 November, 2022, 02:41:30 pm
That in the 1970s BMW motorcycles had handpainted pinstriping on their tanks and, Carradice style, each tank was signed by the individual responsible for the brushwork.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 10 November, 2022, 09:14:57 am
That TfL has a messaging system to communicate directly with London bus drivers called DRIVE - which stands for Driver Realtime Information Vehicle Experience.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 10 November, 2022, 09:18:40 am
That my husband distinguishes between Christmas Lights, which may be put up before Christmas, and the Christmas Tree, which should only go up on Christmas Eve.

When I was a small person, putting up the Christmas tree was something we did as a family when my dad got home from work on Christmas Eve. This is perfectly normal behaviour.

The clue is in the name: Christmas tree, not The Whole Of Frigging November And December tree.

I really don't see why the "Christmas period" has to take up nearly 20% of the whole year.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2022, 09:39:21 am
Halloween and Christmas between them seem to have squeezed Poppy Season* this year, judging by the number of poppies I've seen so far (one). That Guy Fawkes Day has also gone is obvious.

*Senior readers may know this as Remembrance Day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 November, 2022, 10:25:38 am
Poppymas, and the inevitable War On It, has been ramping up steadily over the past Several of years.  There is a strong correlation between those getting exercised over tEh   WaR ,,,,,,,,,,,, oN pOpPeEz and fleg-noncers, veterans of The War On Christmas and other things that rile the Gammonariat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 10 November, 2022, 12:24:17 pm
Probably a good time to make the most of https://twitter.com/giantpoppywatch while the birdsite still works...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 10 November, 2022, 01:19:11 pm
10.7 for Norway, which is perhaps surprising given how enthusiastic they are about electric ones.  7.5 in Oslo, thobut.

It isn't particularly abnormal in yon Scandinavia to be standing at a bus stop and to hear the sound of a DKW 2 or 3 cylinder 2 stroke engine screaming away in the engine bay of a SAAB, or for that matter old Volvos floating by either.

The don't have the same sort of tin worm issues as here so stuff lasts.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 10 November, 2022, 01:21:07 pm
It's also striking how the Baltics and Sweden have much lower car ownership than the others (and Poland the highest).

A look at population location and densities, combined with public transport maps may answer that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 10 November, 2022, 01:32:38 pm
Poppymas, and the inevitable War On It, has been ramping up steadily over the past Several of years.  There is a strong correlation between those getting exercised over tEh   WaR ,,,,,,,,,,,, oN pOpPeEz and fleg-noncers, veterans of The War On Christmas and other things that rile the Gammonariat.

There also the simple fact that while not all that long ago, most people personally knew someone killed in a war, now that is unlikely to be the case.
The wars Britain has taken part in since WWII have had relatively low casualties and due to return to normal recruitment approaches from a much smaller sub-set of the population.

I noticed an article on BBC website earlier saying "Recording the last memories of WWII) or something like that

Harry Patch died in 2009, which means it's 13 years from now if anyone enlisted in 1940 underage and lives as long.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2022, 02:44:20 pm
Probably a good time to make the most of https://twitter.com/giantpoppywatch while the birdsite still works...
This one:
https://twitter.com/giantpoppywatch/status/1590470794206846976

Erm, hmm... the extended death of inadvertent irony etc
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2022, 02:46:49 pm
It's also striking how the Baltics and Sweden have much lower car ownership than the others (and Poland the highest).

A look at population location and densities, combined with public transport maps may answer that.
Public transport in Poland is pretty good. Certainly a lot better than in the UK in rural locations.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 10 November, 2022, 02:53:55 pm
I wonder of the figure in Finland is inflated by the fashion for having one car to get about in, and a big 1950s American convertible for cruising round town on summer evenings, otherwise wrapped up until next summer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2022, 03:20:43 pm
A bit like bicycle ownership figures in Britain being inflated by a small number of people having one bike for commuting, another for racing, a third for time trials, a fourth for touring, a fifth for audaxing, a sixth for summer Sundays, a seventh for off-roading, etc?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 10 November, 2022, 04:13:21 pm
A bit like bicycle ownership figures in Britain being inflated by a small number of people having one bike for commuting, another for racing, a third for time trials, a fourth for touring, a fifth for audaxing, a sixth for summer Sundays, a seventh for off-roading, etc?
Dentists, eh? Don't you just hate them? :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 10 November, 2022, 05:32:18 pm
oh here's the bbc link i refered to in relation to WWII heading out of lkiving memory
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63504826
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Slave To The Viking on 11 November, 2022, 10:08:20 am
Listening to The Write Stuff this morning, I learnt that the term "the Wild West" was coined by that well known author of cowboy fiction, Charlotte Bronte.
Referring to Lancashire?

Had Lancashire even been discovered then?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 November, 2022, 10:56:01 am
Listening to The Write Stuff this morning, I learnt that the term "the Wild West" was coined by that well known author of cowboy fiction, Charlotte Bronte.

Apparently not: https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-wil1.htm
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 13 November, 2022, 10:22:29 pm
NZ Post has guidance on how to package and send live bees.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 November, 2022, 10:25:46 am
NZ Post has guidance on how to package and send live bees.
To parliament?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 14 November, 2022, 01:38:11 pm
We occasionally receive bees in a normal C4 envelope with a few air holes. My landlord is a beekeeper.

The envelope doesn’t buzz much at all.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 November, 2022, 01:42:46 pm
Missed opportunity to use a B-sized envelope there.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 November, 2022, 01:46:29 pm
I C what you did there.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 14 November, 2022, 02:44:51 pm
You'd be able to tell if the bees were agitated, because they'd make a din.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 November, 2022, 04:55:36 pm
That the engineer responsible for the Severn Tunnel, Charles Richardson, also invented the tapered splice handle of the modern cricket bat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2022, 02:23:24 pm
That Veritas (https://www.veritas.com/en/uk) is not at all the same company as Bureau Veritas. (https://group.bureauveritas.com) That was almost embarrassing!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 17 November, 2022, 05:41:19 pm
That there is a flood gate on Riverside Drive in Aberdeen. And it's not where I thought it would be. (I don't know where it is but not where I guessed).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 17 November, 2022, 06:58:37 pm
That Veritas (https://www.veritas.com/en/uk) is not at all the same company as Bureau Veritas. (https://group.bureauveritas.com) That was almost embarrassing!

and neither are the only one I'd heard of before... https://www.canadiantools.co.uk/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA1NebBhDDARIsAANiDD2_R1a0tJNAZExJFiG62fhHBUATYksN0Eo4p2G9y_OSVhHBLR787KkaAmkzEALw_wcB
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 20 November, 2022, 11:52:17 am
That our Squirrel Buster seed feeder has spare parts available (the plastic of the feeder tube is opaque and brittle, one screw has already corroded, split the plastic and fallen out, the remaining 2 are on their way). Not only that, but it has a lifetime guarantee, and I can get a brand new feeder tube for £6 postage as opposed to £30 for a new feeder. Duly ordered, fingers crossed!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 20 November, 2022, 12:55:35 pm
That our Squirrel Buster seed feeder has spare parts available (the plastic of the feeder tube is opaque and brittle, one screw has already corroded, split the plastic and fallen out, the remaining 2 are on their way). Not only that, but it has a lifetime guarantee, and I can get a brand new feeder tube for £6 postage as opposed to £30 for a new feeder. Duly ordered, fingers crossed!

Ah - ours failed and an email to the supplier resulted in an instant reply and free replacement - seems there was a known issue (and as it was a while ago now the new part seemed to be OK)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 20 November, 2022, 02:53:44 pm
Unfortunately I’ve no idea who I bought it from, we’ve had that particular one around 10 years. I don’t mind paying the P&p, ours is definitely just wear and tear, the replacement (from the drawing) looks identical.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Flite on 20 November, 2022, 05:17:09 pm
We have two RSPB "ultimate" feeders. The hole for the lower perches is much to close to the end of the tube so is an obvious weak point. Predictably it failed after a couple of years and the poly carb tubes fell to pieces.
No sign of replacement parts on the RSPB website, so I wrote an e-mail saying that as a responsible conservation charity, spares should be available as it was wasteful to throw out the entire feeders.
Prompt e-mail back - replacements available free of charge and no postage to pay!
I had kept the instructions so could quote the model number, and the replacements arrived a day or so later.
I sent a donation, but why they don't just list them on the website is a puzzle. It would give folks a bit of confidence to know spares were available.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 November, 2022, 02:27:22 pm
Today I are learning that Tony Sirico, who played Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri in “The Sopranos”, died back in July (https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/jul/09/the-sopranos-paulie-walnuts-actor-tony-sirico-dies-aged-79).  Which has me wondering whether the name was widely applied to Paul Manafort or whether it was just something concocted by spesh in the TЯump thread downstairs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 21 November, 2022, 03:42:18 pm
Today I are learning that Tony Sirico, who played Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri in “The Sopranos”, died back in July (https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/jul/09/the-sopranos-paulie-walnuts-actor-tony-sirico-dies-aged-79).  Which has me wondering whether the name was widely applied to Paul Manafort or whether it was just something concocted by spesh in the TЯump thread downstairs.

I most likely Lobachevsky'd it from the interwebs.  Anyway, LMGTFY...

<tappity tappity>

Looks like it originated in September 2018 when it became known to the world via the Mueller probe that Manafort had used the term "Bada bing bada boom" in an email.

Quoth the Daily Dot, September 14 2018:

Quote
In a charging document released by authorities, it goes into detail about Manafort’s work for Viktor Yanukovych in 2012, who was running against Yulia Tymoshenko for president of Ukraine.

The document shows that he tried to spread stories in the United States that would have accused a “senior Cabinet official” of being anti-Semitic for supporting Tymoshenko.

The document says he worked with an unnamed Israeli official to spread the story and wanted to have “Obama Jews” put “pressure” on the administration to support Yanukovych. As part of the work, according to the document, Manafort wrote to “Person D1” as he worked to disseminate the story for media outlets in the United States.

“I have someone pushing it on the NY Post,” he wrote. “Bada bing bada boom.”

Naturally, Manafort’s use of “bada bing bada boom” was spotted by people online.
...

Quote
    He actually wrote “Bada bing bada boom.” #Sopranos https://t.co/dX2ETM837B
    — Bruce Rheins (@BruceRheins)
    September 14, 2018 (https://twitter.com/BruceRheins/status/1040643373479034881)
...
Quote
Matt Ford@fordm·Sep 14, 2018 (https://twitter.com/fordm/status/1040601459329572864)
This is quite a paragraph from Mueller's latest superseding indictment of Paul Manafort.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DnD1fg2XoAA-ipk?format=jpg

Bill C.@only_a_bill
Replying to @fordm
"Bada bing bada boom"?

Damn, Paul Manafort REALLY wanted to be Paulie Walnuts, didn't he? Guess he got his wish...
3:08 PM · Sep 14, 2018 (https://twitter.com/only_a_bill/status/1040603100405481472)

ETA - I did find a couple of usages of "Paulie Walnuts" for Manafort that were older, but I think September was when it entered into popular usage.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 November, 2022, 06:20:28 pm
It was in the thread downstairs as early as June 2017 :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 21 November, 2022, 07:10:14 pm
It was in the thread downstairs as early as June 2017 :D

Interesting...

<goes off to have a look>

Found it (eventually): https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=10502.msg2179400#msg2179400 (P&OBI group membership required to access?)

My notes from then only seem to be drafts for posts in here, so Cthulhu knows who the source was.  ;D <shrugs>

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 22 November, 2022, 12:49:48 pm
Seems you're not allowed to take right hand drive cars into Saudi Arabia.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-63667078 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-63667078)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 November, 2022, 06:36:42 pm
Wikinaccurate haz a map! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-_and_right-hand_traffic#/media/File:Legality_of_wrong-hand-drive_vehicles.svg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 22 November, 2022, 06:40:13 pm
That article says India drive on the left, clearly not written by someone who has visited the country.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 November, 2022, 07:15:38 pm
There are not a few countries where folks drive anywhere there's space :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 November, 2022, 07:16:35 pm
Indonesia is anomalous in having left hand road traffic but right hand rail traffic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 22 November, 2022, 09:20:50 pm
Indonesia is anomalous in having left hand road traffic but right hand rail traffic.

France is the opposite!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 November, 2022, 09:34:20 am
Indonesia is anomalous in having left hand road traffic but right hand rail traffic.

France is the opposite!
But that's not really an anomaly, it applies to eg Spain, Portugal, probably a dozen other countries which took their rail layouts from Britain but (now at least) drive on the right.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 23 November, 2022, 10:51:29 am
Indonesia is anomalous in having left hand road traffic but right hand rail traffic.

France is the opposite!
But that's not really an anomaly, it applies to eg Spain, Portugal, probably a dozen other countries which took their rail layouts from Britain but (now at least) drive on the right.
Spain has a non standard gauge. A Spanish colleague explained it thus.:"Teem, it ees to prevent invasions." (I think their high speed stuff is standard gauge).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 November, 2022, 11:11:32 am
I've heard it explained as the influence of Brunel's broad gauge but less extreme. I think it's basically the same 5 foot 6 they use in India but adjusted slightly to make sense in 19th century Spanish units.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 26 November, 2022, 10:09:56 pm
There is a company that sells nursing bras that is called Hotmilk.
 :sick:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 November, 2022, 09:51:25 am
James Lovelock microwaved frozen mice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 November, 2022, 10:52:25 am
James Lovelock microwaved frozen mice.

Everybody needs a hobby.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 30 November, 2022, 11:44:00 am
James Lovelock microwaved frozen mice.

If i remember correctly, that was the reason for the invention of the poptyping.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 30 November, 2022, 12:31:40 pm
The impressive thing is that animals that small still work after you thaw them out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 30 November, 2022, 01:21:06 pm
... after having frozen them in the first place.

Is it the freezing or the thawing that causes tissue damage?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 November, 2022, 01:37:45 pm
I'd say neither, but rather the speed with which you can do both.  You have to get through the anomalous expansion phase before the cells pop, and you can only do that if the animal is small enough for all of it to be processed at once.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Slave To The Viking on 30 November, 2022, 11:30:10 pm
James Lovelock microwaved frozen mice.

I believe it was hamsters. Unless I've also just learned that he microwaved frozen mice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 December, 2022, 08:02:03 am
James Lovelock microwaved frozen mice.

I believe it was hamsters. Unless I've also just learned that he microwaved frozen mice.

You're right, it was hamsters.  Shorter tails.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 December, 2022, 10:45:11 am
Today I are learning – thank to the half-Finnish Mr von Brandenburg – that it’s Independence Day in Finland.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 06 December, 2022, 04:55:15 pm
Today I are learning – thank to the half-Finnish Mr von Brandenburg – that it’s Independence Day in Finland.
Ah. That would explain the blue and white flag being flown by the village flag officer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 07 December, 2022, 12:08:23 pm
That at 19:56 UTC last night 85.92% of the earths population was in darkness

Probably*

* Some of the data is old and depends on your definition of darkness.
   oh and artificial light doesn't count

https://www.timeanddate.com/news/astronomy/moment-of-global-darkness (https://www.timeanddate.com/news/astronomy/moment-of-global-darkness)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 December, 2022, 12:29:57 pm
There are penguins in the Mediterranean.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 December, 2022, 12:47:12 pm
There are penguins in the Mediterranean.

(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b_VSeqV4eEI/WVueuOu8iSI/AAAAAAAAfFQ/EGbb-FJg91sr3KW1cwAEE7xtXvj1uBGkACLcBGAs/s1600/6089penguin.jpg)

These ones?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 December, 2022, 02:42:04 pm
That's nothing! There are penguins on Barry Island:
(https://live.staticflickr.com/4176/33754698584_65f2759a16_c.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 07 December, 2022, 05:03:49 pm
There are penguins in the Mediterranean.

Citation needed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Slave To The Viking on 07 December, 2022, 05:10:55 pm
There are penguins in the Mediterranean.

Citation needed.

If you need a citation, see above post: Barry Island is in Whales.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 07 December, 2022, 05:11:58 pm
There are penguins in Middle Earth (https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/gallery/pictures-meet-birminghams-festive-penguins-25484576), too.  But I'm not going into town to take photographs of them, because:

a) Last time I did that I had a run-in with the p*nct*r* fairy

b) Christmas Sodding Market.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 07 December, 2022, 05:19:36 pm
Fifeing Eejit will ken aboot these:

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49474600977_74ee84726c_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2inUgcF)
IMG_5559_01 (https://flic.kr/p/2inUgcF) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 December, 2022, 06:13:53 pm
Mr Google's Famous Web Search Engine threw up an article about so-called pengs in Spaign-o from an expat-targetted newspaper, but on closer examination it transpired that the birbs in question were actually razorbills.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 08 December, 2022, 05:08:39 pm
Razorbills are auks. Auks were called pen gwyn in Welsh. As auks occupy the northern hemisphere's equivalent ecological niche to that of penguins in the south, the name became attache to the southern birds.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 08 December, 2022, 05:15:44 pm
That there is a magazine in the USA called "Garden and Gun", its like a mash-up of "Homes and Gardens" and "Sporting Gun".

The USA really is nothing like the UK.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 08 December, 2022, 05:41:37 pm
Presumably that's 'garden' in the en_US sense, which is slightly more logical.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 08 December, 2022, 05:46:20 pm
It honestly seems quite good spanning the gamut of [a] Southern Conundrum: Is It Okay to Hunt Singles After You Flush a Covey of Quail? to Celebrating An Eccentric Artist and His Bourbon-Loving Goat in Lexington, Kentucky

Having lived in Virginia, once I escaped Yankee territory, some of this southern culture may have infused my brain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: lissotriton on 08 December, 2022, 07:41:59 pm
Bill Gates owns Albert Einstein.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branded_Entertainment_Network
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 December, 2022, 03:41:55 pm
That there's a drunk bloke going viral on TikTok teaching people how to safely[1] bypass electricity meters.  And moreover, this is a response to the many videos teaching people how to do it unsafely.


[1] FCVO 'safely'.  I doubt that anyone desperate enough to resort to bypassing a meter is in a state to go out and spend tens of pounds on suitable electrical fittings.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2022, 04:39:55 pm
I've seen people in India "bypassing the meter" (where there was never even a meter) by means of crocodile clips and oversized jump leads on to the overhead cables. I've never seen anyone die doing this or even require medical attention, which definitely doesn't mean I'm recommending it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 December, 2022, 04:59:17 pm
I believe the traditional BRITISH approach involves driving self-tapping screws into the meter tails or similarly sketchy shit.  At least a jump lead on an overhead line is rated for the current and relatively unlikely to start a fire.


Anyway, I've also learned that Orange Tuesday is a thing.  Currently only in USAnia, but I'm sure well have it over here before the end of the decade.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2022, 05:04:46 pm
Presumably Orange Tuesday is another marvellous occasion to buy things rather a celebration of fruit, Irish Protestantism or even Dutch football, which leads to the question: what colour are Wednesday, Thursday, etc going to be?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 09 December, 2022, 05:05:27 pm
I believe the traditional BRITISH approach involves driving self-tapping screws into the meter tails or similarly sketchy shit.  At least a jump lead on an overhead line is rated for the current and relatively unlikely to start a fire.


Anyway, I've also learned that Orange Tuesday is a thing.  Currently only in USAnia, but I'm sure well have it over here before the end of the decade.

does Orange Tuesday trump blue monday?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 December, 2022, 05:28:10 pm
Presumably Orange Tuesday is another marvellous occasion to buy things rather a celebration of fruit, Irish Protestantism or even Dutch football, which leads to the question: what colour are Wednesday, Thursday, etc going to be?

How did you guess?  Apparently it's the day after Labor Day[1], and is the traditional[2] time to stock up on Halloween tat.


[1] Not to be confused with Labour day.
[2] Citation needed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 December, 2022, 06:23:35 pm
Presumably Orange Tuesday is another marvellous occasion to buy things rather a celebration of fruit, Irish Protestantism or even Dutch football, which leads to the question: what colour are Wednesday, Thursday, etc going to be?

Wednesday should be black and white, but that might confuse the Gammonariat, which is already FUMMIN coz tHaReS  nO ,,, wItE   fRiDaY!!!one!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 10 December, 2022, 12:22:45 am
Presumably Orange Tuesday is another marvellous occasion to buy things rather a celebration of fruit, Irish Protestantism or even Dutch football, which leads to the question: what colour are Wednesday, Thursday, etc going to be?

Wednesday should be black and white, but that might confuse the Gammonariat, which is already FUMMIN coz tHaReS  nO ,,, wItE   fRiDaY!!!one!
Surely Blue and White? Up The Owls!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 December, 2022, 02:03:05 am
It's blue?  Mind you, I don’t think I've seen the Wols on MOTD since the days of black and white TV :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 10 December, 2022, 08:04:19 am
I've seen people in India "bypassing the meter" (where there was never even a meter) by means of crocodile clips and oversized jump leads on to the overhead cables. I've never seen anyone die doing this or even require medical attention, which definitely doesn't mean I'm recommending it.

Yep - seen the "travellers" in France drive all the shiny vehicles into a sports ground, smash open the box with the electrics for the floodlights and attach their cables to the power with big crocodile clips . . .  seems to be standard practice, with the LA/Marie just giving the proverbial Gallic shrug.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 10 December, 2022, 08:42:24 am
Tony Hatch wrote the theme music for, "The Champions".  This shouldn't surprise me, he was a busy lad, but it does.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 11 December, 2022, 12:00:29 pm
In a fairly similar "can't believe I didn't know that" - only just found out that Annie Lennox was the singer for The Tourists back in the 70s.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 11 December, 2022, 12:16:49 pm
I've seen people in India "bypassing the meter" (where there was never even a meter) by means of crocodile clips and oversized jump leads on to the overhead cables. I've never seen anyone die doing this or even require medical attention, which definitely doesn't mean I'm recommending it.

Like birds on a wire,p presumably, if you don’t earth yourself you should be ok.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 11 December, 2022, 12:30:12 pm
That there's a drunk bloke going viral on TikTok teaching people how to safely[1] bypass electricity meters.  And moreover, this is a response to the many videos teaching people how to do it unsafely.


[1] FCVO 'safely'.  I doubt that anyone desperate enough to resort to bypassing a meter is in a state to go out and spend tens of pounds on suitable electrical fittings.

In my limited experience of the seedy and illegal side of life, as a social housing inspector in a drug and prostitution ridden part of Southampton, there are two types of folk who bypass meters. 1. Those who are indeed desperate, and want heat without having the money to pay for it, and 2. Cannabis growers.  The latter will spend a significant amount of money on fancy lights etc., but obviously don't want to pay for the large amount of electricity they consume, as it cuts into their profit margin.  A thermal imaging survey of the city by aircraft showed up several cannabis growing establishments, one of them in a pub.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 December, 2022, 02:01:04 pm
I believe the problem with the cannabis growers is that while they're relatively well resourced, and probably have someone with half a clue to perform the initial wiring, they rely on exploitative labour with a lax attitude to safety for the day-to-day tending of the crop.

Or they're enterprising potheads, who shouldn't be trusted with a screwdriver.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 December, 2022, 02:20:37 pm
A couple of decades ago a friend moved into a top-floor flat in Lansdown Crescent, Bath (the one that's higher up the hill – and hence above – Royal Crescent). Discovered he had access to loft space, which contained fancy lighting, heating, hydroponics and a substantial quantity of withered plants. Presumably left by the previous tenant, who may or may not have had to leave in a hurry. Or possibly property of the landlord?!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 14 December, 2022, 12:38:35 pm
Snakes have a clitoris (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/14/snakes-have-a-clitoris-scientists-overcome-a-massive-taboo-around-female-genitalia)

Obviously not discovered by male scientists.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 December, 2022, 06:02:13 pm
Snakes have a clitoris (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/14/snakes-have-a-clitoris-scientists-overcome-a-massive-taboo-around-female-genitalia)

Barakta informed me of this while I was busy wiring a plug without remembering to thread the strain relief over the cable earlier.  I realised that my understanding of the mechanics of reptilian mating was almost non-existent, so made her google things for me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 14 December, 2022, 06:12:02 pm
Some nutters built a tank with jet engines on top to put out oil well fires.

https://hackaday.com/2021/12/06/big-wind-is-the-meanest-firefighting-tank-you-ever-saw/ (https://hackaday.com/2021/12/06/big-wind-is-the-meanest-firefighting-tank-you-ever-saw/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 December, 2022, 06:14:12 pm
Snakes have a clitoris (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/14/snakes-have-a-clitoris-scientists-overcome-a-massive-taboo-around-female-genitalia)

Barakta informed me of this while I was busy wiring a plug without remembering to thread the strain relief over the cable earlier.  I realised that my understanding of the mechanics of reptilian mating was almost non-existent, so made her google things for me.
'Reptilian mating' is the stage after 'kissing a Tory'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 15 December, 2022, 04:35:54 pm
Snakes have a clitoris (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/14/snakes-have-a-clitoris-scientists-overcome-a-massive-taboo-around-female-genitalia)

Barakta informed me of this while I was busy wiring a plug without remembering to thread the strain relief over the cable earlier.  I realised that my understanding of the mechanics of reptilian mating was almost non-existent, so made her google things for me.
'Reptilian mating' is the stage after 'kissing a Tory'.
Fangs for that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 19 December, 2022, 05:33:52 pm
That back in the days before they invented safety, asbestos cigarette filters were a thing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 19 December, 2022, 08:21:51 pm
That the longest river in the world, the Amazon is not crossed by any bridges.
According to Victoria Coren Mitchell on tonight's Only Connect.

 Really?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 December, 2022, 09:19:45 pm
YA RLY.  Not even in the EAA map extension to Euro Truck Simulator 2.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 27 December, 2022, 11:02:55 am
King Farouk 1 of Egypt had a collection of pornographic neckties. Has anybody ever seen such a thing?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 December, 2022, 11:28:46 am
King Farouk 1 of Egypt had a collection of pornographic neckties. Has anybody ever seen such a thing?

Professor Larrington claims to have seen Japanese ties with slightly lewd pinup girls on the inside but that they hardly qualify as pr0n.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 28 December, 2022, 06:40:07 pm
Bored? Want something to read with a bowl of popcorn?
Academic plagiarism for the lols at #Receptiogate
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1608146988511690753.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 December, 2022, 07:21:15 pm
Professor L has been following that one avidly since it first broke ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 December, 2022, 07:56:44 pm
That the last death sentence for witchcraft in Britain was passed on Jane Wenham of Walkern, Hertfordshire in 1711. She was pardoned by Queen Anne and the case led to the law against witchcraft being repealed in 1736. But the best thing is that the evidence against her included having been seen flying on a broomstick by several locals (as they were walking back from the pub...), to which the judge said there was no law against flying as long as due care was taken. A useful precedent to quote if you should get your broomstick aerial!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 29 December, 2022, 04:14:43 pm
That the last death sentence for witchcraft in Britain was passed on Jane Wenham of Walkern, Hertfordshire in 1711. She was pardoned by Queen Anne and the case led to the law against witchcraft being repealed in 1736. But the best thing is that the evidence against her included having been seen flying on a broomstick by several locals (as they were walking back from the pub...), to which the judge said there was no law against flying as long as due care was taken. A useful precedent to quote if you should get your broomstick aerial!

Thus Wiki:

Quote
In her final years, she was visited by Bishop Francis Hutchinson (1660–1739), author of an Historical essay concerning witchcraft (1718) in which he applied an extremely rational approach to the subject. Hutchinson, who had met other survivors of witch-hunts, regarded their persecution as Tory superstition.

Hmmm.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 31 December, 2022, 07:23:02 pm
That my Sebo K9 vacuum cleaner has a rotary power control built into the on/off button.   I lent the machine to my sister a couple of weeks ago.  I tried to use it today & found that the bag was full to splitting and the flexible hose was jammed full of new carpet fluff.  I had to take the hose off & blow down it to clear the blockage.   Then i put a new bag in & found that it wasn't sucking as well as it usually does (clean your filthy minds...) and that it was a lot quieter than usual.   


I'd already sent a text accusing her of knackering it when I worked out that the power switch looked odd, so twiddled it & things returned to normal.  I think I've had it for about 6 years.....  I must read the manual some time.... :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 31 December, 2022, 07:28:38 pm
I learned that Pele's mother is still alive.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: sg37409 on 02 January, 2023, 11:23:57 am
I knew shimano started out as a fishing reel manufacturer, but I didnt realise they used the same names.

Ultegra upgrade anyone ?

https://www.anglingdirect.co.uk/shimano-ultegra-fc-reel?msclkid=31e4d64a28a81fae9e59b5f8955c5be6&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping%20-%20Product%20Category&utm_term=4585100931477577&utm_content=Reels
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 January, 2023, 11:29:27 am
Don't click the link, unless you want your social media to be inundated with shitverts featuring some spud gurning at a dead fish.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 04 January, 2023, 09:17:14 pm
What foreigner is in Polish.

Dziękuję Jurek.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 07 January, 2023, 12:37:19 pm
That the clock icon for the er clock/stopwatch/timer app on my phone actually tells the time. Just thought it was a picture of a clock
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 07 January, 2023, 12:39:35 pm
That the clock icon for the er clock/stopwatch/timer app on my phone actually tells the time. Just thought it was a picture of a clock

That's the sort of attention to detail that I find unreasonably pleasing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 07 January, 2023, 03:14:50 pm
That the clock icon for the er clock/stopwatch/timer app on my phone actually tells the time. Just thought it was a picture of a clock

That's the sort of attention to detail that I find unreasonably pleasing.

Be better if it chimed the hour though  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 09 January, 2023, 12:28:16 am
Steven Wilson's bass player also did the gig for Kajagoogoo. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Beggs)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 January, 2023, 07:49:36 pm
That white goods equipped with little-tune-playing beepers can use it to beep diagnostic data down the phone to customer support.

That's pretty clever.  Wish I'd thought of it.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 January, 2023, 08:00:00 pm
That white goods equipped with little-tune-playing beepers can use it to beep diagnostic data down the phone to customer support.

That's pretty clever.  Wish I'd thought of it.
Is it your fridge, freezer or washing machine that's broken down?  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 11 January, 2023, 08:09:38 pm
That white goods equipped with little-tune-playing beepers can use it to beep diagnostic data down the phone to customer support.

That's pretty clever.  Wish I'd thought of it.

No way.
That's a step too far.
I've said it before.
Do not allow machines to talk to one another.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 January, 2023, 08:39:18 pm
(Sings)
When I press a special key
It plays a little melody!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 January, 2023, 09:04:53 pm
That white goods equipped with little-tune-playing beepers can use it to beep diagnostic data down the phone to customer support.

That's pretty clever.  Wish I'd thought of it.
Is it your fridge, freezer or washing machine that's broken down?  ;)

Someone else's washing machine, in this instance.

The fridge is purely mechanical and continues to chug along adequately, though I have electronic BRANES to retrofit as a work in progress.

Our boiler's broken, but fortunately not in a way that causes it to know that it's broken...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 11 January, 2023, 09:06:04 pm
No way.
That's a step too far.
I've said it before.
Do not allow machines to talk to one another.

I'm all for a bit of judicious air-gapping, but if you take that line of thinking too far you end up printing everything out on octagonal paper.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 11 January, 2023, 09:13:25 pm
(Sings)
When I press a special key
It plays a little melody!

You are Ralf Hütter AICMFP.  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 11 January, 2023, 09:14:01 pm
Air-gapping's been breached if we allow the machines to squawk at each other.
They will develop their own language soon.

A reversal of VoIP: IPoV; V90 re-invented!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 11 January, 2023, 09:26:09 pm
Couple of things. That 'pills' containing micro cameras that take a picture every 2 seconds can now be swallowed to investigate gastric conditions. And ..
The reason we clash drinking vessels of good cheer dates back to the middle ages, when the  tankard was expected to spill over into the others demonstrating that the drink was not poisoned.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 January, 2023, 01:39:03 am
(Sings)
When I press a special key
It plays a little melody!

You are Ralf Hütter AICMFP.  :demon:

I had to record the Japanese version onto cassette for Professor “No Turntable” Larrington when she came back from Nippon with the 7” single in her luggage  :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 12 January, 2023, 12:54:02 pm
The word "debouched" - "emerge from a confined space into a wide, open area"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ScumOfTheRoad on 12 January, 2023, 01:16:18 pm
Regarding machines beeping to call back to base, McLaren F1s came equipped with modems.
I have no idea if a bank of modems is still maintained in the depths of MTC so the poor things can talk to the mothership.

I did hear tales of the heritage racing department having to source outdated laptops on eBay in order to start certain cars though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 January, 2023, 01:38:38 pm
The good news is that we're in charge. The bad news is that we are the machines, we're just programmed to think we're human.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 January, 2023, 06:22:08 pm
Regarding machines beeping to call back to base, McLaren F1s came equipped with modems.
I have no idea if a bank of modems is still maintained in the depths of MTC so the poor things can talk to the mothership.

I did hear tales of the heritage racing department having to source outdated laptops on eBay in order to start certain cars though.

$RICH_COLLECTOR found himself unable to start a Ferrari F1/86 wot he had acquired.  Exasperated, he asked former Ferrari driver Stefan Johansson if he'd ever had trouble starting it.  “Oh no,” said the affable Swede, “I just did this [raises right hand with index finger pointing upwards; moves hand in vaguely circular motion] and it started every time!”
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MikeFromLFE on 13 January, 2023, 07:31:29 am
Our washing machine has got a unscrewable thingy that let's you check if the pump is full of sock.
It's behind a hard to remove panel at floor height.
Instructions : "A small amount of water may be released" - I've washed the kitchen floor again.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ScumOfTheRoad on 13 January, 2023, 07:49:53 am
$RICH_COLLECTOR found himself unable to start a Ferrari F1/86 wot he had acquired.  Exasperated, he asked former Ferrari driver Stefan Johansson if he'd ever had trouble starting it.  “Oh no,” said the affable Swede, “I just did this [raises right hand with index finger pointing upwards; moves hand in vaguely circular motion] and it started every time!”

For anyone interested, F1 cars do not have their own starters. A muckle big battery is brought up on  trolley which has what looks like an oversized hand blender which is shoved up the car's jacksy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Paul on 13 January, 2023, 09:21:24 am
Our washing machine has got a unscrewable thingy that let's you check if the pump is full of sock.
It's behind a hard to remove panel at floor height.
Instructions : "A small amount of water may be released" - I've washed the kitchen floor again.
Oh yes. This is one of the reasons I keep old towels. And a large rusty baking tray.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 13 January, 2023, 11:20:18 am
For searching in YACF (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=78598.msg2781816#msg2781816)

Quote from: Nuncio
'Print' (up there, top right) and ctrl-F works fine fine for me, if what I'm interested in is in a single thread.

 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 January, 2023, 11:47:54 am
$RICH_COLLECTOR found himself unable to start a Ferrari F1/86 wot he had acquired.  Exasperated, he asked former Ferrari driver Stefan Johansson if he'd ever had trouble starting it.  “Oh no,” said the affable Swede, “I just did this [raises right hand with index finger pointing upwards; moves hand in vaguely circular motion] and it started every time!”

For anyone interested, F1 cars do not have their own starters. A muckle big battery is brought up on  trolley which has what looks like an oversized hand blender which is shoved up the car's jacksy.

Teh Roolz used to require starters, at least back in the Cosworth Era; McLaren's Alistair “Bloke” Caldwell developed a compressed air driven one for the M23 which apparently saved a fair bit of weight over the anbaric alternative.  I imagine the increasingly complex electronics put a halt to this.

Dan Gurney did once win a major sports car race by coaxing his crippled car over the finish line on the starter, which has absolutely 0 to do with anything but is apparently the only time an electric car has won an FIA-sanctioned event until the advent of electric-only racing series :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 January, 2023, 03:17:01 pm
Moo is Thai for pork.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 13 January, 2023, 03:55:45 pm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64252259

The word we always used to describe girls who managed to infiltrate Cowboys and Indians Native Americans games is as bad as The N-Word.  I never knew.  "Brave" for male Indian warriors doesn't seem to cause the same offence but is considered archaic and European.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 13 January, 2023, 04:13:11 pm
As far as I can see that article doesn't actually tell you the word so I am none the wiser.

EDIT - found it by googling Loybas Hill, one of the new names. Like Roger I had no idea it was so derogatory!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 13 January, 2023, 04:28:29 pm
As far as I can see that article doesn't actually tell you the word so I am none the wiser.

EDIT - found it by googling Loybas Hill, one of the new names. Like Roger I had no idea it was so derogatory!
I had to do exactly the same googling  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 13 January, 2023, 04:42:22 pm
Oh, for heaven's sake!

"Hey, there's a word which you may not realise is considered offensive, which you must never use!"
"Oh, clue me in, so I don't use it accidentally!"
"Sorry, can't say it! Ha Ha! You'll just have to trip up on it yourself!"

This is a ludicrous Kafkaesque thing.
Context is important.
Discussing a word and informing people that it may be offensive is not the same thing as actually using the word to describe someone.

The word is "squaw".



Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Flite on 13 January, 2023, 05:05:05 pm
Quote
The word is "squaw".
I'm old enough the have guessed that in the context of the post.
But I'm sick to the back teeth of people giving innocent words new meanings, or deciding that long-established words are now "offensive"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2023, 05:10:51 pm
I agree with Feanor. When being told something is unacceptable, it's essential to be told what the unacceptable word or thing is (and why it's unacceptable), otherwise how can you avoid it?

I do have a vague memory of this earlier though. IIRC (but it's a vague memory so I quite likely don't) the word 'squaw' doesn't actually mean 'woman' (or girl, wife, mother, sister, daughter, etc) in its original language, but something like 'bitch' (in the female dog sense, but the both would apply). So I think it does make sense to change the names, particularly in areas where some people might still know the original language. But it's also an illustration of context and 'multiple Englishes' because in America it might be "an offensive ethnic, racial and sexist slur, particularly for Indigenous women" but in Britain it's just "The word we always used to describe girls who managed to infiltrate Cowboys and Indians Native Americans games".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 January, 2023, 05:16:30 pm
I agree with Feanor. When being told something is unacceptable, it's essential to be told what the unacceptable word or thing is (and why it's unacceptable), otherwise how can you avoid it?

Language isn't 'bad' or 'unacceptable', so much as 'inappropriate'.  Meta-discussion of when you should or shouldn't use the word, explaining problematic meanings, or indeed just making people familiar with a term in the context of learning a language seems entirely appropriate to me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 13 January, 2023, 05:16:48 pm
<Obligatory Far Side cartoon>

https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/attachments/farside-lone-ranger-jpg.37732/

 :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 13 January, 2023, 07:32:15 pm
Don't know if it's been edited to add, but that article does now contain
Quote
The word 'squaw' has historically been used as "an offensive ethnic, racial and sexist slur, particularly for Indigenous women", the department said.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2023, 08:02:55 pm
They've added 'squaw'. Which is good and sensible.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 13 January, 2023, 08:36:13 pm
AIUI the offensiveness comes from the fact that only a few tribes used the word originally, but it was appropriated by the white man and used to refer to all NA women.  I suppose it's a bit like calling an Indian (i.e. someone from India) the P-word.

There is an urban myth that it translates to something like "pussy" but that's been debunked.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Captain Nemo on 13 January, 2023, 09:25:16 pm
From my library shelves.

****WARNING***** the following references use the word "Indian".

The Dictionary of the American West compiled by Winfred Blevins (pub. Facts on File, New York 1993):
      "Squaw - An Indian woman. Used teasingly, it can also mean an Anglo woman. The word started life as an Algonquian term meaning 'wife', then became part of the lingua franca developed by the eastern Indians for purposes of trading and was carried west by frontiersmen according to J.L. Dillard in All-American English. The Plains Indians saw it as a white man's word and found it objectionable and almost all contemporary Indians find it objectionable."

Dictionary of Americanisms compiled by James Bartlett (1989 facsimile edition, orig. pub. 1849):
    "Squaw. (Narragansett Indian). An Indian woman. Mr. Duponceau, after giving a list of the languages and forms in which this word occurs, observes (Google Translate from the printed French) 'We see that the family of this word extends from the Knistenaux in Canada, and the Skoffies and Montagnards of Acadia, to the Nanticokes on the borders of Virginia.' Memoir sur les Languages d'Amerique du Nord, p333."

The tribes / peoples refered to by Duponceau are all part of the greater Algonquian people inhabiting the Eastern Seaboard (from the Great Lakes, through New England all the way down to Chesapeake Bay).

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2023, 09:37:25 pm
I suppose it's a bit like 'bint' which many find offensive but in the Arabic just means girl or daughter. Brought into English by soldiers stationed in the Middle East during WW1.

My favourite NatAm word is 'papoose'.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 13 January, 2023, 10:20:50 pm
It looks like the name change was done after some research and investigation as well as consultation with Native American and local communities which I think is reasonable. It isn't rushed or reactionary, just perhaps an overdue recognition of the ground in racism that exists in many places.

However, I do believe if you are saying X word is now not appropriate, you do need to say what the word is. I see this in British Sign Language (BSL) where people will allude to a sign that lots of younger and second language signers don't know cos they were from before our time.

The sign for holiday in some dialects of BSL uses the flipping the bird handshape circling - this wasn't rude in the UK generally until North American GIs came here and introduced the flipping the bird as a rude gesture. We also now share a lot more visual media with North America so that's also been a probable source of it becoming rude to most of us alive today...

There's arguments about whether BSL should have to change cos of UK cultural changes or if those are losses of valuable language. I personally am a bit mercenary and feel that while it should be documented for linguistic history, we should recognise that Deaf people do not exist in isolation and that it is likely that along with other changes in BSL, the language will change. There is much more homogenisation of dialects for example than there used to be. Many people end up defaulting to "London Signs" cos they're most commonly seen online and media and people feel pressured to do so.

I am lucky my BSL tutor taught us both the flipping the bird sign for holiday and a number of other words which were  in the early stages of being phased out due to racism or racial stereotyping e.g. signs for Chinese, Jewish, Japan -- very much as "you should know these, what they mean, and possible context". There's also been some Black and South Asian Deaf people doing videos showing signs that they think should be treated like the N and P words are in English and should be avoided and indeed making it clear how often they've had those signs used at them by people in an intentionally violent manner.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 January, 2023, 08:12:43 am
I agree with Feanor. When being told something is unacceptable, it's essential to be told what the unacceptable word or thing is (and why it's unacceptable), otherwise how can you avoid it?

Language isn't 'bad' or 'unacceptable', so much as 'inappropriate'.  Meta-discussion of when you should or shouldn't use the word, explaining problematic meanings, or indeed just making people familiar with a term in the context of learning a language seems entirely appropriate to me.

Inappropriate has become so laden with suggestions of male depravity that its use in other contexts has become inappropriate.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 15 January, 2023, 10:22:00 pm
As far as I can see that article doesn't actually tell you the word so I am none the wiser.

EDIT - found it by googling Loybas Hill, one of the new names. Like Roger I had no idea it was so derogatory!

From that article, 6th para : -

"The word 'squaw' has historically been used as "an offensive ethnic, racial and sexist slur, particularly for Indigenous women", the department said."

The article was edited. The word wasn't there when Auntie Helen (and I) first read it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 15 January, 2023, 10:28:22 pm
As far as I can see that article doesn't actually tell you the word so I am none the wiser.

EDIT - found it by googling Loybas Hill, one of the new names. Like Roger I had no idea it was so derogatory!

From that article, 6th para : -

"The word 'squaw' has historically been used as "an offensive ethnic, racial and sexist slur, particularly for Indigenous women", the department said."

The article was edited. The word wasn't there when Auntie Helen (and I) first read it.
Yup, I replied before getting to this page of the thread, so I've removed my now redundant post.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 January, 2023, 11:19:09 pm
What Joule–Thomson inversion temperatures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule%E2%80%93Thomson_effect) are and that hydrogen and helium have very low ones at atmospheric pressure.  In other words, your Mk 1 hydrogen leak will tend to heat up, rather than cooling down like normal gases.  Exciting!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 15 January, 2023, 11:21:40 pm
That reminds me, I haven't heard anyone talking about J-T effects at work for ages now...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 January, 2023, 06:27:01 pm
That although you probably can't treat severe acute malnutrition with Nutella, it has been the inspiration for a punningly named product that does just that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 24 January, 2023, 10:17:24 am
That there is such a thing as a Ham Holy Burger (https://www.instagram.com/hamholyburger/?hl=en). My life feels vindicated.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 January, 2023, 10:36:42 am
Quote
Sorry, this page isn't available.

Either it’s been discontinued…
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 24 January, 2023, 10:38:37 am
Here's a trip advisor page - it's apparently an Italian chain https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186338-d7179276-Reviews-Ham_Holy_Burger-London_England.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 January, 2023, 10:43:17 am
Doesn’t seem terribly well thought-of…
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 24 January, 2023, 12:42:39 pm
Which only increases my feeling of affinity
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 25 January, 2023, 01:05:11 pm
The US Army has no rank of Field Marshal and never has. They thought about it during WWII as they needed to create an equivalent rank but since one of those they wanted to promote to this new rank was George C Marshall (of The Marshall Plan fame) that would have resulted in there being a "Marshall Marshal" so they went with Five Star General instead.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 January, 2023, 01:09:07 pm
That's a bit similar to what my sister was telling me about Navy ranks last weekend (her eldest is in the Navy). Captain and Commander are both ranks, but they're also both positions. So the captain of the ship might be a Captain or a Commander or neither, there might be a Captain on the ship, who nevertheless is not the captain of the ship.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Captain Nemo on 25 January, 2023, 01:23:59 pm
...and then in Catch-22, we have the character called Major who is promoted to the rank of major. To add to the fun his first names are also Major Major.
Appointments to see him in his office can only be made for times when he is not in his office...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 25 January, 2023, 01:37:46 pm
For a while the british army had a Major Major. I had to write to him a couple of times when he was secretary of the army rowing club.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 25 January, 2023, 08:09:53 pm
...and then in Catch-22, we have the character called Major who is promoted to the rank of major. To add to the fun his first names are also Major Major.
Appointments to see him in his office can only be made for times when he is not in his office...

IIRC it was rank = Major, surname = Major, and as the older he was “Major”. That distinguished him from Major Major Minor who was younger. I can’t remember if they were father and son.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 26 January, 2023, 12:43:38 am
...and then in Catch-22, we have the character called Major who is promoted to the rank of major. To add to the fun his first names are also Major Major.
Appointments to see him in his office can only be made for times when he is not in his office...

IIRC it was rank = Major, surname = Major, and as the older he was “Major”. That distinguished him from Major Major Minor who was younger. I can’t remember if they were father and son.

Having just found the relevant passage in my copy of Catch-22: He was born with the family name Major, and was named Major Major Major by his father, who had a rather unusual sense of humour. Four days after enlisting in the US Army he was promoted from Private to Major, "by an IBM machine with a sense of humor almost as keen as his father's".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 26 January, 2023, 07:40:56 am
I stand corrected  ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 26 January, 2023, 03:02:02 pm
Bram Stoker was Irish.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 26 January, 2023, 03:19:36 pm
...and then in Catch-22, we have the character called Major who is promoted to the rank of major. To add to the fun his first names are also Major Major.
Appointments to see him in his office can only be made for times when he is not in his office...

IIRC it was rank = Major, surname = Major, and as the older he was “Major”. That distinguished him from Major Major Minor who was younger. I can’t remember if they were father and son.

Having just found the relevant passage in my copy of Catch-22: He was born with the family name Major, and was named Major Major Major by his father, who had a rather unusual sense of humour. Four days after enlisting in the US Army he was promoted from Private to Major, "by an IBM machine with a sense of humor almost as keen as his father's".
And was then forever held at that rank. And his basketball team members sort of started ignoring him. (I last read Catch 22 about 40 years ago.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 26 January, 2023, 05:21:04 pm
...and then in Catch-22, we have the character called Major who is promoted to the rank of major. To add to the fun his first names are also Major Major.
Appointments to see him in his office can only be made for times when he is not in his office...

IIRC it was rank = Major, surname = Major, and as the older he was “Major”. That distinguished him from Major Major Minor who was younger. I can’t remember if they were father and son.

Having just found the relevant passage in my copy of Catch-22: He was born with the family name Major, and was named Major Major Major by his father, who had a rather unusual sense of humour. Four days after enlisting in the US Army he was promoted from Private to Major, "by an IBM machine with a sense of humor almost as keen as his father's".
And was then forever held at that rank. And his basketball team members sort of started ignoring him. (I last read Catch 22 about 40 years ago.)


Same here. I have a vague recollection that he was pissed off by the prospect of holding the rank in perpertuity, with no chance of promotion or demotion.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: neilrj on 26 January, 2023, 11:02:22 pm
Having just found the relevant passage in my copy of Catch-22: He was born with the family name Major, and was named Major Major Major by his father, who had a rather unusual sense of humour. Four days after enlisting in the US Army he was promoted from Private to Major, "by an IBM machine with a sense of humor almost as keen as his father's".

Catch 22 and IBM? Is that timeline right? Only ever seen the film, and sadly only remember the plane and the (half) bloke on the jetty  :sick:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 27 January, 2023, 01:13:41 am
Having just found the relevant passage in my copy of Catch-22: He was born with the family name Major, and was named Major Major Major by his father, who had a rather unusual sense of humour. Four days after enlisting in the US Army he was promoted from Private to Major, "by an IBM machine with a sense of humor almost as keen as his father's".

Catch 22 and IBM? Is that timeline right? Only ever seen the film, and sadly only remember the plane and the (half) bloke on the jetty  :sick:

Yes, it is. IBM was around in the 1930s. A German subsidiary supplied data processing  machines that were used in the management of the Holocaust.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 January, 2023, 02:17:02 am
The company that changed its name to IBM in 1924 was originally founded in 1911 and according to FruitCo fanboiz stands for “I Bought Macintosh” or “It's Broken Mate”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 27 January, 2023, 05:44:32 am
Yes, it is. IBM was around in the 1930s. A German subsidiary supplied data processing  machines that were used in the management of the Holocaust.

The German subsidiary not only supplied machines to help manage the Holocaust, they helped with the supply system for most of the German military for as long as the Third Reich existed. Thomas Watson stayed in contact with the German subsidiary through Swiss intermediaries and through US diplomats stationed in Switzerland throughout WWII, and made sure that IBM collected royalties from the subsidiary (DeHoMaG, Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft), with the money being funneled through Swiss banks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 27 January, 2023, 07:41:52 am
The company that changed its name to IBM in 1924 was originally founded in 1911 and according to FruitCo fanboiz stands for “I Bought Macintosh” or “It's Broken Mate”.

Or if you work there   "I've Been Moved"  - as in to another role/department
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 January, 2023, 10:06:13 am
The company that changed its name to IBM in 1924 was originally founded in 1911 and according to FruitCo fanboiz stands for “I Bought Macintosh” or “It's Broken Mate”.

Or if you work there   "I've Been Moved"  - as in to another role/department

Or if you were a client, "I'm Being Milked" or "I'm Being Mugged".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 27 January, 2023, 10:44:29 am
It’s Better Manually
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 27 January, 2023, 12:32:20 pm
That according to Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811) and the Canting Dictionary (1736) a "Ralph Spooner" is a fool. e.g.
Quote
"Papa told him not to be such a Ralph Spooner and stop going about with them, but when has my brother ever listened?"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 27 January, 2023, 12:42:57 pm
Donkeys years ago had occasion to be in the IBM (Big Blue) staff canteen in London one Lunchtime. It was amazing, with Cold platter, fish and steak counters all at subsidized rates. Probably long gone.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 27 January, 2023, 01:05:45 pm
Today at 16:50 pm the Moon, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn all line up over the house opposite, 25% cloud cover forecast tho' but.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 January, 2023, 01:34:09 pm
That viscose is not an alternative to rayon but one of several types of rayon. Modal, tencel and lyocell are some others.
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/fabric-guide-what-is-viscose-understanding-viscose-fabric-and-how-viscose-is-made
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 27 January, 2023, 01:43:30 pm
Today at 16:50 pm the Moon, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn all line up over the house opposite, 25% cloud cover forecast tho' but.

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/celestial_events applies. :demon: ;)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 27 January, 2023, 02:08:15 pm
A few of you may remember a late 90s band called bellatrix who had a couple of hits, well I heard them being played probably on the evening session on the now defunct radio 1

I knew this but forgot but they were tipped for big things. Did a Co headline tour with Coldplay but then split up. Now I'm not a Coldplay hater but I'd have preferred if Bellatrix had continued
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SoreTween on 27 January, 2023, 02:30:45 pm
Today at 16:50 pm the Moon, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn all line up over the house opposite, 25% cloud cover forecast tho' but.

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/celestial_events applies. :demon: ;)
Or:
https://www.theregister.com/2013/12/02/xmas_list_suggestions/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 27 January, 2023, 04:25:04 pm
Today at 16:50 pm the Moon, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn all line up over the house opposite, 25% cloud cover forecast tho' but.

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/celestial_events applies. :demon: ;)
Or:
https://www.theregister.com/2013/12/02/xmas_list_suggestions/

 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 27 January, 2023, 05:42:15 pm
Bram Stoker was Irish.

And his mother was Charlotte Stoker. As a child she had lived through the 1832 cholera epidemic in Sligo. It had been sweeping through Europe so everyone was braced for it, and when it arrived Sligo was hit hard. It was believed rightly or wrongly that dead bodies could spread the disease, so they were disposed of as quickly as possible after death, or, in some cases, before death. There were tales of the body of a tall man, which was too long to fit in a coffin, having its legs broken, whereupon the body stated screaming with pain. And of a man who found his wife in a pile of bodies, pulled her out and took her home. She survived for many years. Charlotte's family fled to relatives some distance away and they were greeted by locals with pitchforks who forced them back. She wrote her reminiscences of the epidemic in later life. Worth reading if you can find it.

Anyway, Bram was a sickly child and spent much of his early boyhood bedridden, where his mother told him stories of her childhood, including the great cholera epidemic, and  people seemingly coming back from the dead.

Quote from: wiki
Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years."

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Stoker

I learned this a few weeks ago.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: perpetual dan on 27 January, 2023, 07:12:08 pm
Today at 16:50 pm the Moon, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn all line up over the house opposite, 25% cloud cover forecast tho' but.
Thanks! By the time I went to look, I just got mars, the moon and Jupiter, between clouds and houses.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 27 January, 2023, 08:44:43 pm
That moles build fortresses.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Sergeant Pluck on 27 January, 2023, 09:00:16 pm
That there are telescopic urinals.

And that it is possible to be crushed underneath one  :( Doesn’t bear thinking about.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/27/man-crushed-and-injured-while-working-on-open-air-urinal-in-london
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 27 January, 2023, 09:01:29 pm
That moles build fortresses.
Also, in winter, they dig deeper, for that is where the worms are.
So fewer mole hills in winter.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 January, 2023, 01:17:49 am
Today I are learning that Lieutenant Pigeon – yes, them lot wot had a number one hit in 1972 with “Mouldy Old Dough” – is an anagram of “Genuine Potential”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 28 January, 2023, 08:24:01 am
That there are telescopic urinals.

And that it is possible to be crushed underneath one  :( Doesn’t bear thinking about.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/27/man-crushed-and-injured-while-working-on-open-air-urinal-in-london

Speaking of urinals - have you seen the ones like a giant 3 or 4 sided traffic cone that they position over drains?    Not sure if they still do but they used to put them out in Central London on Friday and Saturday nights.

Like https://www.urinal.net/charing_cross/   (note it's marked for men!)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 January, 2023, 10:27:34 am
Urinals for women do exist too, but they're a recent invention.
https://www.bristol247.com/festivals/news-festivals/get-your-squat-on-bristol-start-up-launches-womens-urinal-at-glastonbury-2022/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 January, 2023, 03:43:03 pm
Cashmere doesn't come from Kashmir.

"Well of course not!" - MrsT
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 29 January, 2023, 12:31:17 pm
Urinals for women do exist too, but they're a recent invention.
https://www.bristol247.com/festivals/news-festivals/get-your-squat-on-bristol-start-up-launches-womens-urinal-at-glastonbury-2022/

I've seen their website mentioned elseweb, and was impressed by the lengths they go to to not actually show you what their product looks like.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 29 January, 2023, 01:55:54 pm
A strange little house has recently appeared by the side of the Thames in Ham. I learned today that it is supposedly the home of Brian the otter, a puppet that will feature in a forthcoming publicity film by Thames Water intended to convince us that it is OK to take water out of the river and replace it with 'treated' sewage.
Local swimming group the Teddington Bluetits have been making their feelings known.

See https://outdoorswimmer.com/news/teddington-bluetits-disrupt-thames-water-filming/ (https://outdoorswimmer.com/news/teddington-bluetits-disrupt-thames-water-filming/)

and https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11688361/Brian-otter-Sorry-Thames-Water-compare-meerkat-fire-firm-films-advert.html (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11688361/Brian-otter-Sorry-Thames-Water-compare-meerkat-fire-firm-films-advert.html)

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 31 January, 2023, 09:00:19 pm
What a Shay locomotive is (or was).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 February, 2023, 10:49:57 am
On similar lines, that when Canadian railways were switching from steam to diesel in the 1950s, they tried out diesel-fired steam locomotives. More even burning and no need for a fireman.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 01 February, 2023, 02:20:00 pm
On similar lines, that when Canadian railways were switching from steam to diesel in the 1950s, they tried out diesel-fired steam locomotives. More even burning and no need for a fireman.

No sparks either.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 02 February, 2023, 12:42:11 pm
Windscreens on Tube trains have their impact resistance tested by firing a 1kg mass at them at 233km/h.

I've just been reading a fascinating article about the process of finding a new supplier of windscreens for Tube trains after the factory that has been making them for decades closed down in 2020. What I'm not sure of is the significance of that speed.

ETA: it's not just Tube trains but all trains. BS EN 15152 (https://landingpage.bsigroup.com/LandingPage/Undated?UPI=000000000030270294) applies.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: trundle on 02 February, 2023, 01:09:30 pm
Windscreens on Tube trains have their impact resistance tested by firing a 1kg mass at them at 233km/h.

I've just been reading a fascinating article about the process of finding a new supplier of windscreens for Tube trains after the factory that has been making them for decades closed down in 2020. What I'm not sure of is the significance of that speed.

ETA: it's not just Tube trains but all trains. BS EN 15152 (https://landingpage.bsigroup.com/LandingPage/Undated?UPI=000000000030270294) applies.

That's interesting - and I can't help but speculate wildly.

Perhaps this is derived from the maximum closing speed of two opposing tube trains. i.e. something comes off one, hitting the other whilst they are both closing at max speed.

Top speed of tubes today is 60mph - which is 193kph for 120mph closing speed: But if there is a 12.5% engineering uplift, just in case, then that gets 233kph.

Complete speculation on my part - but I think there is some logic in the biggest speeds being two closing trains?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 02 February, 2023, 01:31:44 pm
Sounds plausible!

I did wonder if it might be something as mundane as that being the speed the compressor could generate when the spec was first designed and has thus become the standard.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 02 February, 2023, 01:34:18 pm
Windscreens on Tube trains have their impact resistance tested by firing a 1kg mass at them at 233km/h.

I've just been reading a fascinating article about the process of finding a new supplier of windscreens for Tube trains after the factory that has been making them for decades closed down in 2020. What I'm not sure of is the significance of that speed.

ETA: it's not just Tube trains but all trains. BS EN 15152 (https://landingpage.bsigroup.com/LandingPage/Undated?UPI=000000000030270294) applies.

That's interesting - and I can't help but speculate wildly.

Perhaps this is derived from the maximum closing speed of two opposing tube trains. i.e. something comes off one, hitting the other whilst they are both closing at max speed.

Top speed of tubes today is 60mph - which is 193kph for 120mph closing speed: But if there is a 12.5% engineering uplift, just in case, then that gets 233kph.

Complete speculation on my part - but I think there is some logic in the biggest speeds being two closing trains?

There's the apocryphal story of a new operative failing all windscreens, which was a problem until they found out that he hadn't been defrosting the chickens first.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Captain Nemo on 02 February, 2023, 01:36:11 pm
233km/h is stii a bit slow for mainline trains.

Should use a "Chicken Gun" as in aerospace for birdstrike testing of cockpit windows and engines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nAc7wab-l4

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

Legendary stories about test failures when someone "forgot" to defrost the chickens before firing :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 02 February, 2023, 01:45:45 pm
I remember the frozen chicken test being covered by an episode of Mythbusters. Can't remember the outcome though.

(Way back in 2004, according to the internet (https://mythbusters.fandom.com/wiki/Chicken_Gun_(Episode)).)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 02 February, 2023, 02:01:40 pm
I had a day at the BAE Lymington facility where they performed the 'chicken air gun into a canopy' testing.

Sadly they weren't testing that day.

A local farmer had (still has ?) the contract to provide x number chickens every week within a specified weight range.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: The Family Cyclist on 02 February, 2023, 02:23:44 pm
That there are telescopic urinals.

And that it is possible to be crushed underneath one  :( Doesn’t bear thinking about.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/27/man-crushed-and-injured-while-working-on-open-air-urinal-in-london

Speaking of urinals - have you seen the ones like a giant 3 or 4 sided traffic cone that they position over drains?    Not sure if they still do but they used to put them out in Central London on Friday and Saturday nights.

Like https://www.urinal.net/charing_cross/   (note it's marked for men!)

Not over drains but at a festival a few years back they had hoist in ones with piss holes on four sides. Problem was it wasn't level, was on the piss and insufficient capacity so was draining out one side
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 February, 2023, 04:38:27 pm
That there are telescopic urinals.

And that it is possible to be crushed underneath one  :( Doesn’t bear thinking about.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/27/man-crushed-and-injured-while-working-on-open-air-urinal-in-london

Speaking of urinals - have you seen the ones like a giant 3 or 4 sided traffic cone that they position over drains?    Not sure if they still do but they used to put them out in Central London on Friday and Saturday nights.

Like https://www.urinal.net/charing_cross/   (note it's marked for men!)

Not over drains but at a festival a few years back they had hoist in ones with piss holes on four sides. Problem was it wasn't level, was on the piss and insufficient capacity so was draining out one side

According to one of my old chums, at one of the Borders rugby grounds fifty years ago the cludges were built over a stream. Fun trick was to set fire to a paper boat upstream...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 February, 2023, 10:06:58 pm
...that Sram used to make a hub dynamo!
https://sportandleisure.com/products/sram-i-light-d724-dynamo-front-hub-6v-2-4w-36-hole-silver
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 03 February, 2023, 08:11:13 pm
Paco Rabanne was a real person and not just some made up brand.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 03 February, 2023, 09:02:30 pm
About the Panama Canal “mules”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 February, 2023, 09:31:59 pm
Paco Rabanne was a real person and not just some made up brand.
The one that surprised me was Hugo Boss. I'd always assumed that it was just along the lines of "boss clothes". Which now leads me to wonder where the word boss, in that sense, comes from.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 February, 2023, 09:34:28 pm
...and so today, just this minute, I have learned that 'boss' comes from the Dutch baas, meaning 'master', and its use in English took off in 19th century USA as an alternative to 'master', because that word had associations with slavery. Which perhaps is ironic given the Afrikaans use of baas.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-origin-word-boss-why-its-completely-different-from-thomas/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 February, 2023, 11:12:31 pm
About the Panama Canal “mules”.

Up until 1973 shipping on the Danube had to be hauled upstream through the Sip Channel of the Iron Gates Gorge by a powerful locomotive.  The perfidious BRITISH attempted to block this section of the river in 1940 to stop Romanian oil from reaching the gentlemen of the Third Reich by sinking ships in it; although the beastly Nazis managed to thwart this operation we did at least manage to destroy the locomotive and the embankment on which it ran by ramming it at forty knots with an ASL launch packed with explosives.  Hurrah!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 03 February, 2023, 11:23:48 pm
The circular ornate bit in the middle of a shield is also a boss.

Thus we get this definition, although I get confused as to which type it applies to:

Boss, noun; decorative knob.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 February, 2023, 08:01:46 am
That during the Vietnam war US forces would occasionally drop packs of ammunition of the calibres the Viet Cong were using, in which one round in maybe 100 was jimmied to blow up in the chamber, injuring and sometimes killing the user and bystanders.  The idea was to make the VC who found them think their weapons unreliable.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 04 February, 2023, 08:24:44 am
Quote from: Tim Hall
Boss, noun; decorative knob.
Syn.  Manager, Project Manager, Chief Executive Officer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 04 February, 2023, 07:59:35 pm
Bobby Farrell from Boney M died on the same date and in the same city as Ra- Ra- Rasputin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 05 February, 2023, 10:58:43 pm
Shift-F10 brings up the proper context menu in Win11 File Explorer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 06 February, 2023, 09:57:10 am
It's just the receptors at the bottom of your retina that cancel melatonin, so if you get up at night to go to the cludge don't look up.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 06 February, 2023, 12:55:42 pm
That Samuel Beckett stipulated that Waiting for Godot can only be performed by male actors
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 February, 2023, 01:28:32 pm
That in Tanzania, if someone is injured in, say, a car crash, they're not allowed to go straight to hospital. First they have to go to the police station and get a form. This is partly to do with fighting crime and partly also to protect the lives of drivers (having hit a pedestrian, they are likely to be lynched).

https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/oped/pf3-forms-should-be-at-hospitals-to-save-lives-2547322
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 09 February, 2023, 10:25:23 am
That in extemely cold (for BRITAIN)  conditions, UPVC doors can contract enough that they can't be locked. I actually suspected this last week, but had it confirmed today on that internet they have now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 February, 2023, 06:14:14 pm
Hmmmm.  Wonder if that was why I couldn’t lock one of the doors at Fort Larrington at Christmas.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 February, 2023, 10:29:20 pm
That the European Broadcasting Union was actually set up in 1950 as competition to the already existing Organisation Internationale de Radiodiffusion et de Télévision, which had been based in Brussels since 1946. The OIRT then moved its HQ to Prague and became in effect "TV for socialists". And (this bit I knew already though) there was the Intervision Song Festival, the Eurovision for the People, which still lives on in Sopot (Polish seaside resort). (Sopot Festival is a topic in itself, but somewhere else.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 11 February, 2023, 03:05:51 pm
That the Mrs had a relative that was a national HW boxing champion in the day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 11 February, 2023, 04:16:32 pm
That Fru Grains exist(ed).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 11 February, 2023, 04:26:11 pm
That in extemely cold (for BRITAIN)  conditions, UPVC doors can contract enough that they can't be locked. I actually suspected this last week, but had it confirmed today on that internet they have now.

The same problem occurs in extreme heat.  It is possible to carry out adjustments and I have forgotten exactly how, but it can't be very difficult if I managed it. No welding or angle-grinders were involved.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 February, 2023, 05:17:32 pm
The misbehaving door at Fort Larrington is lockable again without any maintenance – percussive or otherwise – required.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 11 February, 2023, 10:11:40 pm
Our door closed easily again and I now know why!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 February, 2023, 10:24:53 am
Prevaricate comes from the Latin for to walk with splayed legs.  Ain't that nice?

"A good whack in the goolies and he prevaricated."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 15 February, 2023, 10:49:42 pm
That even gridded drain grills (as opposed to diagonal ones) have a traffic direction.

Noticed courtesy of one having been replaced perpendicularly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 February, 2023, 08:59:01 am
Weatherbagel FITA.

Quote
From 31st March 2023, the underlying weather feed, Dark Sky, will cease to function as a result of being purchased by Apple. Due to this WeatherBagel will shut down for the foreseeable future.

I've sadly not had enough time to develop a new version of the site using alternative data feeds, and life just gets more complicated each day so I can't see my schedule freeing up any time soon.

I hope everyone found the site useful in avoiding those unwanted showers!

- Alvaro

Thanks, Apple, true to the Jobs spirit as ever. I hope your goldfish die.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 17 February, 2023, 01:14:01 pm
That the AIM9M Sidewinder air to air missile is stabilized by the gyroscopic effect of little windmills mounted on each tail fin. These are know as "rollerons".

This guy has got hold of one tail fin of a Sidewinder and spins the rolleron up with compressed air:

https://youtu.be/y1kUzjdkxG8
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 February, 2023, 07:33:04 pm
That ovalised tubes go back to at least 1928:
Quote
In 1928 Evans patented a frame with ovalised top, down and seat tubes, the Evans Oval. He claimed that the oval tubes increased lateral rigidity 18% or offered a greater vertical resilience. These frames were made in very small numbers in the 1930s – unlike many of the other frame designs (curly Hetchins, Baines gate) it was not obvious on first sight so did not attract buyers who wanted something different.
https://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/classic_builders/evans-f-w/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: IanDG on 17 February, 2023, 07:49:15 pm
Thanks to @Black Sheep (and fb) I now know that Vince Neil is vocals with Motley Crue (it could have been yesterday or the day before).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 18 February, 2023, 12:22:55 pm
My chap tells me that men cannot pee and poop at the same time.

This is a skill that women have.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 18 February, 2023, 04:34:50 pm
My chap tells me that men cannot pee and poop at the same time.

This is a skill that women have.
It is a craft which men have largely failed to embrace.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 February, 2023, 05:04:41 pm
Surely the real skill is pooing without peeing?  I think you have to either be an astronaut or in advanced levels of digestive distress to manage that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 18 February, 2023, 05:06:49 pm
surely this failure is caused by the prostate being pressed upon by the contents of the rectum and thus occluding the urethra
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 20 February, 2023, 01:30:19 pm
That in the good ole' US of A, parolee's have to make monthly payments to the state to cover their supervision fees.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: nicknack on 20 February, 2023, 01:55:30 pm
Surely the real skill is pooing without peeing?  I think you have to either be an astronaut or in advanced levels of digestive distress to manage that.
Well, quite.
Would have been useful about 52 years ago when caught short in the wilds of Scotland. Drop trousers, squat (I could then), have most satisfying crap whilst simultaneously peeing all over my trousers which were round my ankles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Adam on 21 February, 2023, 06:40:08 am
My chap tells me that men cannot pee and poop at the same time.


I can do that.  Not on demand though. 

Occasionally I'll also blow my nose at the same time.  That's real multi-tasking.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 February, 2023, 07:42:05 am
Wear a helmet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 February, 2023, 11:31:25 am
Today I are learning that during the Siege of Paris the French used balloons to communicate with the rest of La Patrie.  One of which got blown off course.  The crew eventually found out where they were when said balloon came down in a forest and was swiftly surrounded by suspicious locals, probably wielding pitchforks and blazing torches, who were speaking Norwegian  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 February, 2023, 11:33:29 am
They were lucky it wasn't Hartlepool!  :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 February, 2023, 11:37:39 am
 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 22 February, 2023, 01:07:00 pm
That in the good ole' US of A, parolee's have to make monthly payments to the state to cover their supervision fees.

Yep. I learned this reading Peter Grinspoon's memoir about addiction. Grinspoon was a doctor and had wealth, but talked about how a lot of criminal and 'medical' addiction "treatment" in the USA was heavily punitive and impossible for poor people to adhere to, not least due to affordability as well as transport, childcare, trying to get any kind of job.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 22 February, 2023, 08:29:42 pm
There's another splendid catch in many state judicial systems in which they can (and do) punish non-driving offences with the suspension of your driving licence. Of course, this is the US, so if you want to earn money to pay for food (and court fines), you will very likely need to drive. So bingo, what do you find yourself in court for next?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 February, 2023, 08:41:01 pm
You can have your driving licence revoked for non-driving offences in the UK too. I think it might be part of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Or maybe some other act. I guess it's very rarely used though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 February, 2023, 12:57:31 am
You can have your driving licence revoked for non-driving offences in the UK too. I think it might be part of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Or maybe some other act. I guess it's very rarely used though.

Non-driving but I thought still motor-vehicle-related (eg. fraud, parking, stealing).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 February, 2023, 07:47:03 am
Haven't heard of that happening here, but I do know that cycling offences can't affect your driving licence.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 February, 2023, 11:11:26 am
You can have your driving licence revoked for non-driving offences in the UK too. I think it might be part of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Or maybe some other act. I guess it's very rarely used though.

Non-driving but I thought still motor-vehicle-related (eg. fraud, parking, stealing).
I remember Teh Julian mentioning it many years ago and she said it could be applied to any crime whatsoever that carried a prison sentence.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 February, 2023, 12:36:10 pm
You can have your driving licence revoked for non-driving offences in the UK too. I think it might be part of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Or maybe some other act. I guess it's very rarely used though.

Non-driving but I thought still motor-vehicle-related (eg. fraud, parking, stealing).
I remember Teh Julian mentioning it many years ago and she said it could be applied to any crime whatsoever that carried a prison sentence.

Apparently so:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/17/part/8/chapter/1
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 February, 2023, 12:43:20 pm
Top legislative googlefu, Kim!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 February, 2023, 12:45:11 pm
My thing I learned today, or actually on Monday, is that Philistine is the Arabic pronunciation of Palestine. At least with an Iraqi accent, I dare say it's a bit different in say Moroccan dialect.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 24 February, 2023, 02:50:17 pm
Ardilla and murcielago are the Spanish words for sqrl and bat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 February, 2023, 03:53:37 pm
Murciélago was also a bull who:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 24 February, 2023, 09:33:44 pm
The concept of fabliau. This one – Le Chevalier Qui Fist Parler les Cons – (http://www.oocities.org/paris/5339/voices.html) is a bit special.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 February, 2023, 08:09:57 am
A sort of C*nterbury Tale.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 26 February, 2023, 07:55:32 pm
That the reason they specify a minimum thickness on disc brake pads isn't because the metal backing is a crap braking surface.  It's because once the pad wears below the thickness of the springamathing, it's prone to getting caught up in the holes in the rotor, making ungodly noises and optionally turning itself into a surprisingly effective ratchet mechanism.


This post sponsored by the it-should-last-until-spring school of bicycle maintenance.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 03 March, 2023, 10:56:22 pm
That mains electricity in much of Norway it the IT system where the neutral isn't earthed. That's the system used for shaver sockets in the UK. The system in Norway causes problems with some appliances designed for elsewhere.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 March, 2023, 12:27:29 am
That mains electricity in much of Norway it the IT system where the neutral isn't earthed. That's the system used for shaver sockets in the UK. The system in Norway causes problems with some appliances designed for elsewhere.

"We all float down here"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 March, 2023, 08:40:57 am
That mains electricity in much of Norway it the IT system where the neutral isn't earthed. That's the system used for shaver sockets in the UK. The system in Norway causes problems with some appliances designed for elsewhere.

I've been in a computer room where the sockets on adjacent walls were on different circuits.  There was 100v difference between the two "earths". You had to be careful not to touch two housings at once.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 09 March, 2023, 11:36:22 pm
American Wire Gage differs from Imperial SWG.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Captain Nemo on 12 March, 2023, 07:18:54 pm
To navigate safely with map and compass, the needle needs to be weighted differently for use in the southern hemisphere from how it is weighted for use in the northern hemisphere.

Here in the northern hemisphere the lines of magnetic flux are dipping down to the magnetic north pole. To ensure the needle remains level and the bearing does not bind, the south end is weighted. If this type of compas is used in the southern hemisphere, where the lines of magnetic flux rise up towards the equator and the north, the needle bearing may bind.

A southern hemsphere compass is weighted at the north end of the needle.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 March, 2023, 08:23:37 pm
That must be why the virtual compass in my virtual lorry was pointing at right angles to reality in a virtual Peru this afternoon :P
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 12 March, 2023, 08:33:35 pm
To navigate safely with map and compass, the needle needs to be weighted differently for use in the southern hemisphere from how it is weighted for use in the northern hemisphere.

Here in the northern hemisphere the lines of magnetic flux are dipping down to the magnetic north pole. To ensure the needle remains level and the bearing does not bind, the south end is weighted. If this type of compas is used in the southern hemisphere, where the lines of magnetic flux rise up towards the equator and the north, the needle bearing may bind.

A southern hemsphere compass is weighted at the north end of the needle.
There are compasses designed to work in both hemispheres, but I’m not sure how they do this.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 12 March, 2023, 08:36:36 pm
American Wire Gage differs from Imperial SWG.

Still doesn't explain American knitting needle sizes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 12 March, 2023, 08:38:52 pm
To navigate safely with map and compass, the needle needs to be weighted differently for use in the southern hemisphere from how it is weighted for use in the northern hemisphere.

Here in the northern hemisphere the lines of magnetic flux are dipping down to the magnetic north pole. To ensure the needle remains level and the bearing does not bind, the south end is weighted. If this type of compas is used in the southern hemisphere, where the lines of magnetic flux rise up towards the equator and the north, the needle bearing may bind.

A southern hemsphere compass is weighted at the north end of the needle.
There are compasses designed to work in both hemispheres, but I’m not sure how they do this.
They have bearings that continue to allow rotation when one end or the other is trying to point downwards. That's a lot more difficult, so therefore expensive, than balancing the needle with a small weight and supporting it on a single pivot.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 12 March, 2023, 10:30:56 pm
What about compass for use on the equator?

IGMC
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 12 March, 2023, 10:40:34 pm
American Wire Gage differs from Imperial SWG.

Still doesn't explain American knitting needle sizes.

I'm unfamiliar with American knitting needles.
At least BRITISH SWG was the same for medical needles, bicycle spokes and olde crochet hooks knitting needles.

How do American knitting needles work?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 13 March, 2023, 12:05:25 am
UK knitting needles are sized according to SWG, a size 8 needle is the same diameter as number 8 wire (4mm near enough). 000 is the largest and 14 is the smallest.

US knitting needle sizes are the other way around so 0 is the smallest and 15 is the largest which doesn't have any correlation to AWG.


Things have got a lot easier since patterns started showing needle sizes in mm.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 March, 2023, 12:35:40 am
I'm trying to remember if I've knowingly come across SWG for actual wire.  Normally it's either AWG for the small stuff, or - more sensibly, because it's the value you're most likely to need for strength or resistance calculations - the cross-sectional area is quoted in square millimetres.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 13 March, 2023, 12:41:09 am
Over here number 8 wire is a national treasure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Captain Nemo on 13 March, 2023, 08:48:00 am
What about compass for use on the equator?

IGMC

Good question! The deeper I look into the compass question, the more interesting it gets. It appears that compass manufactures consider three zones: northern, southern and equitorial. Presumably the "equitorial" versions do not have any bias weighting at either end of the needle.

It is all rather accademic since Silva do what they call "global" models (for use in both hemispheres) for about £60.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 13 March, 2023, 01:16:52 pm
Over here number 8 wire is a national treasure.

Ah, of course it is (file with duct tape, WD-40 and cable ties).  For some silly reason I always thought that was AWG.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 13 March, 2023, 01:32:24 pm
I'm trying to remember if I've knowingly come across SWG for actual wire.  Normally it's either AWG for the small stuff, or - more sensibly, because it's the value you're most likely to need for strength or resistance calculations - the cross-sectional area is quoted in square millimetres.

I've come across it when specifying enameled copper wire for building ferrite rod antennas.

(The Ladybird Book 'Making a Transistor Radio' uses 50 turns of 36 SWG on a 3/8" ferrite rod...)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 March, 2023, 01:39:17 pm
Right enough, I ran into SWG around 65 years ago, making a coil for a crystal set. 3" former and N hundred turns.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JonBuoy on 13 March, 2023, 04:45:00 pm
A different type of wire but piano wire as used in model making still seems to use SWG (https://www.balsacabin.co.uk/product-category/accessories/piano-wire/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 13 March, 2023, 04:47:49 pm
Quote from: Kim
I'm trying to remember if I've knowingly come across SWG for actual wire.
You need to build more toy aeroplanes; you can't move for piano wire in assorted SWG sizes. :)


Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 March, 2023, 09:14:50 am
But presumably not when it's used for actual pianos.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 March, 2023, 12:30:18 pm
The word gangue. Valueless rock in which ore is found.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 14 March, 2023, 12:52:19 pm
Right enough, I ran into SWG around 65 years ago, making a coil for a crystal set. 3" former and N hundred turns.

I'm fairly sure (as sure as you can be after >50 years) that SWG was specified in Ladybird book instructing brother how to build a transistor radio...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 14 March, 2023, 01:34:35 pm
Right enough, I ran into SWG around 65 years ago, making a coil for a crystal set. 3" former and N hundred turns.

I'm fairly sure (as sure as you can be after >50 years) that SWG was specified in Ladybird book instructing brother how to build a transistor radio...
Second mention of that book in a couple of weeks. lkingscott, from the hardcore brompton fettling thread, said it was a childhood influence.

I had it too. OC71. Jumpers for goal posts.

Online version here: https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/Making-a-Transistor-Radio-Ladybird%20Books-1972.pdf (https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/Making-a-Transistor-Radio-Ladybird%20Books-1972.pdf)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 March, 2023, 01:50:02 pm
Right enough, I ran into SWG around 65 years ago, making a coil for a crystal set. 3" former and N hundred turns.

I'm fairly sure (as sure as you can be after >50 years) that SWG was specified in Ladybird book instructing brother how to build a transistor radio...
Second mention of that book in a couple of weeks. lkingscott, from the hardcore brompton fettling thread, said it was a childhood influence.

I had it too. OC71. Jumpers for goal posts.

Online version here: https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/Making-a-Transistor-Radio-Ladybird%20Books-1972.pdf (https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/Making-a-Transistor-Radio-Ladybird%20Books-1972.pdf)

Crikey, how modern.  When I was 9 a school chum wrote in an essay that he had made a transistor set and the teacher not only crossed it out and wrote in transmitter but put transistor into the class list of howlers.  Alongside agobigoraphy, from a bloke who wanted to write his life story.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hellymedic on 14 March, 2023, 02:02:30 pm
Right enough, I ran into SWG around 65 years ago, making a coil for a crystal set. 3" former and N hundred turns.
I'm fairly sure (as sure as you can be after >50 years) that SWG was specified in Ladybird book instructing brother how to build a transistor radio...
Second mention of that book in a couple of weeks. lkingscott, from the hardcore brompton fettling thread, said it was a childhood influence.
I had it too. OC71. Jumpers for goal posts.
Online version here: https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/Making-a-Transistor-Radio-Ladybird%20Books-1972.pdf (https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/Making-a-Transistor-Radio-Ladybird%20Books-1972.pdf)
Thanks for that!

50 years...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 14 March, 2023, 02:09:07 pm
What about compass for use on the equator?

IGMC

Good question! The deeper I look into the compass question, the more interesting it gets. It appears that compass manufactures consider three zones: northern, southern and equitorial. Presumably the "equitorial" versions do not have any bias weighting at either end of the needle.

It is all rather accademic since Silva do what they call "global" models (for use in both hemispheres) for about £60.
I'm pretty sure that compasses as used in the yachting world are made differently (in some way) if being used in high latitudes, something to do with the magnetic field applying less torque to the needle (or something).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 14 March, 2023, 07:46:43 pm
Right enough, I ran into SWG around 65 years ago, making a coil for a crystal set. 3" former and N hundred turns.

I'm fairly sure (as sure as you can be after >50 years) that SWG was specified in Ladybird book instructing brother how to build a transistor radio...
Second mention of that book in a couple of weeks. lkingscott, from the hardcore brompton fettling thread, said it was a childhood influence.

I had it too. OC71. Jumpers for goal posts.

Online version here: https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/Making-a-Transistor-Radio-Ladybird%20Books-1972.pdf (https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/Making-a-Transistor-Radio-Ladybird%20Books-1972.pdf)

Cor, PNP.  You oldies did everything standing on your head...


I molished a crystal set with a germanium diode and a bog roll tube when I was a small, but transistor radios were mostly something you took apart rather than built from first principles.  Closest I got was the now legendary Tandy 75-in-1 project kit, with those ghastly coil spring connectors that made it more of a lesson in carefully following instructions than actually understanding electronics.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 14 March, 2023, 09:58:31 pm
I remember that book. I didn't realise it was written by the Rev George Dobbs, G3RJV, though he was a very prolific author of QRP (low power) radio books.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 14 March, 2023, 10:44:00 pm
This morning I have purchased an SWG.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 March, 2023, 10:48:18 am
Cor, PNP.  You oldies did everything standing on your head...

I loved valves, hot-cathode ones in particular.  I could perfectly imagine the electrons boiling off and zooming across the vacuum to impact on the anode, and the dastardly grid trying to waylay them halfway.  You could write adventure stories based on that.  Transistors, bleh, nasty little knobby things and we were supposed to believe there were holes moving round inside them.  The only positive hole I could envisage was between the ears of the pervert who dreamt that one up.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 15 March, 2023, 12:45:02 pm
Yes, well, I never really encountered those JFET-with-a-pilot-light things until I was old enough to know better...  Shame really, as you say there's something about being able to see what's going on...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 15 March, 2023, 01:19:20 pm
What about compass for use on the equator?

IGMC

Good question! The deeper I look into the compass question, the more interesting it gets. It appears that compass manufactures consider three zones: northern, southern and equitorial. Presumably the "equitorial" versions do not have any bias weighting at either end of the needle.

It is all rather accademic since Silva do what they call "global" models (for use in both hemispheres) for about £60.
I'm pretty sure that compasses as used in the yachting world are made differently (in some way) if being used in high latitudes, something to do with the magnetic field applying less torque to the needle (or something).
Once you get into large boats, the magnetic field of the boat has to be compensated for, allowing for all directions of the boat may be pointing, as well as a wide range of angles of heel. I think it's witchcraft, personally, but apparently science and not incantations are used in making binnacles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binnacle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binnacle)

Add into that the problems of the changing inclination of the earth's magnetic field, and I can see the whole process being very difficult.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 March, 2023, 02:05:00 pm
Yes, well, I never really encountered those JFET-with-a-pilot-light things until I was old enough to know better...  Shame really, as you say there's something about being able to see what's going on...

Confession: during exams involving transistors I did all the thinking in valvish then translated it to transistorish to write the answers.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PaulF on 15 March, 2023, 02:54:08 pm
I'm trying to remember if I've knowingly come across SWG for actual wire.  Normally it's either AWG for the small stuff, or - more sensibly, because it's the value you're most likely to need for strength or resistance calculations - the cross-sectional area is quoted in square millimetres.

I've come across it when specifying enameled copper wire for building ferrite rod antennas.

(The Ladybird Book 'Making a Transistor Radio' uses 50 turns of 36 SWG on a 3/8" ferrite rod...)

I built that radio! Don't think I finished all the stages but IIRC you started with a crystal set then added a transistor and then more transistors but each stage left you with a working radio
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Zipperhead on 17 March, 2023, 09:56:10 am
I have learnt two things already today, and frankly I'm not sure which is most disturbing.

The first is that one man, Thomas Midgley Jr., is responsible for the invention of both leaded fuel and CFC's (Freon). If there's an Oppenheimer scale then he's got to be right up there.

Oh, the other thing?

Gwyneth Paltrow is shooting ozone up her but for the sake of "wellness" (https://futurism.com/neoscope/gwyneth-paltrow-shooting-ozone-butt-wellness)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 March, 2023, 10:13:07 am
Paltrow wins that one pants hands down.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 17 March, 2023, 10:25:28 am
That if you suspend a stretched slinky vertically in the air then release the top the bottom of the slinky stays suspended in mid air not moving until a lot of the slinky has compressed again. The centre of mass of the entire slinky falls at 9.8 m/s/s but the bottom spends a relatively long time hovering in mid air. Quite a lot of non intuitive physics going on with several interpretations of what's happing out there.

Nice slow mo film of a huge slinky falling:

https://youtu.be/JsytnJ_pSf8
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 17 March, 2023, 10:49:47 am
You lot probably all know this, but...

Kings Cross has a platform zero.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 17 March, 2023, 10:55:46 am
You lot probably all know this, but...

Kings Cross has a platform zero.

As does Cardiff Central.

Eta.  It also has no platform 5, although there are platforms 6, 7 and 8
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 March, 2023, 10:56:28 am
You lot probably all know this, but...

Kings Cross has a platform zero.

As does Cardiff Central.

And Stockport.


Actually, I bet someone's made a list on Wikipedia....
There we are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_0

Wonder if anywhere has a Platform -1?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: bhoot on 17 March, 2023, 11:27:22 am
I was about to add Gravesend having caught a train there last weekend!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 17 March, 2023, 12:26:25 pm
What about compass for use on the equator?

IGMC

Good question! The deeper I look into the compass question, the more interesting it gets. It appears that compass manufactures consider three zones: northern, southern and equitorial. Presumably the "equitorial" versions do not have any bias weighting at either end of the needle.

It is all rather accademic since Silva do what they call "global" models (for use in both hemispheres) for about £60.
I'm pretty sure that compasses as used in the yachting world are made differently (in some way) if being used in high latitudes, something to do with the magnetic field applying less torque to the needle (or something).
Once you get into large boats, the magnetic field of the boat has to be compensated for, allowing for all directions of the boat may be pointing, as well as a wide range of angles of heel. I think it's witchcraft, personally, but apparently science and not incantations are used in making binnacles.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binnacle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binnacle)

Add into that the problems of the changing inclination of the earth's magnetic field, and I can see the whole process being very difficult.

I've been aboard a couple of craft where they've swung the compass. Fascinating task (even if I didn't really understand how they do it).

I think I recall our doing this on a 34' plastic yacht after a new engine fitment, but I could be wrong.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: yorkie on 17 March, 2023, 01:11:42 pm
You lot probably all know this, but...

Kings Cross has a platform zero.

As does Cardiff Central.

And Stockport.


Actually, I bet someone's made a list on Wikipedia....
There we are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_0 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_0)

Wonder if anywhere has a Platform -1?


Not yet*, but if the tentatively proposed work to install 2 new platforms on the north west side of Leeds station** goes ahead, they could well be -1 and -2.


* In the UK - other jurisdictions may differ!
** Next to platform 0
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JellyLegs on 17 March, 2023, 06:44:46 pm
There a video on YouTube about visiting all the Platform Zeros in one day by train.  https://youtu.be/TTHOyTypNs8 (https://youtu.be/TTHOyTypNs8).  Don’t ask why I found that interesting.  For some reason I find most of Geoff Marshall’s videos fascinating which is odd as other than that I have no interest in trains or railways.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 17 March, 2023, 06:57:02 pm
You lot probably all know this, but...

Kings Cross has a platform zero.

As does Cardiff Central.

And Stockport.


Actually, I bet someone's made a list on Wikipedia....
There we are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_0 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_0)

Wonder if anywhere has a Platform -1?


Not yet*, but if the tentatively proposed work to install 2 new platforms on the north west side of Leeds station** goes ahead, they could well be -1 and -2.


* In the UK - other jurisdictions may differ!
** Next to platform 0

Don't know about -1 & -2. I reckon A & B is more likely.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: yorkie on 17 March, 2023, 07:45:00 pm
You lot probably all know this, but...

Kings Cross has a platform zero.

As does Cardiff Central.

And Stockport.


Actually, I bet someone's made a list on Wikipedia....
There we are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_0 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_0)

Wonder if anywhere has a Platform -1?


Not yet*, but if the tentatively proposed work to install 2 new platforms on the north west side of Leeds station** goes ahead, they could well be -1 and -2.


* In the UK - other jurisdictions may differ!
** Next to platform 0

Don't know about -1 & -2. I reckon A & B is more likely.

GPWM

Given it's that side of Leeds, they could well be 00 and 000 (or absolutely anything else for that matter!)  ;)

Of course, Network Rail could have persuaded the DfT to pay for a full re-signalling of the Leeds area by then and the station renumbered as platforms 1 to 20! (Was that a porcine aviation squadron I just saw fly over??)  :D :D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 17 March, 2023, 08:58:41 pm
I have learnt two things already today, and frankly I'm not sure which is most disturbing.

The first is that one man, Thomas Midgley Jr., is responsible for the invention of both leaded fuel and CFC's (Freon). If there's an Oppenheimer scale then he's got to be right up there.

Oh, the other thing?

Gwyneth Paltrow is shooting ozone up her but for the sake of "wellness" (https://futurism.com/neoscope/gwyneth-paltrow-shooting-ozone-butt-wellness)

There's nothing our Gwen won't shoot up her butt. You don't want to be stuck in a lift with her. It's probably dark up there.

Midgley is famous for that double misfortune. He didn't know about CFCs, but it was well-known that organic lead was poisonous and adding it to petrol was really a very bad thing. He died when he got caught up in the mechanism of his own device designed to get him out of bed (he had been left severely disabled by polio).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 19 March, 2023, 11:52:08 am
When you buy plywood, chipboard, OSB etc from B&Q or other timber supplying emporia the items usally have a sticky label placed in the middle of the sheet - with glur of the "shit to a blanket" variety . . .

I've discovered, courtesy of YT, that gentle heat from a heat gun (or even a hairdrier) and gentle scraping eases the label from the surface leaving minimal glue residue which can then be gently sanded away.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 March, 2023, 01:32:35 pm
Possibly works on other items too - hardware, crockery etc.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 19 March, 2023, 03:27:23 pm
That there is a 5000 mile wide “blob” of Sargassum seaweeds stretching from Africa to the Caribbean. And that it can wash ashore in drifts 2m high, emits Hydrogen Sulphide and contains Arsenic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 March, 2023, 03:53:24 pm
That there is a 5000 mile wide “blob” of Sargassum seaweeds stretching from Africa to the Caribbean. And that it can wash ashore in drifts 2m high, emits Hydrogen Sulphide and contains Arsenic.

A few years ago the H2S from washed-up seaweed killed a horse in Brittany.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 19 March, 2023, 04:53:05 pm
When you buy plywood, chipboard, OSB etc from B&Q or other timber supplying emporia the items usally have a sticky label placed in the middle of the sheet - with glur of the "shit to a blanket" variety . . .

I've discovered, courtesy of YT, that gentle heat from a heat gun (or even a hairdrier) and gentle scraping eases the label from the surface leaving minimal glue residue which can then be gently sanded away.

On a similar note, I have found removing old bar tape much easier on a warm summer day when the bike storage area is roasting as opposed to in the winter months.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 19 March, 2023, 08:26:08 pm
The female voice at the end of Roxy Music’s For Your Pleasure saying “Don’t ask…” is Judi Dench.

Judi Dench!!!

It actually seems blindingly obvious once you know.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 27 March, 2023, 08:29:48 pm
Yesterday.  NCP aka National Car Parks used to do cycle parking as well.

Next time you watch, "The Blue Lamp" keep an eye on the hoarding backing onto the tube line that's seen during the on-foot chase sequence as first Riley (Bogarde) then Mitchell (Handley) climb over the fence near the greyhound track.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 March, 2023, 09:33:02 am
A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: graculus on 28 March, 2023, 10:04:21 am
A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.
IIRC PTerry uses it in 'Making Money' (Uttered by the conman who is posing as a vicar).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 March, 2023, 11:52:05 am
A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.

Sounds like Holmes has been at the cooking sherry again: "eleemosynary, my dear Wazzock".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 04 April, 2023, 01:56:44 pm
Courtesy of Donna Leon's latest offering, there is no word for "privacy" in Italian.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 07 April, 2023, 02:24:11 pm
That the term 'piping hot' refers to the sound made by steam escaping from hot pies, with references as early as Chaucer.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 April, 2023, 02:26:31 pm
Onomatopiea.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 10 April, 2023, 02:56:32 pm
That TK Maxx is actually TJ Maxx, but in the UK the name was changed so as to avoid confusion the British retail “giant” TJ Hughes - which I’ve never heard of before reading that. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: lissotriton on 10 April, 2023, 03:54:04 pm
That TK Maxx is actually TJ Maxx, but in the UK the name was changed so as to avoid confusion the British retail “giant” TJ Hughes - which I’ve never heard of before reading that.
Seems TJ Hughes are mostly a northern England thing, based in Liverpool.
Not to be confused with TJ Morris, also based in Liverpool, who own Home Bargains.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 10 April, 2023, 04:47:18 pm
That TK Maxx is actually TJ Maxx, but in the UK the name was changed so as to avoid confusion the British retail “giant” TJ Hughes - which I’ve never heard of before reading that.
Seems TJ Hughes are mostly a northern England thing, based in Liverpool.
Not to be confused with TJ Morris, also based in Liverpool, who own Home Bargains.

Gets more confusing as TKMax owns the Home Sense chain or shops
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 10 April, 2023, 07:16:30 pm
Waitrose still call them chicken kievs.  Russki-loving bastards  >:(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 11 April, 2023, 12:28:45 pm
That the Spanish for Flemish is 'flamenco/a'.

As in 'la campaña de clásicas flamencas'  in a translation on eurosport.es of an interview with Adrie Van der Poel.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 11 April, 2023, 02:16:16 pm
What, in some places at least, a "Toby" is.  Apparently, says t'int'ernt, a "Toby" - in Britain and New Zealand no less - is the valve that sits between the water main and your properties supply pipework.  Hence the generic term "Toby Box" for those hatch-lidded openings in the highway, used for water meters, valves, and (pertinent to our village atm) termination of FTTP feeds before being connected to the property itself.

I've never heard the term "Toby" used for a valve. It's apparently from an Irish term for a roadway (the Toby), and short for "Toby-Cock" or "Toby-Valve".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 11 April, 2023, 02:50:52 pm
A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.

I first came across that in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (mid-18th century - obviously something they were all into back then). He uses it *a lot*, so it has stuck, even though it's quite a few years since I read it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 April, 2023, 03:01:23 pm
A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.

I first came across that in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (mid-18th century - obviously something they were all into back then). He uses it *a lot*, so it has stuck, even though it's quite a few years since I read it.
Ditto! The second being Suskind's Pefume...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 11 April, 2023, 03:12:02 pm
A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.

I first came across that in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (mid-18th century - obviously something they were all into back then). He uses it *a lot*, so it has stuck, even though it's quite a few years since I read it.
Ditto! The second being Suskind's Pefume...

Ah! I don't recall it from Perfume, though I'm sure I would have noticed it at the time of reading. Can't think of any other books where I've come across it.

What did you think of Tom Jones? It's one of my all-time favourite books.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 April, 2023, 03:28:27 pm
A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.

I first came across that in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (mid-18th century - obviously something they were all into back then). He uses it *a lot*, so it has stuck, even though it's quite a few years since I read it.
Ditto! The second being Suskind's Pefume...

Ah! I don't recall it from Perfume, though I'm sure I would have noticed it at the time of reading. Can't think of any other books where I've come across it.

What did you think of Tom Jones? It's one of my all-time favourite books.
I'm still in the middle of it! Keep getting sidetracked by other things... But I'm enjoying it. And it's interesting how in some ways it seems more modern than something which was written a century later.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 12 April, 2023, 07:41:44 am
That typing the abbreviation for Councillor into a text produced Clot instead of Cllr.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 12 April, 2023, 11:49:38 am
That the one time stack construction of the PP3 is nowadays a basket of AAAA (was this the genesis of the AAAA?)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 12 April, 2023, 12:12:57 pm
I first came across that in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (mid-18th century - obviously something they were all into back then). He uses it *a lot*, so it has stuck, even though it's quite a few years since I read it.
Gutenberg says only twice in Tom Jones. But the first one is in the first sentence. Unusual words in first sentences can have quite an impact. I learnt 'catamite' from the first sentence of Anthony Burgess' Earthly Powers:

"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me." (Who wouldn't want to read on after a first sentence like that?)

It is now in fairly common use at work - so much more acceptable than the 'bitch' it replaced.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 12 April, 2023, 01:18:27 pm
Gutenberg says only twice in Tom Jones. But the first one is in the first sentence. Unusual words in first sentences can have quite an impact.

Yes, I remember it being right at the beginning. Could have sworn it being used more than that, but as you say, that's probably the impact of it being in the first sentence.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 April, 2023, 03:01:52 pm
The finest first sentence in English literature.

Can't remember where I first ran into the word, but I knew it before reading E.P.  It sounds as if it might be a siliceous mineral, formerly used in paste form for poulticing boils.  I have unfond memories of having something like that clapped against my bum when I was 8.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 12 April, 2023, 03:34:39 pm
The only one of his books I've read is A Clockwork Orange, but yes, that is quite the opening line and would certainly want to make me read on. I shall add it to the pile.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: pcolbeck on 13 April, 2023, 09:41:15 am
That if you press the power button on a Samsung mobile for too long it autodials 112 which is the same as 999.
Was trying to reboot the phone whilst talking to someone and did this by accident.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 16 April, 2023, 02:21:59 pm
Scunthorpe is twinned with Clamart.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: PeteB99 on 17 April, 2023, 02:39:32 pm
In Real life Dads army star Captain Mainwaring was actually a Sgt Major in WW2 (REME). Sgt Wilson was actually a Captain in the Royal Tank corps.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Bledlow on 18 April, 2023, 12:04:48 am
I first came across that in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (mid-18th century - obviously something they were all into back then). He uses it *a lot*, so it has stuck, even though it's quite a few years since I read it.
Gutenberg says only twice in Tom Jones. But the first one is in the first sentence. Unusual words in first sentences can have quite an impact. I learnt 'catamite' from the first sentence of Anthony Burgess' Earthly Powers:

"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me." (Who wouldn't want to read on after a first sentence like that?)

It is now in fairly common use at work - so much more acceptable than the 'bitch' it replaced.
One of my favourite opening sentences.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 April, 2023, 08:13:23 am
In Real life Dads army star Captain Mainwaring was actually a Sgt Major in WW2 (REME). Sgt Wilson was actually a Captain in the Royal Tank corps.

And one of the scriptwriters made it to Major.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 April, 2023, 12:41:53 am
Today I are learning the word “presbycusis”.

Pardon?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 21 April, 2023, 05:36:54 am
Today I are learning the word “presbycusis”.

Pardon?
I have recently realised that I have this.
But didn't know what to call it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 April, 2023, 07:36:36 am
Chambers sez Greek presbys = old man.  French près = near + Gk. abyssos = abyss

Meanwhile, I is learning that metformin impairs muscle function and possibly recovery, which maybe explains why my quads still hurt three days after a measly 100k.

It also maketh you to fart like a Harley with a busted silencer.

I'm taking a week off it and to see what happens to my legs when I ride every day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: diapsaon0 on 21 April, 2023, 08:59:03 am
I've always thought that it meant a Priest - ie Presbyter.

Interesting to know that about metformin - explains a lot.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 21 April, 2023, 12:24:21 pm
Today I are learning the word “presbycusis”.

Pardon?
I have recently realised that I have this.
But didn't know what to call it.

RNID stats on prevalence are quite scary, 40% of people over 50 rising to 70% of people over 70 https://rnid.org.uk/about-us/research-and-policy/facts-and-figures/

Although their definition point is slightly lower than most hearing aid provision which usually waits till the deafness is at 30dB.

My sign name for RNID is <WHAT> cos they had that silly name for a while (Action on Hearing Loss) and no one could remember what it was, so <WHAT> seemed like a good snark.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 April, 2023, 01:33:13 pm
Today I are learning the word “presbycusis”.

Pardon?
I have recently realised that I have this.
But didn't know what to call it.

RNID stats on prevalence are quite scary, 40% of people over 50 rising to 70% of people over 70 https://rnid.org.uk/about-us/research-and-policy/facts-and-figures/

Although their definition point is slightly lower than most hearing aid provision which usually waits till the deafness is at 30dB.

I assume that's 25/30dB across all the frequency bands[1]?


[1] In the audiology universe, hearing takes place at 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000 and 8000Hz.  Anything above 8kHz is teenager repellent, anything below 250Hz doesn't exist, and whatever you do don't mention the gaps.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 April, 2023, 03:44:33 pm
I've always thought that it meant a Priest - ie Presbyter.

C.f. senator, from L. senex = old man.  Taken together, they tell you something about equal opportunities in days gone by - and one of the Latin words for old woman is anus.

Quote
Interesting to know that about metformin - explains a lot.

I'd suggest doing a bit of poking around for yourself, I'm going by results from a couple of Google searches that support what I've thought for a good while:

1. effect of metformin on muscle recovery
2. effect of metformin on athletic performance

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 21 April, 2023, 08:37:47 pm
I assume that's 25/30dB across all the frequency bands[1]?


[1] In the audiology universe, hearing takes place at 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000 and 8000Hz.  Anything above 8kHz is teenager repellent, anything below 250Hz doesn't exist, and whatever you do don't mention the gaps.

Depends if you live in Staffordshite or not (they had a thing for ages where unless you were more than 40dB deaf in BOTH ears, presumably across frequencies, they didn't do hearing aids which is really evil and dangerous and got protested/litigated heavily).

Most older people would start out with high frequency losses with lower frequencies unaffected and as the hearing loss developed would lose lower and lower frequencies over time. Modern hearing aids and moulds can do a good job of mixing hearing aid input with natural hearing as much as possible.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 April, 2023, 09:11:10 pm
My sign name for RNID is <WHAT> cos they had that silly name for a while (Action on Hearing Loss) and no one could remember what it was, so <WHAT> seemed like a good snark.
Oh, I'd always assumed it was just a "What did you say?" sort of what.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 21 April, 2023, 09:14:03 pm
Today I are learning the word “presbycusis”.

Pardon?
I have recently realised that I have this.
But didn't know what to call it.

It's a fairly standard part of ageing, alas. I also cannot climb trees any more, though I'm not letting this stop me trying. I can't and won't out-age stupid.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 April, 2023, 06:05:47 pm
That there is a place called Monopoly, or at least Monopoli. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/28/too-provocative-mermaid-statue-causes-stir-in-southern-italy
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 28 April, 2023, 06:15:00 pm
That Parisi Celts gave rise to the city of Paris.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 April, 2023, 04:45:33 pm
Stalin purged his own parrot.  He got infuriated with the bird imitating his crude hawking and spitting and whacked it on the head with his pipe.  He also once plucked a live bird to make a political point.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 April, 2023, 04:47:55 pm
That Parisi Celts gave rise to the city of Paris.

I used to drive to work through Villeparisis, on the edge of the Parisi tribal lands.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 30 April, 2023, 05:05:39 pm
Stalin purged his own parrot.  He got infuriated with the bird imitating his crude hawking and spitting and whacked it on the head with his pipe.  He also once plucked a live bird to make a political point.

He didn't need to do that - everyone already knew.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 30 April, 2023, 08:15:28 pm
The Army  beret was introduced under the direction of the Secretary of State for War in the summer of 1939. The MP for Stockport* voiced his opposition, suggesting that a good British felt hat would be preferable.  The Secretary of State for War would be dismissed because he upset the Nazis.

* a hat-making town.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 01 May, 2023, 11:34:27 am
That what is now known as Memorial Day in the US, and serves as our Armistice Day does (remembrance, not the start of summer) was a post civil war Union tradition called Decoration Day first officially held at Arlington National Cemetery in 1868, itself the start of the American tradition of “repatriating” their war dead.

Garnered from “Death and the Civil War” on PBS, a programme that I suspect owes a large debt to Ken Burns’ “Civil War” documentary.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 May, 2023, 09:39:50 am
Andy Summers from The Police is 80.  He is quite a lot older than the other two.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 May, 2023, 10:36:49 am
That Parisi Celts gave rise to the city of Paris.

I used to drive to work through Villeparisis, on the edge of the Parisi tribal lands.

In the middle of the woad, of course.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 02 May, 2023, 10:46:17 am
Ah not a no threw woad then?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 May, 2023, 11:22:10 am
Rory Kinnear, whose name I always hear as Roy, is in fact Roy Kinnear's son.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: sam on 03 May, 2023, 08:04:58 am
Stalin purged his own parrot.  He got infuriated with the bird imitating his crude hawking and spitting and whacked it on the head with his pipe.  He also once plucked a live bird to make a political point.

Einstein told jokes, reportedly bad ones, to his parrot after deciding it was depressed. There are some not bad ones here. (https://sci.physics.narkive.com/Ep18EdyY/article-einstein-s-parrot)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 03 May, 2023, 08:56:48 am
Stalin purged his own parrot.  He got infuriated with the bird imitating his crude hawking and spitting and whacked it on the head with his pipe.  He also once plucked a live bird to make a political point.

Einstein told jokes, reportedly bad ones, to his parrot after deciding it was depressed. There are some not bad ones here. (https://sci.physics.narkive.com/Ep18EdyY/article-einstein-s-parrot)

Giving a 75-year-old man a parrot that can outlive him by 50 years, that's a good joke.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 05 May, 2023, 07:46:10 am
That Robert Watson-Watt, to save time and money, synchronised Britain’s ‘chain home’ radar stations using the national grid.

This meant that German surveillance operations, trying to find evidence of British radar, thought that the signals they picked up were nothing more than interference from power transmission lines. They concluded that Britain did not have radar and made little effort to destroy the large radar towers all along the coast.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 05 May, 2023, 11:51:37 am
I offer up Ray Bradbury's _The Parrot Who Met Papa_ for people's amusement and edification, if you were not aware of this short story.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 05 May, 2023, 12:03:54 pm
That Robert Watson-Watt, to save time and money, synchronised Britain’s ‘chain home’ radar stations using the national grid.

TIL that that the National Grid pre-dated the war.  I always thought it was a post-war phenomenon, like ring mains and BS1363 connectors.

Apparently the night shift illicitly connected all the regional grids in 1937, and it became official the following year.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 05 May, 2023, 04:48:19 pm
That Robert Watson-Watt, to save time and money, synchronised Britain’s ‘chain home’ radar stations using the national grid.
A former colleague was in a radar tower when the CO came in with an old man and showed all the (then) modern gear to him.
young chap asked my colleague what an old codger knew about radar - a few words and youngster went rather red.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 05 May, 2023, 05:04:23 pm
That
A. Meccano still exists.
And
B. The last factory producing it (in Calais) is due to close next year.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 May, 2023, 05:09:20 pm
Aw.  I probably have a few bits of my 1950s set knocking around.  I was always in so much of a hurry to build something that I never tightened the bolts properly, and my dad gave me a bollocking every time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: De Sisti on 05 May, 2023, 06:54:58 pm

That if you press the power button on a Samsung mobile for too long it autodials 112 which is the same as 999.
Was trying to reboot the phone whilst talking to someone and did this by accident.

12/8 time signature is similar to 4/4 time signature.
It's extremely difficult for me to play a score when there are multiple quaver and crotchet rests included.  :-\ 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 05 May, 2023, 09:54:41 pm
The little girl in the infamous Kevin Carter vulture photo was in fact a boy, and died of a fever 14 years after it was taken.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 07 May, 2023, 12:47:48 pm
That “once” is Scots for weird. But not, I suspect, much used for the last 100 years.

ETA Edited as per JennyB’s comment.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JennyB on 07 May, 2023, 12:59:12 pm
That “ocun” is Scots for weird. But not, I suspect, much used for the last 100 years.


Are you sure you don't mean 'Unco'? I hae used that mysel, no verra affen.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 08 May, 2023, 08:35:21 am
That “once” is Scots for weird. But not, I suspect, much used for the last 100 years.

ETA Edited as per JennyB’s comment.  :thumbsup:

 ;D

Ye canna fecht the machine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 May, 2023, 08:45:40 am
That “once” is Scots for weird. But not, I suspect, much used for the last 100 years.

C.f. singular.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Thing2 on 08 May, 2023, 10:41:08 am
Itzhak Perlman played the solo violin part on the Schindler's list soundtrack. Big name soloists aren't normally found doing that sort of thing, and John Williams actually asked him to play it before he'd finished the composition.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 08 May, 2023, 11:15:16 am
I imagine there would be a certain resonance.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 11 May, 2023, 10:09:41 pm
That Vivian Stanshall invented a fictional character called Mrs E.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 May, 2023, 10:54:00 pm
Today I are learning that turtle doves is mostly braahn.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 May, 2023, 02:43:40 pm
Schrödinger had a dog.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 12 May, 2023, 02:49:02 pm
Schrödinger had a dog.

Of course he did, it was a boxer
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 14 May, 2023, 07:38:34 am
Ordering envelopes at work. The normal ones where you fold A3 paper into three. They are known in the UK as DL.

Discovered in Germany they aren’t called DL but DIN Lang.

About two weeks later I realised that our DL is the short form of DIN Lang  :facepalm:

Also noticeable in Germany you have to call the paper DIN A4, not just A4. They are justifiably proud of their Deutsches Institut für Normung.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 May, 2023, 08:17:05 am
They even have a DIN standard for English1.


1. Lie. Possibly.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 14 May, 2023, 09:33:03 am
They even have a DIN standard for English1.

They certainly do in Portsmouth.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 14 May, 2023, 11:18:28 am
They even have a DIN standard for English1.

They certainly do in Portsmouth.

Dunno about Pompey, but a French chum of mine went to school in Hastings for a year. When he said now it came out neo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 14 May, 2023, 11:42:18 am
In Pompey din is an insult.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 May, 2023, 07:35:09 pm
Today I are learning that following a not terribly successful career in Formula 1 in the 1970s, driver and professional descendant Rikky von Opel moved to Thailand and became a Buddhist monk.  He's apparently still at it too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 May, 2023, 08:13:31 am
In Pompey din is an insult.

Wonder where that originated.  I did look it up but got sick of cookie dialogues before finding out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Clare on 16 May, 2023, 09:59:12 am
Din and dinny are from dinlo which, I think, is Romany for idiot.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 16 May, 2023, 12:01:46 pm
What bee poo looks like.

HT: Auntie Helen
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 16 May, 2023, 02:01:41 pm
Today I are learning that following a not terribly successful career in Formula 1 in the 1970s, driver and professional descendant Rikky von Opel moved to Thailand and became a Buddhist monk.  He's apparently still at it too.
One of our clients is Georg von Opel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_von_Opel), second cousin of the aforementioned Rikky, and great-grandson of the großer Käse Adam Opel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Opel).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Sergeant Pluck on 16 May, 2023, 03:34:16 pm
I realised yesterday that I had not fully understood the meaning of the word normative.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 16 May, 2023, 03:51:08 pm
What bee poo looks like.

HT: Auntie Helen
And I have learned, after washing the car, how quickly 4 beehives’ worth of bees can cover a car with poop in 2 hours.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 May, 2023, 03:59:26 pm
It's not poop, it's honey by-product!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 16 May, 2023, 09:00:22 pm
According to Wikipedia:

Quote
Rotherham United's supporters hold the record for the most pies consumed at a football match, with a consumption 40% above the Football League average.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 16 May, 2023, 09:01:55 pm
According to Wikipedia:

Quote
Rotherham United's supporters hold the record for the most pies consumed at a football match, with a consumption 40% above the Football League average.

I'm only disappointed to learn that there's a data team analysing this kind of thing and it's not mine.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 16 May, 2023, 09:17:59 pm
They even have a DIN standard for English1.

They certainly do in Portsmouth.

At school we had to do cadets, so we were sent to Portsmouth for a training camp, where we heard the the proper way to say block and tackle for the first time. However being young, rather than accepting the navy had a specific way of saying "tackle", we just assumed everyone from Portsmouth were a little slow and a very specific speech impediment
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 May, 2023, 03:23:28 pm
A few days ago, I had lunch in a little cafe inside a chapel built by/for John Wesley in the early 18th century. In fact, part of it is still used as a Methodist chapel now. There was also a little bookshop there, so naturally I had a browse. I spotted a pamphlet reprinting Wesley's treatise on tea. I expected this to be along the lines of "alcohol is evil, so let's encourage people to drink tea instead". But no! It turns out Wesley viewed tea as being at least as bad for you, physically, morally and socially, as alcohol.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 23 May, 2023, 06:29:07 pm
They even have a DIN standard for English1.

They certainly do in Portsmouth.

At school we had to do cadets, so we were sent to Portsmouth for a training camp, where we heard the the proper way to say block and tackle for the first time. However being young, rather than accepting the navy had a specific way of saying "tackle", we just assumed everyone from Portsmouth were a little slow and a very specific speech impediment

Both those things seem equally probable to me.  Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the former were a consequence of the latter.

Anyway, for the benefit of those with limited experience of Portsmouth[1] (or for that matter, the Navy), what's the specific way of saying "tackle"?


[1] It took me several years of reading this forum to work out what a Pompey was[2].
[2] Which by rights should be some sort of Roman fixed-wheel bike, but seemed to be a sportsball thing, except when it wasn't.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 24 May, 2023, 01:06:50 pm
They even have a DIN standard for English1.

They certainly do in Portsmouth.

At school we had to do cadets, so we were sent to Portsmouth for a training camp, where we heard the the proper way to say block and tackle for the first time. However being young, rather than accepting the navy had a specific way of saying "tackle", we just assumed everyone from Portsmouth were a little slow and a very specific speech impediment

Both those things seem equally probable to me.  Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the former were a consequence of the latter.

Anyway, for the benefit of those with limited experience of Portsmouth[1] (or for that matter, the Navy), what's the specific way of saying "tackle"?


[1] It took me several years of reading this forum to work out what a Pompey was[2].
[2] Which by rights should be some sort of Roman fixed-wheel bike, but seemed to be a sportsball thing, except when it wasn't.



I think that it's pronounced "taykle".

However, that may be an old, generic, seadogs' thing (I read it in an article on traditional sailing boat rigging).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 24 May, 2023, 04:06:50 pm
They even have a DIN standard for English1.

They certainly do in Portsmouth.

At school we had to do cadets, so we were sent to Portsmouth for a training camp, where we heard the the proper way to say block and tackle for the first time. However being young, rather than accepting the navy had a specific way of saying "tackle", we just assumed everyone from Portsmouth were a little slow and a very specific speech impediment

Both those things seem equally probable to me.  Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the former were a consequence of the latter.

Anyway, for the benefit of those with limited experience of Portsmouth[1] (or for that matter, the Navy), what's the specific way of saying "tackle"?


[1] It took me several years of reading this forum to work out what a Pompey was[2].
[2] Which by rights should be some sort of Roman fixed-wheel bike, but seemed to be a sportsball thing, except when it wasn't.



I think that it's pronounced "taykle".

However, that may be an old, generic, seadogs' thing (I read it in an article on traditional sailing boat rigging).

My dad, an old generic armchair sea-dog, always insisted it was taykle.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 May, 2023, 08:36:24 pm
Today I are learning that Gary Lineker is three years older than Nigel Farage.  The obvious conclusion to be drawn from this is “eat MOAR crisps”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 25 May, 2023, 08:55:12 pm
My thing wot I learned is that the Hifi shop sketch off of TV's Not The Nine O'Clock News first saw life on The Burkiss Way, a sketch show on The Home Service Radio 4 in 1977.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Captain Nemo on 25 May, 2023, 09:04:25 pm
My thing wot I learned is that the Hifi shop sketch off of TV's Not The Nine O'Clock News first saw life on The Burkiss Way, a sketch show on The Home Service Radio 4 in 1977.

'Twas on the wireless this evening.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 26 May, 2023, 07:18:51 am
My thing wot I learned is that the Hifi shop sketch off of TV's Not The Nine O'Clock News first saw life on The Burkiss Way, a sketch show on The Home Service Radio 4 in 1977.

'Twas on the wireless this evening.
Also earlier in the day, when I heard it, which prompted some frantic googling.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 27 May, 2023, 04:59:10 pm
How to use a smartwatch to obtain multichannel electrocardiograms.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2770022

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 27 May, 2023, 07:25:49 pm
That Shropshire Blue cheese isn’t an “old” cheese, it was invented (FCVO invented) in the 1970’s, and that that invention was most likely in Inverness, but “Inverness-shire Blue” didn’t cut it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 May, 2023, 09:01:27 pm
How to use a smartwatch to obtain multichannel electrocardiograms.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2770022

That's quite clever, though I had to look up what a "digital crown" was.  It turns out that the general purpose twiddle-knob on the latest Mega-Global Fruit Co watches also serves as an electrode (the other being the back of the watch) for single-channel ECG purposes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 May, 2023, 08:03:02 am
How to use a smartwatch to obtain multichannel electrocardiograms.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2770022

That's quite clever, though I had to look up what a "digital crown" was.  It turns out that the general purpose twiddle-knob on the latest Mega-Global Fruit Co watches also serves as an electrode (the other being the back of the watch) for single-channel ECG purposes.

On my Withings it's the bezel, ditto El Prez's 36€ chinesium knock-off.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 30 May, 2023, 07:40:40 am
That the National Trust Car Park near Beachy Head now has a "Drop-off point"  ;D

(Unashamedly by courtesy of one of my daily reads, Diamond Geezer)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 30 May, 2023, 05:00:07 pm
Cheaper than going all the way to Dignitas. (Not for unwanted puppies - mustn't drop litter).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 31 May, 2023, 01:46:08 pm
That the welsh language uses the 'accent aigu'. I've never seen it before, but Duolingo was teaching me some animal names, and up popped 'jíraff'.
I don't know if there are any more examples.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 31 May, 2023, 04:44:36 pm
The tip of the Washington Monument is made of aluminium.  When it was built, aluminium was difficult to extract and work, so this made it one of the most valuable metals of the day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 May, 2023, 05:01:01 pm
For the same reason, one of the first objects made of aluminium was a cutlery set presented to Queen Victoria.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 31 May, 2023, 05:10:18 pm
At the other end of the scale, we probably have a few old aluminium francs somewhere. They were still on the go, mixed in with the new stuff, when we came to France, and people still spoke in old francs - cinq cent balles was 5 frs and a brique was 10,000. Kinda confusing when you aren't yet fluent.

Come to think of it, some of them still had the Travail, Patrie, Famille slogan on them instead of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 31 May, 2023, 05:20:36 pm
I seem to remember a few denominations of Italian Lire and Austrian Schillings/Gröschen being aluminum. Am I right about this?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 May, 2023, 05:30:17 pm
At the other end of the scale, we probably have a few old aluminium francs somewhere. They were still on the go, mixed in with the new stuff, when we came to France, and people still spoke in old francs - cinq cent balles was 5 frs and a brique was 10,000. Kinda confusing when you aren't yet fluent.

Come to think of it, some of them still had the Travail, Patrie, Famille slogan on them instead of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.
Like this?
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Piece_de_monnaie_1943_124_2419.JPG/800px-Piece_de_monnaie_1943_124_2419.JPG)

I seem to remember a few denominations of Italian Lire and Austrian Schillings/Gröschen being aluminum. Am I right about this?
I'm sure I remember aluminium coins from Austria too. And old Polish coins were aluminium; they were replaced in the mid '90s at the rate of 1 new for 10,000 old (and about 5 new to 1 GBP), so you can imagine just how little the old ones were worth...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 31 May, 2023, 05:36:42 pm
At the other end of the scale, we probably have a few old aluminium francs somewhere. They were still on the go, mixed in with the new stuff, when we came to France, and people still spoke in old francs - cinq cent balles was 5 frs and a brique was 10,000. Kinda confusing when you aren't yet fluent.

Come to think of it, some of them still had the Travail, Patrie, Famille slogan on them instead of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.

Paris market traders still gave you the price in Balles when I was living in Paris in the late 70s.
Caused a few 'ow bloody much?' moments until I got used to it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 May, 2023, 06:13:32 pm
Found a Finnish 1 penni coin lying around at Fort Larrington at the weekend, which was 97.5% aluminium and 2.5% magnesium.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 31 May, 2023, 06:34:52 pm
Some 50 years ago I would occasionally put Austrian aluminium coins on the tracks of the Manx Electric Railway at Ballajora Halt whilst waiting for the papers to be delivered.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 02 June, 2023, 09:53:45 am
That there are a variety of devices sold that can be used for patterning / texturing / spiralising hot dogs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 02 June, 2023, 01:17:35 pm
At the other end of the scale, we probably have a few old aluminium francs somewhere. They were still on the go, mixed in with the new stuff, when we came to France, and people still spoke in old francs - cinq cent balles was 5 frs and a brique was 10,000. Kinda confusing when you aren't yet fluent.

Come to think of it, some of them still had the Travail, Patrie, Famille slogan on them instead of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.
Like this?
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Piece_de_monnaie_1943_124_2419.JPG/800px-Piece_de_monnaie_1943_124_2419.JPG)


MrsT tells me she has a piggy-bank full of old francs. Not as pretty as that one, though; they usually took on a grey patina.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 02 June, 2023, 10:07:19 pm
^ got me thinking that 1 yen coins are also aluminium so I checked and was right

As a result of that, what I have learned today is that they also weigh 1g, which is super pleasing design.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Rod Marton on 04 June, 2023, 10:05:35 am
That Suella Braverman is a Buddhist.

I wonder how she reconciles being a Conservative minister with the eightfold path.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 June, 2023, 11:53:29 am
I suspect she’s a BINO* and about as devout as the gam-gams who loudly proclaim that “britian is  a CRISTUN CUNTRY” while neither attending church nor loving their neighbour as themselves.

* Buddhist In Name Only, obv
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 05 June, 2023, 01:05:18 pm
That the capital of Alaska, Juneau, is not connected by road to the rest of North America.

The only way in or out is via plane or ferry.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 June, 2023, 02:09:17 pm
Moreover, Haines, Skagway and Hyder AK can only be accessed by road from the rest of the state by going through Canada.  An awful lot of Canada in the case of Hyder ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 07 June, 2023, 12:57:12 pm
That the American pronunciation of the word ‘primer’ (a book or document which helps you decipher information) is pronounced rhyming with strimmer rather than climber.

I watched the film Contact.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 07 June, 2023, 01:21:52 pm
Tom Cruise was nearly cast in the lead role of Edward Scissorhands.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 07 June, 2023, 03:23:46 pm
That the American pronunciation of the word ‘primer’ (a book or document which helps you decipher information) is pronounced rhyming with strimmer rather than climber.

I watched the film Contact.

This American has always pronounced 'primer' rhyming with climber, so I guess I've been pronouncing it wrong all these years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 June, 2023, 03:28:13 pm
That the American pronunciation of the word ‘primer’ (a book or document which helps you decipher information) is pronounced rhyming with strimmer rather than climber.

I watched the film Contact.

It seems to vary: https://youtu.be/4O0S-w09fIY
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 07 June, 2023, 07:51:55 pm
It does vary by no known formula that I could establish (primer being a common world in my academic circles). It's a me-cro / my-cro thing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 June, 2023, 07:46:45 am
Do dimers become dimmer too?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 08 June, 2023, 09:43:58 am
That “Soldier” by Harland Jay Ellison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_Ellison) was the inspirational book behind “The Terminator”.

Quote

Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho, described Ellison as "the only living organism I know whose natural habitat is hot water."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 08 June, 2023, 10:44:12 am
That “Soldier” by Harland Jay Ellison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_Ellison) was the inspirational book behind “The Terminator”.

Quote

Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho, described Ellison as "the only living organism I know whose natural habitat is hot water."

That is what Ellison claimed.

I've read that story. There is almost nothing connecting Soldier to Terminator, apart from them both featuring a soldier sent back in time.

Ellison was a dick, but wrote some truly oddball and unique stories.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: sam on 08 June, 2023, 10:51:12 am
Ellison was a dick, but wrote some truly oddball and unique stories.

'I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream' comes immediately to mind.

He used to set up his typewriter in book store windows (https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/65425/author-who-wrote-bookstore-windows) and bang them out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 08 June, 2023, 01:44:36 pm
That “Soldier” by Harland Jay Ellison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_Ellison) was the inspirational book behind “The Terminator”.

Quote

Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho, described Ellison as "the only living organism I know whose natural habitat is hot water."

That is what Ellison claimed.

I've read that story. There is almost nothing connecting Soldier to Terminator, apart from them both featuring a soldier sent back in time.

Ellison was a dick, but wrote some truly oddball and unique stories.

I haven't read 'soldier' but going on wiki, 'almost nothing' is arguable.  And it was, and Ellison won a settlement with Orion.

Quote
Cameron was against Orion's decision and was told that if he did not agree with the settlement, he would have to pay any damages if Orion lost a suit by Ellison. Cameron replied that he "had no choice but to agree with the settlement. Of course there was a gag order as well, so I couldn't tell this story, but now I frankly don't care. It's the truth."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 09 June, 2023, 09:59:07 am
In a delicious and sad irony, that the Cutty Sark was launched in the same year that the Suez Canal opened.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 09 June, 2023, 11:02:08 am
In a delicious and sad irony, that the Cutty Sark was launched in the same year that the Suez Canal opened.
Mind slightly blown.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 09 June, 2023, 11:43:14 am
I know that the Cutty Sark was launched in 1869. That date is fixed because the Cutty Sark was 11 years younger than the Maria Asumpta, and I just know that she was launched in 1858.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 June, 2023, 10:57:12 am
Today I are mostly learning that Roy Estrada, bassist for The Mothers Of Invention, Little Feat and The Magic Band, is currently in prison in Texas for kiddy-fiddling and will not be eligible for release until 2037 :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 13 June, 2023, 05:06:20 pm
Dawn from The Office is Jasper Carrott's daughter.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 16 June, 2023, 02:14:36 pm
Dawn from The Office is Jasper Carrott's daughter.

. . . she was also Hayley in the everyday story of country folk on R4 for quite a while.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: campagman on 16 June, 2023, 07:09:47 pm
I thought her name was Norra.

Sent from my moto g(50) using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 June, 2023, 12:43:46 am
Today I are mostly learning that the Empire Windrush was German until BRITAIN seized it off of them Nazis in 1945, and was originally called the Monte Rosa.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 June, 2023, 12:26:39 pm
The word 'werle', which is Wolof for 'hands'. As I am unlikely to learn any other Wolof words or speak with a Wolofian, I shall endeavour to use this word in English sentences, such as 'Look mum, no werle!'
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 21 June, 2023, 07:25:45 pm
That councils can no longer charge for DIY waste

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65977938

They say it’ll push up costs, but they have to clear up the fly tipped waste already. It’ll also mean when you want a new bathroom the plumber will want you to dispose of the old one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 21 June, 2023, 07:51:29 pm
That councils can no longer charge for DIY waste

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65977938

They say it’ll push up costs, but they have to clear up the fly tipped waste already. It’ll also mean when you want a new bathroom the plumber will want you to dispose of the old one.

When we had our place refurbished, we were billed and paid for all the disposal.

I was told that while the county runs the waste and recycling centres around here, the flytipping is cleared up by the district council, so if the council cuts back that service, the pain is reserved for the district council who have to clear up the mess. Personally I'd discourage flytipping with death-from-the-sky-drones. #harshbutfair
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 21 June, 2023, 08:00:13 pm
That councils can no longer charge for DIY waste

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65977938

They say it’ll push up costs, but they have to clear up the fly tipped waste already. It’ll also mean when you want a new bathroom the plumber will want you to dispose of the old one.

From my reading of the news, the cooncil were ignoring the rules, finding a loop-hole to charge where they should not have been. They are just closing this loop-hole.

"In 2015, the government banned charges on local residents disposing of household rubbish at household waste centres.
Guidance made clear this includes DIY household waste. But some local authorities were still able to charge for certain types of DIY material, under rules designed for construction waste."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 21 June, 2023, 08:12:59 pm
The landfill tax increases year on year and gives rise to less scrupulous action by some 'contractors'. Stopping the LAs charging nominal fees for providing a service is nonsense and will do nothing as regards fly tipping. See Hampshire ppe fly tipping.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 June, 2023, 09:40:55 pm
Quote
But some local authorities were still able to charge for certain types of DIY material, under rules designed for construction waste.
It's going to make hardly any difference to fly tipping unless they extend free disposal to commercial waste too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 26 June, 2023, 08:01:44 am
More probably learned again, the origin of the term "scot free".

https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-2732,00.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 26 June, 2023, 09:40:16 am
That gives 2 origins (the second of which sounds more plausible to me).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 June, 2023, 12:02:22 pm
That the rails inside the Severn Tunnel are tin plated to reduce corrosion in the saltwater environment.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: hatler on 27 June, 2023, 09:18:16 pm
Blimey. On my Corrosion Engineering course we were assured that no protection was required for rails 'cos they wear out before they rust. Do they do the same for the lines past Dawlish Warren ?  Perhaps the combination of salty air and relatively little air movement combines to make a particularly aggressive environment.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 June, 2023, 10:50:18 am
I don't know about Dawlish Warren, though it would seem logical. The same place I read that did say that rails normally last about 25 years but in the Severn Tunnel they need to be replaced every 10.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ravenbait on 30 June, 2023, 01:55:51 pm
That Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover was responsible for invertebrate prog rock sensation The Butterfly Ball.

Sam
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 June, 2023, 02:01:16 pm
Continuing the musical theme, today I are learning that The Band's “Robbie” Robertson is in fact called “Jaime Royal” Robertson.  Also, he'll be 80 next week.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 03 July, 2023, 10:12:18 pm
The the Cambridge house fire which sadly killed a woman and two children over the week end was caused by an electric bike which was on charge at the time.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 04 July, 2023, 07:47:08 am
The the Cambridge house fire which sadly killed a woman and two children over the week end was caused by an electric bike which was on charge at the time.

I think the next question is what was the bike/battery ?  . . . . . there are some notoriously poor quality bikes and batteries out there . . .   From data I've seen I doubt it was an established/mainstream brand.   Whatever, not leaving the battery on-charge unattended is prudent.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 04 July, 2023, 08:24:51 am
The brand name SONA for metal teapots, milk jugs etc made back in the 50s and 60s is derived from Stratford ON Avon where the manufacturer was located (the site is now housing, a BUPA care home, a Travelodge and an ALDI) - the similar products under the SWAN* brand were also made there.


*Swans are very much associated with SuA with the fearsome things on the river, one of the theatres, an orchestra and the Black Swan pub (a.k.a. The Dirty Duck)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 04 July, 2023, 09:47:19 am
The the Cambridge house fire which sadly killed a woman and two children over the week end was caused by an electric bike which was on charge at the time.

I think the next question is what was the bike/battery ?  . . . . . there are some notoriously poor quality bikes and batteries out there . . .   From data I've seen I doubt it was an established/mainstream brand.   Whatever, not leaving the battery on-charge unattended is prudent.
[/quote

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=126102.0
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Giraffe on 04 July, 2023, 05:08:28 pm
BBC reporter kept calling it "electronic" - it is, of course, but not as common useage would have it.
On Look East it was "electric".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 July, 2023, 08:39:56 pm
Today I are learning that Luis Ocaña died from a self-inflicted gunshot :'(
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 04 July, 2023, 10:07:09 pm
There are several pro cyclists who chose their own time to check out. Ireland’s first yellow jersey wearer, for one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 July, 2023, 11:04:02 pm
1990 KOTM Thierry Claveyrolat too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Beardy on 09 July, 2023, 06:01:14 pm
Switzerland doesn’t formal have a capital city. Bern was chosen as the seat of the Swiss parliament 170 odd years ago, but nowhere in officialdom is it named or recognised as the Capital. History apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 10 July, 2023, 05:33:30 pm
Marty Robbins recorded a follow up to El Paso

https://youtu.be/74AkX3D35fo
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 July, 2023, 07:03:12 am
Rabid homoeopaths have almost wiped out the wild arnica that grows on the Grand Ballon, the highest mountain in the Vosges.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 July, 2023, 07:08:22 am
Marty Robbins recorded a follow up to El Paso

https://youtu.be/74AkX3D35fo

I had a boss who always took a Marty Robbins cassette along to play in the car when we went to client sites. The trips were often a few hundred km long.  I got to know the first damned El Paso thing by heart.  "One little kiss" my arse and Faleena can FOAD.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 13 July, 2023, 12:35:03 pm
I share a birthday with notorious sex pests Roman Polanski and Huw Edwards.  A bit relieved that I don't also share it with Prince Andrew or Kevin Spacey.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 21 July, 2023, 08:52:08 pm
Orson Welles' last gig as director was the "Follow the bear" adverts for Hofmeister lager.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 21 July, 2023, 08:53:23 pm
I share a birthday with notorious sex pests Roman Polanski and Huw Edwards.  A bit relieved that I don't also share it with Prince Andrew or Kevin Spacey.
Thatcher died on my birthday, which didn't in the least put a dampener on things.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 July, 2023, 12:53:53 am
Today I are learning that

Quote from: Wikinaccurate
The term "conspiracy theory" is itself the subject of a conspiracy theory, which posits that the term was popularized by the CIA in order to discredit conspiratorial believers, particularly critics of the Warren Commission, by making them a target of ridicule.

It’s turtles conspiracies all the way down!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 July, 2023, 07:52:27 am
Theoretically.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 July, 2023, 11:54:53 am
That USB really is The Devil's Anbaric String: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/110755293718273847
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 23 July, 2023, 07:48:28 am
That Qantas haven’t had a fatal air crash since 1951.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 July, 2023, 07:42:56 pm
Today I are learning that Jack Kerouac was originally admitted to Columbia University on a football scholarship.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 July, 2023, 06:55:43 pm
That Geneva has a Rue des Garages. And it's aptly, if depressingly, named:
https://goo.gl/maps/VbpDZt75VVWppH729
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 July, 2023, 08:48:30 pm
+0.75 for intermediate vision my arse.  I've no idea what it needs to be, but it's definitely negative...

TIL that the 'Add' column heading on an optical prescription means you add that value to the distance prescription, which indeed gives a more reasonable small negative number.  Clue's in the name I suppose.  I look forward to seeing all the pixels on my new monitor.

Related learning:  Glasses frame fashions are getting worse again.  The 1960s plastic chunkiness that replaced sensible 1990s wire frames is now giving way to colourful abominations with gold trim and rounded corners.  I had to resort to titanium...

Can also confirm that there isn't actually a Ƶ on the anbaric Snellen chart thing, however much my astigmatism disagrees.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 27 July, 2023, 08:53:09 pm
I had to resort to titanium...


Plain grey or those lovely colours that Snowpeak used to do ?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 July, 2023, 08:57:08 pm
I had to resort to titanium...


Plain grey or those lovely colours that Snowpeak used to do ?

Worse than that, there's PURPLE anodised twiddly bits on the arms (on the basis that if you have to have anodised twiddly bits, it's the best colour).  But the bit that sits in my visual field is thankfully thin and grey, and they're a decent fit on my freakishly small head.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 27 July, 2023, 09:01:10 pm
I always fancied a PURPLE Snowpeak mug, but could never justify the cost.  Perhaps a bit bright for eyewear, but you'd never lose them.


(https://uk.snowpeak.com/cdn/shop/products/MG-143-PR_hero_01_1024x1024_cf688855-6172-4be5-a861-b6d39a5e69f8_1024x1024.webp?v=1680509131)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 July, 2023, 09:05:57 pm
I had to resort to titanium...


Plain grey or those lovely colours that Snowpeak used to do ?
Do you mean the shimmery colours like an oilslick puddle that they still do?
https://uk.snowpeak.com/collections/drinkware-collection
(https://uk.snowpeak.com/cdn/shop/collections/drinkware_01.webp?height=480&v=1681913081)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 27 July, 2023, 09:07:18 pm
You people are a bad influence
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 27 July, 2023, 09:09:01 pm
They still appear to have the coloured stuff.  I thought they'd been discontinued long ago.


https://www.consortium.co.uk/snow-peak-titanium-single-wall-450-mug-purple-mg-043pr-us.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 July, 2023, 10:13:58 pm
Yes, I saw it in a local (Bristol) shop last summer. Along with Japanese skateboarding and DJ-ing magazines.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 27 July, 2023, 10:47:15 pm
That Geneva has a Rue des Garages. And it's aptly, if depressingly, named:
https://goo.gl/maps/VbpDZt75VVWppH729

I assume that you know about Windscreens Road in Bristol...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 July, 2023, 10:58:15 pm
I'd forgotten about that actually. I'm pretty sure it's not a public road, but still, it has a name.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 28 July, 2023, 08:40:48 am
Then there's Builder Street in Llandudno. (Home to the studio of Nick Elphick, who's sculpture of trauma surgeon "Martin" in Bill Bailey's Extraordinary Portraits as indeed extraordinary.

https://nickelphicksculpture.co.uk/extraordinary-portraits
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 28 July, 2023, 02:33:19 pm
That chartreuse is the colour of tennis balls.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 28 July, 2023, 04:26:43 pm
That chartreuse is the colour of tennis balls.

it's also the colour of a micro-bus according C W McCall
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 28 July, 2023, 06:14:44 pm
Chartreuse Yellow is also the colour of the least attractive hi-viz tops, the type given an unrepeatable name by certain of this parish  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 29 July, 2023, 09:17:19 am
Our first car together was a chartreuse yellow MG Midget.  Beautiful
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: campagman on 29 July, 2023, 08:49:36 pm
I was surprised to see that Gilbert who make rugby balls also make the balls for the Netball world cup.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 30 July, 2023, 03:26:29 pm
Muc Off is good for removing starling poo from the roof of our bird table.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 30 July, 2023, 04:51:06 pm
The original Mr Boeing of aircraft fame was a massive, massive racist.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 30 July, 2023, 06:33:42 pm
The original Mr Boeing of aircraft fame was a massive, massive racist.

I re-skeeted [1] a perfect quote about this phenomenon (https://bsky.app/profile/pairofclaws.bsky.social/post/3k3oat3cpyw2z) the other day. Quoted below to save the Bluesky(net)-less.

"There's always at least a 30% chance of finding out that your favorite science fun fact is something first discovered by Dr. Otto Von Racism during an attempt to make children more flammable." - Jessica Conwell @pairofclaws.bsky.social

[1] - Explainer: Re-skeeted seems to be the brand new hip word for Bluesky's equivalent of the Twitter retweet or Mastodon boost, with 'Skeet' being to make a post...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 30 July, 2023, 06:48:01 pm
Pitsea Tip (the largest landfill site in Britain) is open until 5pm on Sundays.

Bad weather happens when you are doing other stuff (not just cycling), and coincides with the worst part (for that weather) of other activities too, like the cloudburst when emptying the car, in the pre-booked slot at the tip.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 July, 2023, 09:57:30 pm
The original Mr Boeing of aircraft fame was a massive, massive racist.

I re-skeeted [1] a perfect quote about this phenomenon (https://bsky.app/profile/pairofclaws.bsky.social/post/3k3oat3cpyw2z) the other day. Quoted below to save the Bluesky(net)-less.

"There's always at least a 30% chance of finding out that your favorite science fun fact is something first discovered by Dr. Otto Von Racism during an attempt to make children more flammable." - Jessica Conwell @pairofclaws.bsky.social

[1] - Explainer: Re-skeeted seems to be the brand new hip word for Bluesky's equivalent of the Twitter retweet or Mastodon boost, with 'Skeet' being to make a post...
Wouldn't "reposted" do as one word to cover all platforms? We can't, unfortunately, expect the various platforms to use already existing, normal English words, but we can do so ourselves. Please...

Also, your Bluesky link just goes to a sign-in page, which is pretty useless. Yes, I appreciate you've given use the quote in your post.

I shall now look up Mr Boeing myself!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 July, 2023, 10:34:04 pm
Instead of learning about Mr Boeing, I've learnt how little I know about things very nearby.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jul/30/worth-the-wait-sunday-lunch-bank-tavern-bristol-pub-backlog
A pub in Bristol with a four-year waiting list?!!? Where's that? The Bank Tavern. Never heard of it. They don't mean the Greenbank, surely?
So I look it up. It's on John Street. No idea where that is, must be in some distant outer district. No! It's bang in the old town, barely a mile away. I've walked right past this pub many times and... I'm still not tempted to go there, even if I could get in. It's one of those historic corners which now feel like they're underground thanks to the shadow of the surrounding brutalist office towers (and to call them brutalism is high praise, they're more brutal without anything as considered as an -ism). But I'm sure the food is great.
https://goo.gl/maps/mY8W7xKWUvLf4Uiw9

Coincidentally it's very near the shop selling coloured Snow Peak titanium mugs a few posts above.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 31 July, 2023, 07:57:06 am
Instead of learning about Mr Boeing, I've learnt how little I know about things very nearby.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jul/30/worth-the-wait-sunday-lunch-bank-tavern-bristol-pub-backlog
A pub in Bristol with a four-year waiting list?!!? Where's that? The Bank Tavern. Never heard of it. They don't mean the Greenbank, surely?
So I look it up. It's on John Street. No idea where that is, must be in some distant outer district. No! It's bang in the old town, barely a mile away. I've walked right past this pub many times and... I'm still not tempted to go there, even if I could get in. It's one of those historic corners which now feel like they're underground thanks to the shadow of the surrounding brutalist office towers (and to call them brutalism is high praise, they're more brutal without anything as considered as an -ism). But I'm sure the food is great.
https://goo.gl/maps/mY8W7xKWUvLf4Uiw9

Coincidentally it's very near the shop selling coloured Snow Peak titanium mugs a few posts above.

I saw the article about the pub and its lunch etc - immediate reaction is that they have a resourceful PR agency working for them  :demon:. . . and reading between the lines further it looks like it's just Sunday lunch that's popular.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 July, 2023, 09:47:02 am
Yes, it's not the sort of place that would normally get a whole article in a national paper.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 31 July, 2023, 12:19:23 pm
Also, your Bluesky link just goes to a sign-in page, which is pretty useless.

Not if you're logged in, it seems.  So while it's no worse than what Facebook users have been doing with impunity for the last decade or so, it does seem a bit shit if you can't use Bluesky for public announcements they way you could with Twitter until recently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 July, 2023, 12:25:19 pm
It would seem that Bluesky, which I hadn't even heard of till yesterday, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc, and so on, are multiple exclusive walled gardens. I do wonder if some of them are also like exclusive nightclubs, which have long queues but if you get in, turn out to be nearly empty.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 31 July, 2023, 01:10:21 pm
It would seem that Bluesky, which I hadn't even heard of till yesterday, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc, and so on, are multiple exclusive walled gardens. I do wonder if some of them are also like exclusive nightclubs, which have long queues but if you get in, turn out to be nearly empty.

That's my current experience of Bluesky, though barakta reckons it's gaining a bit more traction amongst the people who really wanted Twitter without Elon Musk.  I only really signed up to bag the username, as I'm finding the Mastodon experience generally acceptable for nonspecific pissing-about-on-the-internet purposes (with the obvious disclaimer that I'm a white queer person who knows more than two programming languages, likes cats and doesn't object to artistic photos of moss).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 July, 2023, 01:21:12 pm
It would seem that Bluesky, which I hadn't even heard of till yesterday, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc, and so on, are multiple exclusive walled gardens. I do wonder if some of them are also like exclusive nightclubs, which have long queues but if you get in, turn out to be nearly empty.

That's my current experience of Bluesky, though barakta reckons it's gaining a bit more traction amongst the people who really wanted Twitter without Elon Musk.  I only really signed up to bag the username, as I'm finding the Mastodon experience generally acceptable for nonspecific pissing-about-on-the-internet purposes (with the obvious disclaimer that I'm a white queer person who knows more than two programming languages, likes cats and doesn't object to artistic photos of moss).
Well that gives you the whole dancefloor to strut your funky stuff.
https://youtu.be/LUID0jSh2Ic
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 31 July, 2023, 05:16:42 pm
Not on Bluesky cos I don't have an invite. Not finding much traffic on Mastodon. Finding twitter just repeats the same tweets ad nauseum these days. Meh.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 01 August, 2023, 09:55:12 am
My house doesn't meet the UK Decent Homes Standard.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Vernon on 01 August, 2023, 10:38:53 am
Does it meet the indecent homes standard (sex pond, pampas grass, etc)?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 01 August, 2023, 11:06:53 am
A clue (to quote Mitchell and Webb, rudely)

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 01 August, 2023, 11:21:25 am
The speed of light is 299792 metres/second.
That number is the same as the northing coordinate of The Great Pyramid of Giza.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 01 August, 2023, 11:28:59 am
The speed of light is 299792 metres/second.
That number is the same as the northing coordinate of The Great Pyramid of Giza.

Does this belong in the Conspiracies thread?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 01 August, 2023, 11:48:35 am
The speed of light is 299792 metres/second.
That number is the same as the northing coordinate of The Great Pyramid of Giza.

Does this belong in the Conspiracies thread?
Only if the pyramid has a gert massive eye hovering over it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: DaveJ on 01 August, 2023, 12:39:02 pm
Speed of light is around 3*10**8 m/s so a factor of a thousand out, not that I expect that would worry the conspiracy theorists.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 August, 2023, 12:42:44 pm
That’s ^^^^ just what THEY want you to think!!!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 01 August, 2023, 01:08:12 pm
Ha! This proves time travel is a thing being hidden from us by our overlords, as they must have travelled back to Egypt to determine the exact position to build the pyramid, as neither the metre nor the coordinate system were in place then. They put the pyramid there to give those of us who are on the path to enlightenment the clues we need to piece together the truth behind who is running the world and their immense capabilities.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 August, 2023, 04:24:19 pm
Deluded revisionism! Those of us who are truly enlightened know that the metre and the second were both invented with their current dimensions so as to enable this "coincidence".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 August, 2023, 02:22:44 pm
That the Hardy monument in Dorset is not to the author. It's Nelson's Hardy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 06 August, 2023, 02:28:28 pm
My Eng. Lit. career in school would have been a lot more agreeable if Thomas had got shot at Trafalgar.  Or anywhere else.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 August, 2023, 05:26:15 pm
The Japanese word komorebi, meaning sunlight shining through trees. Almost as good as petrichor.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ScumOfTheRoad on 09 August, 2023, 05:36:10 pm
Speed of light is around 3*10**8 m/s so a factor of a thousand out, not that I expect that would worry the conspiracy theorists.
The speed of light is a foot per nanosecond.
When giving lectures, Admiral Grace Hopper used to give out foot long pieces of wire and say "Here- have a nanosecond"
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 09 August, 2023, 06:01:16 pm
Thanks to today's Guardian crossword, I now know that the word clerestory is pronounced clear-story and not, as I previously imagined, cleh-ress-tory.

At least I did already know what the word means though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 09 August, 2023, 06:12:33 pm
Thanks to today's Guardian crossword, I now know that the word clerestory is pronounced clear-story and not, as I previously imagined, cleh-ress-tory.

At least I did already know what the word means though.

Me too also :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 09 August, 2023, 06:13:44 pm
That there is a Black Country flag.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Black_Country
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 10 August, 2023, 09:24:55 am
That in Japanese a Toyota wankpanzer is called Randokaruza.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 August, 2023, 09:30:42 am
That in Japanese a Toyota wankpanzer is called Randokaruza.
Is that a randy carouser or a rando[nneur] car user?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 10 August, 2023, 11:49:18 am
That in Japanese a Toyota wankpanzer is called Randokaruza.
Is that a randy carouser or a rando[nneur] car user?


It sounds more like the first one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 10 August, 2023, 12:22:56 pm
That in Japanese a Toyota wankpanzer is called Randokaruza.
Is that a randy carouser or a rando[nneur] car user?


It sounds more like the first one.

Or maybe a Japanese pronunciation of Land Cruiser.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 10 August, 2023, 12:37:29 pm
That in Japanese a Toyota wankpanzer is called Randokaruza.
Is that a randy carouser or a rando[nneur] car user?


It sounds more like the first one.

Or maybe a Japanese pronunciation of Land Cruiser.

You've got it!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 August, 2023, 01:09:05 pm
Back in Days of Yore when Professor Larrington lived in Japan there was on the TV a commercial for the Honda City, complete with chorus of ladies joyfully singing “Shitty Shitty Shitty!”
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 August, 2023, 01:36:46 pm
Back in Days of Yore when Professor Larrington lived in Japan there was on the TV a commercial for the Honda City, complete with chorus of ladies joyfully singing “Shitty Shitty Shitty!”

Made oi larf.  Shades of Pschitt! lemonade And Choky chocolate milk.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 August, 2023, 01:43:10 pm
Back in Days of Yore when Professor Larrington lived in Japan there was on the TV a commercial for the Honda City, complete with chorus of ladies joyfully singing “Shitty Shitty Shitty!”

Made oi larf.  Shades of Pschitt! lemonade And Choky chocolate milk.

And a well-known English guitarist is known over there as “Elic Crapped-on”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 10 August, 2023, 03:20:46 pm
There's a Japanese drink called Calpis.

For export markets they eventually renamed it Calpico.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 August, 2023, 07:57:02 pm
Back in Days of Yore when Professor Larrington lived in Japan there was on the TV a commercial for the Honda City, complete with chorus of ladies joyfully singing “Shitty Shitty Shitty!”
Bang Bang Bang!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 13 August, 2023, 09:14:20 pm
That the Cutthroat Bridge at Ladybower Reservoir really does relate to a 17th century baggage train robbery and cutthroat murder. More recently the bridge has also been involved a decapitation murder and the Def Leppard Drummer Rick Allen losing an arm in a car crash.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 13 August, 2023, 09:26:21 pm
Chatting to a seal warden today... I learnt -
- That the marine animals called seals, carry natural anti-coagulant so if they bite a dog, the dog could bleed to death without attention by a vet.
- That Renault have a problem making wheels now, and new cars needing replacement wheels, face a wait of at least a few weeks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: campagman on 15 August, 2023, 08:55:34 pm
I learnt about Ann Moores of Tutbury (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Moore_(impostor)) who didn't eat anything between 1807 and 1813, apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 16 August, 2023, 11:08:06 am
That the Cutthroat Bridge at Ladybower Reservoir really does relate to a 17th century baggage train robbery and cutthroat murder. More recently the bridge has also been involved a decapitation murder and the Def Leppard Drummer Rick Allen losing an arm in a car crash.

Have you been attending the BBC school of collision reporting? Saying the bridge was "involved" makes it sound like its role was not entirely passive. Which strikes me as unlikely.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 16 August, 2023, 11:20:18 am
I learnt about Ann Moores of Tutbury (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Moore_(impostor)) who didn't eat anything between 1807 and 1813, apparently.

Died in 1806?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 16 August, 2023, 01:14:57 pm
That the Cutthroat Bridge at Ladybower Reservoir really does relate to a 17th century baggage train robbery and cutthroat murder. More recently the bridge has also been involved a decapitation murder and the Def Leppard Drummer Rick Allen losing an arm in a car crash.

Have you been attending the BBC school of collision reporting? Saying the bridge was "involved" makes it sound like its role was not entirely passive. Which strikes me as unlikely.

<Visions of needlessly-AI-controlled swing bridge having a go.>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 16 August, 2023, 02:12:20 pm
It goes on. See the Hanging bridge of Mayfield. The bridge may or may not have been involved.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 August, 2023, 11:48:55 am
Today I are learning that Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Dayton still have trolley buses, as does Vancouver BC.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 22 August, 2023, 07:46:46 pm
That Victor Kiam, who liked the Remington shaver his wife bought for him so much that he bought the company, had the middle name of.......


Kermit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 August, 2023, 08:34:50 pm
That Victor Kiam, who liked the Remington shaver his wife bought for him so much that he bought the company, had the middle name of.......


Kermit.
Delving into the Kermit rabbit hole, I found Kermit Love, who was a puppeteer and worked on Sesame Street and The Muppets. However, Wikipedia says
Quote
Despite the coincidence of names, Kermit Love first met Jim Henson after the 1955 creation and naming of Kermit the Frog.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 23 August, 2023, 10:18:35 pm
That Victor Kiam, who liked the Remington shaver his wife bought for him so much that he bought the company, had the middle name of.......


Kermit.
Delving into the Kermit rabbit hole, I found Kermit Love, who was a puppeteer and worked on Sesame Street and The Muppets. However, Wikipedia says
Quote
Despite the coincidence of names, Kermit Love first met Jim Henson after the 1955 creation and naming of Kermit the Frog.

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=4398.0
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 August, 2023, 12:06:07 am
Half of USAnian street lights are in car parks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 27 August, 2023, 07:33:49 am
Chatting to a seal warden today... I learnt -
- That the marine animals called seals, carry natural anti-coagulant so if they bite a dog, the dog could bleed to death without attention by a vet.
- That Renault have a problem making wheels now, and new cars needing replacement wheels, face a wait of at least a few weeks.

Seems not just Renault, looking at replacing our VW ID4, we can have one with alloys now, 2.5k extra. Steel wheels, wait until January
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 28 August, 2023, 11:04:50 am
The 19th-century gentlemen's code of duelling forbade the use of rifling in duelling pistols, so not-quite-gentlemen would use illegal instruments to inscribe spiral scratches in the barrel in hope of making wad and ball spin.  Other cads and rotters would order their pistols with partial rifling that stopped short of the last inch or so of the muzzle.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 August, 2023, 10:56:54 am
That some early adherents of Rastafarianism, in the 1930s, believed not only Ethiopia but Israel and, more puzzlingly, Saudi Arabia, to be the Promised Land. Saudi Arabia was at this time still legally (by Saudi law) importing slaves from, among other places, Ethiopia. (They outlawed this in 1961 and banned slavery the following year.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 30 August, 2023, 08:41:06 pm
Chatting to a seal warden today... I learnt -
- That the marine animals called seals, carry natural anti-coagulant so if they bite a dog, the dog could bleed to death without attention by a vet.
- That Renault have a problem making wheels now, and new cars needing replacement wheels, face a wait of at least a few weeks.

Seems not just Renault, looking at replacing our VW ID4, we can have one with alloys now, 2.5k extra. Steel wheels, wait until January

Blimey!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 30 August, 2023, 09:16:02 pm
That LOGO style turtle graphics are a standard feature in Python: https://docs.python.org/3/library/turtle.html

Takes me back to the heady days of RM Nimbuses and Bloody Thatcher.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 01 September, 2023, 08:42:13 pm
I knew that the Dastardly French refer to an adjustable spanner as an English Key (in French thobut, obvs). My Thing I Learned Today was that Romanian for adjustable spanner is French Key (in Romanian thobut, obvs).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 01 September, 2023, 09:15:30 pm
My GerMan says an adjustable spanner is called an Engländer in German too.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 01 September, 2023, 09:25:54 pm
Depends if its an metric or imperial adjuster...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 04 September, 2023, 08:07:59 pm
Learned that the Tour passes by the campsite we are on, while we are staying on it. Nice one!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 05 September, 2023, 11:25:29 am
 That the word "balti" is Bengali for bucket; specifically one kept in a toilet for arse washing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 05 September, 2023, 11:38:00 am
According to wiki (I have no recent experience), Swan Vesta* matches are safety matches these days.  It's health and safty gorn mad.


*following an answer in the Guardian Saturday quiz.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 05 September, 2023, 11:58:06 am
According to wiki (I have no recent experience), Swan Vesta* matches are safety matches these days.  It's health and safty gorn mad.


*following an answer in the Guardian Saturday quiz.
That's criminal.
Whoever thought of that deserves a custodial sentence.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 September, 2023, 05:08:45 pm
My GerMan says an adjustable spanner is called an Engländer in German too.

A German colleague of mine once told me that Scots, Welsh, English and Norn Erse were all Engländer as far as Germany was concerned. He was a bit of a shithead though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 05 September, 2023, 05:20:42 pm
Certainly all the Germans I know use England for UK, GB whatever….

“How was your holiday in England?”

We went to Scotland.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: SteveC on 05 September, 2023, 06:26:40 pm
USAnians tend to do the same. I once confused1 a client of mine by explaining the difference between England, Great Britain, the United Kingdom and the British Isles.

1: he was easily confused so it became a little bit of a game
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 06 September, 2023, 09:17:42 am
According to wiki (I have no recent experience), Swan Vesta* matches are safety matches these days.  It's health and safty gorn mad.


*following an answer in the Guardian Saturday quiz.

Who are they trying to curry favour with?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 September, 2023, 09:48:35 am
They must have altered it, as it just says "matchboxes" now, nothing about "safety matches". So presumably they still aren't.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 06 September, 2023, 03:21:14 pm
That the name Tiffany dates from the 12th century (https://medium.com/swlh/the-tiffany-problem-when-history-makes-no-sense-703b86522627).  And Fiona, only from the 19th century.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 September, 2023, 09:05:35 am
That the name Tiffany dates from the 12th century (https://medium.com/swlh/the-tiffany-problem-when-history-makes-no-sense-703b86522627).  And Fiona, only from the 19th century.

Nah. Fiona in several variants goes as far back the 9th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 07 September, 2023, 10:19:23 am
Forced front Derailleur gearchanges can destroy the split link on a semi-recumbent tandem, when desperately attempting to grab a too late change down on Kinsteep Hill.

Fortunately, stopped quickly enough to not have to rethread the chain through the rear derailleur idlers.

Fortunately also, had found where I keep the general purpose rags (pannier bag pocket) before setting off on that journey.

Unfortunately, my system for supporting the bike with the back wheel above the ground, proved to be flawed on roads where no kerb is available. Got to rethink that.

Need to replace the split link in the spare parts bag.

Late edit 9/9/23 another spare split link put in the spares kit bag on the Pino. 10speed split link should be ok on a 9 speed chain.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 07 September, 2023, 05:44:09 pm
Just been on 4 day break, not cycling - "packing cube" bags are just brilliant for organising a suitcase contents.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 07 September, 2023, 07:05:29 pm
That the name Tiffany dates from the 12th century (https://medium.com/swlh/the-tiffany-problem-when-history-makes-no-sense-703b86522627).  And Fiona, only from the 19th century.

Nah. Fiona in several variants goes as far back the 9th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona
Sorry, my bad,
Quote from: Harry Josie Giles
"it kind of is, but isn't... a really ancient Gaelic name from the Highlands of Scotland..." (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0g9x1c9)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 07 September, 2023, 08:42:26 pm
Celibacy is a bicycle in motion.
I knew the two were related.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 09 September, 2023, 06:34:08 pm
Celibacy is a bicycle in motion.
I knew the two were related.

Very clever! Cryptic Crossword clue?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 10 September, 2023, 06:36:56 am
Just been on 4 day break, not cycling - "packing cube" bags are just brilliant for organising a suitcase contents.

I've been using those for >15years of, at one point, weekly travelling. You just needed to ask  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 10 September, 2023, 08:19:43 am
Just been on 4 day break, not cycling - "packing cube" bags are just brilliant for organising a suitcase contents.

I've been using those for >15years of, at one point, weekly travelling. You just needed to ask  ;D

. . .  we're going to have a "trial run" with the packing cubes for all our stuff in what are cabin-legal carry-on cases for a 5 week trip to New Zealand (lots of "thin" clothing and stuff from Rohan!)

As the song by Mr Richard and his backing group goes "Travelling Light" is the order of the day.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 September, 2023, 10:39:50 am
What NFC means. Walked to baker's in next village. No Fucking Croissants.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Auntie Helen on 10 September, 2023, 08:12:35 pm
That the Volkswagen Golf is not named after a sport but weather (Gulf stream). See also Scirocco.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 10 September, 2023, 08:39:07 pm
Celibacy is a bicycle in motion.
I knew the two were related.

Very clever! Cryptic Crossword clue?
Yes, Thursday Grauniad
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 10 September, 2023, 09:14:39 pm
 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 11 September, 2023, 09:00:06 am
Just been on 4 day break, not cycling - "packing cube" bags are just brilliant for organising a suitcase contents.

I love them so much I bought some Ortleib ones (https://www.ortlieb.com/uk_en/f3905) for cycling trips.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 11 September, 2023, 10:02:19 am
Just been on 4 day break, not cycling - "packing cube" bags are just brilliant for organising a suitcase contents.

I love them so much I bought some Ortleib ones (https://www.ortlieb.com/uk_en/f3905) for cycling trips.

Aaargh! - don't tempt me . . . until I saw your post I hadn't considered them for use in panniers.  I think Ortliebs will be just a step too far.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: bhoot on 11 September, 2023, 12:57:54 pm
I didn't know those existed. Have a couple of eagle creek packing things which we use quite a lot but not optimised for panniers. Now I feel I need a set of those..... I wonder if anyone has them in stock in London
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 11 September, 2023, 12:58:35 pm
A pendant writes: While they look like a good idea, they're not cubes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 September, 2023, 02:27:27 pm
That the Volkswagen Golf is not named after a sport but weather (Gulf stream). See also Scirocco.

And Bora (Golf with a boot).  Maserati did the same: Bora, Mistral, Khamsin etc.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 11 September, 2023, 04:49:12 pm
Dassault beat them all with the Mistral

Given their penchant for phunny names, watch out for the 2024 Renault Flatus.  (With apologies to.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 11 September, 2023, 06:47:59 pm
That the Volkswagen Golf is not named after a sport but weather (Gulf stream). See also Scirocco.

And Bora (Golf with a boot).  Maserati did the same: Bora, Mistral, Khamsin etc.

Wonders what a Bora was called in the US, given the Golf was a Rabbit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 September, 2023, 08:36:58 am
That the Volkswagen Golf is not named after a sport but weather (Gulf stream). See also Scirocco.

And Bora (Golf with a boot).  Maserati did the same: Bora, Mistral, Khamsin etc.

Wonders what a Bora was called in the US, given the Golf was a Rabbit.

ISTR that the 1970's Passat (also a wind) was called the Dasher.  Agressive names work[ed] better in the US, apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 September, 2023, 09:55:27 am
Although it was Britain that had the Hillman Avenger.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 12 September, 2023, 07:28:02 pm
Is red coloured/shaded carpet not a thing any more? I can see blue, and any shade you want on the grey to brown continuum, but not much in the way of warmer colours. (I want something that hides cat fur and biscuits 😁)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 12 September, 2023, 09:06:30 pm
Red dyes tend to bleach quickly in sunlight (because they only reflect the lowest energy light rays). It's why red cars parked outside always end up looking like shit. A semi-sunbleached carpet isn't popular.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 12 September, 2023, 09:56:40 pm
We had a reddish colour carpet in the 1st igloo, although we probably didnt have it very long before we moved to the last place. Just thought it was odd.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 12 September, 2023, 10:04:20 pm
That the Volkswagen Golf is not named after a sport but weather (Gulf stream). See also Scirocco.

And Bora (Golf with a boot).  Maserati did the same: Bora, Mistral, Khamsin etc.

Wonders what a Bora was called in the US, given the Golf was a Rabbit.

ISTR that the 1970's Passat (also a wind) was called the Dasher.  Agressive names work[ed] better in the US, apparently.

Although the 1990's Passat dream sold pretty well
https://youtu.be/VFGJb1rpoFI (https://youtu.be/VFGJb1rpoFI)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 13 September, 2023, 09:40:17 am
Is red coloured/shaded carpet not a thing any more? I can see blue, and any shade you want on the grey to brown continuum, but not much in the way of warmer colours. (I want something that hides cat fur and biscuits 😁)

We went for a buff brown, on the basis that it would hide both the Border Terrier and Tortie fur.

It does, too well. Run vacuum over carpet and look in horror at the landing strip exposed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 13 September, 2023, 10:49:33 am
Although it was Britain that had the Hillman Avenger.

It was called the 'Plymouth Cricket' in the states, I always thought bowls was more Plymouth's sport.  A friend bought one for use in Manchester; he believed no one would want to steal it.  One day he was mugged in a car park just after getting out of it. They left the car and took his wallet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 13 September, 2023, 10:57:48 am
That the Volkswagen Golf is not named after a sport but weather (Gulf stream). See also Scirocco.

And Bora (Golf with a boot).  Maserati did the same: Bora, Mistral, Khamsin etc.

Wonders what a Bora was called in the US, given the Golf was a Rabbit.

ISTR that the 1970's Passat (also a wind) was called the Dasher.  Agressive names work[ed] better in the US, apparently.

Although the 1990's Passat dream sold pretty well
https://youtu.be/VFGJb1rpoFI (https://youtu.be/VFGJb1rpoFI)

I can't think why.


---o0o---

When the first Passat had just been released they had one on show on the concourse of the Gare de Lyon.  I remember noticing that the boot overhung the rear bumper - which was a flimsy chromed effort that might have been pinched from a 1950's Ford Pop.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 13 September, 2023, 02:42:11 pm
Red dyes tend to bleach quickly in sunlight (because they only reflect the lowest energy light rays). It's why red cars parked outside always end up looking like shit. A semi-sunbleached carpet isn't popular.
When my parents moved into the house I grew up in in 1974 they brought a carpet from their previous house with them. It was red. When they moved again, over 40 years later, that carpet was still there, and was showing its age more by being worn than by being faded.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 13 September, 2023, 08:25:59 pm
That the Volkswagen Golf is not named after a sport but weather (Gulf stream). See also Scirocco.

And Bora (Golf with a boot).  Maserati did the same: Bora, Mistral, Khamsin etc.

Wonders what a Bora was called in the US, given the Golf was a Rabbit.

ISTR that the 1970's Passat (also a wind) was called the Dasher.  Agressive names work[ed] better in the US, apparently.

Although the 1990's Passat dream sold pretty well
https://youtu.be/VFGJb1rpoFI (https://youtu.be/VFGJb1rpoFI)

I can't think why.


---o0o---

When the first Passat had just been released they had one on show on the concourse of the Gare de Lyon.  I remember noticing that the boot overhung the rear bumper - which was a flimsy chromed effort that might have been pinched from a 1950's Ford Pop.

IIRC (and I quite possibly don't) the inspiration was that the Passat was USA's second most popular "import" model at the time. 25 or so years on, VW seem to have binned it for the US market
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 15 September, 2023, 03:32:33 pm
The word brumation, being "a state or condition of sluggishness, inactivity, or torpor" that reptiles enter during periods of low temperature.

Or bankruptcy?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 16 September, 2023, 07:21:07 pm
... That the Egyptians brew something called Sakara Black. Don't ever let yourself get confused between Sakara Gold and Sakara Black.

This stuff is fire in a tin.

15%

One tin is enough.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 16 September, 2023, 10:58:40 pm
Sorry, but this is a 'What I have failed to learn today' post.

Today is Owain Glyndŵr day.  Fine. Lots of flags and bunting on the shops and pubs, bands in the park etc.
However, because local tradition has it that his mother1 was from here, ffair Elen is our variant.
But, maybe due to poor Google fu, I can find no evidence that she was from by 'ere (as we say um.. by 'ere)
Me in the pub. "How do you know?"
Locals. "Everybody knows."
Me. "How do they know?"
Locals. "Everybody knows"

Google doesn't help.  Did she work weekends in the Spar?

Yet again, I have failed to learn.

1 Elen ferch Tomas ap Llywelyn
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 September, 2023, 02:57:46 pm
New vocab. I am now au fait with "ofay".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 21 September, 2023, 10:40:46 am
Onion juice was used to treat gunshot wounds in the American Civil War. Natural antibiotic, but not that effective.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 21 September, 2023, 08:58:29 pm
Trading in onion futures isn’t legal in the USA.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 22 September, 2023, 09:12:24 am
Ian knows his onions!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 22 September, 2023, 11:06:12 am
Quote
The Onion Futures Act is a United States law banning the trading of futures contracts on onions as well as "motion picture box office receipts".

- that Google thing.

You might be OK with shallots and garlic though.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 September, 2023, 05:20:47 pm
Reads more like the Onion "Futures Act" than "the Onion Futures Act". Nevertheless, I'm sure it is in fact true.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 22 September, 2023, 08:41:33 pm
The act was sponsored by Gerald Ford, the not-so-memorable 38th president of the USA.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 22 September, 2023, 10:33:26 pm
Furryboottoon, WA - HT Mr Larrington otp.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: aidan.f on 26 September, 2023, 09:01:51 pm
'wwoofing' - 'Working on organic farms ' with a site - https://wwoof.org.uk/en/
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 26 September, 2023, 09:23:19 pm
Lots of facts about sea otters, for it is Sea Otter Awareness Week.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 September, 2023, 10:45:22 pm
That Lynyrd Skynyrd were actually from Florida. I guess they were just sufficiently with it to realize that "Sweet home Florida-da" wouldn't make a good song!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 29 September, 2023, 05:28:10 pm
That Lynyrd Skynyrd were actually from Florida. I guess they were just sufficiently with it to realize that "Sweet home Florida-da" wouldn't make a good song!

That song was in riposte to some Neil Young songs referencing Alabama and the South.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 September, 2023, 05:42:04 pm
Although they were apparently good buddies off stage.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 29 September, 2023, 06:22:51 pm
That Lynyrd Skynyrd were actually from Florida. I guess they were just sufficiently with it to realize that "Sweet home Florida-da" wouldn't make a good song!

That song was in riposte to some Neil Young songs referencing Alabama and the South.

In particular “Southern Man” I believe.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 30 September, 2023, 01:48:30 pm
That Donald Trump actually did something good. In 2019 he passed legislation that guaranteed Federal employees furloughed without pay during government shutdowns (occasioned by the Federal budget disagreements, such as the one about to happen) would get their back pay once normal service was resumed. OK they usually had, eventually, in the past, but it was never guaranteed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 30 September, 2023, 09:21:23 pm
That Donald Trump actually did something good. In 2019 he passed legislation that guaranteed Federal employees furloughed without pay during government shutdowns (occasioned by the Federal budget disagreements, such as the one about to happen) would get their back pay once normal service was resumed. OK they usually had, eventually, in the past, but it was never guaranteed.

The rules are mad and draconian, you can’t even turn a federal government supplied computer on even if it’s in your house.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Lightning Phil on 30 September, 2023, 09:26:42 pm
That the OS Maps app has maps for the USA and New Zealand included
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 02 October, 2023, 10:48:00 pm
That Abercrombie & Fitch is a thing, and furthermore it's not a Scottish law firm.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 02 October, 2023, 11:19:37 pm
Sounds like rhyming slang for some unpleasant ailment.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 October, 2023, 09:27:54 am
Sounds like rhyming slang for some unpleasant ailment.
;D

And as for Jack & Wills, you really don't want to get that.

(It's an offshoot of Abercrombie & Fitch, kind of A&F for students from what I see.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: grams on 03 October, 2023, 11:06:13 am
That Abercrombie & Fitch is a thing, and furthermore it's not a Scottish law firm.

You must have somehow dodged this earworm:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=70&v=NHuGG_FsC20&feature=youtu.be
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 03 October, 2023, 11:43:55 am
That Abercrombie & Fitch is a thing, and furthermore it's not a Scottish law firm.

You must have somehow dodged this earworm:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=70&v=NHuGG_FsC20&feature=youtu.be

Barkata:  "What are you sodcasting?  It sounds like the Student Finance England hold music..."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 October, 2023, 03:14:29 pm
And I've just learned why Kim has learned that Abercrombie & Fitch is A Thing. But ICBA to read it.

In fact I learned it while reading this, (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66993647) which is far more interesting and I'd have thought more Kim-able too.

Ed: I've just realized there are currently two A&F stories: a silly one, that I'd seen while reading the above, and a nasty one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 October, 2023, 05:42:51 pm
That Americans, or at least Californians, call cairns "ducks". Apparently if you put a little rock on top of a big rock, making a cairn, it looks like a duck. I guess ducks are funny shapes over there.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 09 October, 2023, 03:31:06 pm
That the magnetic pole at the south polar region is actually a north magnetic pole (and visa versa).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 October, 2023, 03:53:32 pm
That Americans, or at least Californians, call cairns "ducks". Apparently if you put a little rock on top of a big rock, making a cairn, it looks like a duck. I guess ducks are funny shapes over there.

My observation of USAnian ducks (and Horrible Gooses) suggest that many of them differ little from BRITISH ones.  Especially the Horrible Gooses:

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53158243320_e8142d4098_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2oZpTJy)
Horrible Gooses shouting abuse at the gulls next door (https://flic.kr/p/2oZpTJy) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 09 October, 2023, 04:11:42 pm
That the magnetic pole at the south polar region is actually a north magnetic pole (and visa versa).

It is, though I think north and south are arbitrary definitions, the nice pictures of magnetic fields that show the lines radiating out of the north and into the south aren't entirely accurate as the force doesn't move, that really relates to the motion of charged particles relative to the field. But that can switch around with the particle charges, so the poles are in a sense arbitrary (they're consistent with special relativity), but there must always be a dipole, north cannot exist without a south and vice versa. Well, there are theoretical monopoles, but they imply significant symmetry violation.

Generally, it's a lot easier on the brain if you just accept that magnetism is just some kind of magic, like electrickery.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 October, 2023, 04:14:34 pm
That Americans, or at least Californians, call cairns "ducks". Apparently if you put a little rock on top of a big rock, making a cairn, it looks like a duck. I guess ducks are funny shapes over there.

My observation of USAnian ducks (and Horrible Gooses) suggest that many of them differ little from BRITISH ones.  Especially the Horrible Gooses:

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53158243320_e8142d4098_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2oZpTJy)
Horrible Gooses shouting abuse at the gulls next door (https://flic.kr/p/2oZpTJy) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr

De goosetibus non disputandum est.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 09 October, 2023, 05:49:12 pm
Generally, it's a lot easier on the brain if you just accept that magnetism is just some kind of magic, like electrickery.

It's magic, but at right angles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 09 October, 2023, 08:40:31 pm
That Americans, or at least Californians, call cairns "ducks". Apparently if you put a little rock on top of a big rock, making a cairn, it looks like a duck. I guess ducks are funny shapes over there.

My observation of USAnian ducks (and Horrible Gooses) suggest that many of them differ little from BRITISH ones.  Especially the Horrible Gooses:

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53158243320_e8142d4098_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2oZpTJy)
Horrible Gooses shouting abuse at the gulls next door (https://flic.kr/p/2oZpTJy) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr

De goosetibus non disputandum est.
Goose trifle! Nom!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 October, 2023, 10:49:12 pm
That Americans, or at least Californians, call cairns "ducks". Apparently if you put a little rock on top of a big rock, making a cairn, it looks like a duck. I guess ducks are funny shapes over there.

My observation of USAnian ducks (and Horrible Gooses) suggest that many of them differ little from BRITISH ones.  Especially the Horrible Gooses:

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53158243320_e8142d4098_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2oZpTJy)
Horrible Gooses shouting abuse at the gulls next door (https://flic.kr/p/2oZpTJy) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr

De goosetibus non disputandum est.
Goose trifle! Nom!
Queensland special!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 10 October, 2023, 10:25:32 am
Generally, it's a lot easier on the brain if you just accept that magnetism is just some kind of magic, like electrickery.

It's magic, but at right angles.

 ;D

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: geraldc on 11 October, 2023, 11:00:30 pm
Canadian thanksgiving is older than American thanksgiving, and it all derived from harvest festival. Since I was a kid, harvest festival was always the festival of donating tins to the food bank to the tune of all things bright and beautiful, now they sing about fluffy cauliflowers while donating bags of dried pasta and cartons of passata.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 12 October, 2023, 12:10:11 am
I'm not sure where the tins we collected for harvest festival went.  Something about 'old people in the village'. (I suppose this makes me old enough to remember when old people weren't the ones with all the money).  Songs about Jesus and vegetables were perennial, as befits a nominally-CofE primary school.

I do remember thinking that the lack of agricultural content seemed amiss.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: graculus on 12 October, 2023, 10:11:29 am
I remember one harvest festival when my younger son was still in junior school (so about 1996 ish) and he was the only one of two pupils who had brought in (home grown) produce; tomatoes and a pumpkin.  The visiting vicar specifically commented on the fact.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 13 October, 2023, 01:30:37 pm
I never knew the Isley Brothers were black :facepalm:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67098878
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Karla on 16 October, 2023, 07:05:19 pm
there must always be a dipole, north cannot exist without a south and vice versa. Well, there are theoretical monopoles, but they imply significant symmetry violation.

Aha! You mean Div B = 0.  Thanks Dr Gauss!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 17 October, 2023, 03:24:20 pm
That South-westerly winds are less damaging than winds that are not South-westerly winds. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 17 October, 2023, 05:28:15 pm
That South-westerly winds are less damaging than winds that are not South-westerly winds.

Probably because sw is the prevailing wind and trees have grown up dealing with that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 17 October, 2023, 05:44:44 pm
That South-westerly winds are less damaging than winds that are not South-westerly winds.

Probably because sw is the prevailing wind and trees have grown up dealing with that.

Yep - that's why.   Gold star for Basil
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 17 October, 2023, 08:32:56 pm
Just testing to see who read the report on Storm Babet ;)

Quote
Impacts from the these gusts could be exacerbated by the fact the wind direction will be south-easterly. This is a less common wind direction for storms hitting the UK.

The prevailing wind direction is a south-westerly so nature and infrastructure is built with this in mind. As a result, trees and some structures are more vulnerable in strong south-easterly winds.

This is part of the reason why Storm Arwen in 2021 felled so many trees and brought a lot of disruption.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 17 October, 2023, 09:10:18 pm
It isn’t just trees. Structures are designed for expected wind loads and the design wind speed varies depending on direction (amongst lots of other things).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 17 October, 2023, 10:01:46 pm
Not me, but a colleague today thanked me for 'that knowledge nugget', which amused me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 17 October, 2023, 10:46:09 pm
Not me, but a colleague today thanked me for 'that knowledge nugget', which amused me.

Do you work at Globelink News?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 October, 2023, 10:27:29 am
That sodium cromoglycate, the anti-spasmodic used in asthma inhalers, was discovered by Roger Walker of Swallows and Amazons.
https://youtu.be/P248TY3UUWE?si=RTFIN-asCtw8jrwX
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 18 October, 2023, 11:58:43 am
Not me, but a colleague today thanked me for 'that knowledge nugget', which amused me.

Do you work at Globelink News?

Did they use that in DTDD?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 October, 2023, 12:56:26 pm
Not me, but a colleague today thanked me for 'that knowledge nugget', which amused me.

Do you work at Globelink News?

Did they use that in DTDD?

It sounds like the sort of thing Gus would have said.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 19 October, 2023, 09:21:00 am
That victorian cos-player and inverterate S-T J Rees-Mogg is younger than Kylie
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 October, 2023, 10:58:28 am
That victorian cos-player and inverterate S-T J Rees-Mogg is younger than Kylie
But that's not counting his un-dead years sleeping in the coffin.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 October, 2023, 11:15:56 am
Today I are mostly learning that Charlie Harper and Keith Richards are the same age :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 19 October, 2023, 11:37:16 am
It isn’t just trees. Structures are designed for expected wind loads and the design wind speed varies depending on direction (amongst lots of other things).
Indeed, BS 6399-2 Cl 2.2.2.3 is my one of my absolute faves!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: cygnet on 19 October, 2023, 04:56:30 pm
Not NA to BS EN 1991-1-4 NA.2.6?  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 19 October, 2023, 07:00:47 pm
BS 6008:1980 is the one, I think.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 20 October, 2023, 10:12:54 am
Not NA to BS EN 1991-1-4 NA.2.6?  ;D
No, always avoid designing in Eurocode if I can help it!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 20 October, 2023, 10:15:29 am
BS 6008:1980 is the one, I think.
I'll file that under 'things I have learnt today' - thanks!

Must try to shoehorn it into a structural report.  "An engineer from this office made a visit to the site on 20 October 2023, and partook of a beverage in full compliance with BS 6008:1980 in accordance with the prevailing weather conditions, which were wet and cold..."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 20 October, 2023, 11:21:22 am
We had a customer use that one on us, together with one for specifications of a castor for a flight case (IIRC). The spec that they wanted us to quote on was for developing what was effectively a specialised desktop network switch, but it had to meet a whole host of rather dull standards. They slipped those two into the middle of the list to make sure we'd actually read and understood what they wanted. We spotted it, apparently we were the only ones of the bidders who did and declared a non-conformance with those two specs in our response.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 20 October, 2023, 11:41:22 am
BS 6008:1980 is the one, I think.
I'll file that under 'things I have learnt today' - thanks!

Must try to shoehorn it into a structural report.  "An engineer from this office made a visit to the site on 20 October 2023, and partook of a beverage in full compliance with BS 6008:1980 in accordance with the prevailing weather conditions, which were wet and cold..."

The beverage, thankfully, was warm and wet.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: readingjohn on 20 October, 2023, 12:10:56 pm
BS 6008:1980 is the one, I think.
I'll file that under 'things I have learnt today' - thanks!

Must try to shoehorn it into a structural report.  "An engineer from this office made a visit to the site on 20 October 2023, and partook of a beverage in full compliance with BS 6008:1980 in accordance with the prevailing weather conditions, which were wet and cold..."
Might not be such a good idea - seems the standard was withdrawn last month (https://knowledge.bsigroup.com/products/method-for-preparation-of-a-liquor-of-tea-for-use-in-sensory-tests?version=standard&tab=preview).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 20 October, 2023, 12:16:25 pm
Is anybody going to tell the USAnians that there is an international standard?
https://www.iso.org/standard/73224.html
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 20 October, 2023, 12:20:50 pm
That victorian cos-player and inverterate S-T J Rees-Mogg is younger than Kylie
So am I, and according to my colleagues I pre-date Hadrian and his wall building shenanigans.

(She's had more work done than me)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 20 October, 2023, 12:42:45 pm

That victorian cos-player and inverterate S-T J Rees-Mogg is younger than Kylie

I'm not sure whether that is a typo for 'inveterate', or 'invertebrate'.  See also: TOBAGO thread.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 22 October, 2023, 05:26:48 pm
That clouds formed by contrails are cumulo-aviaticus.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 22 October, 2023, 10:14:20 pm
Argentina which remains the world's single biggest debtor to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), owing $46bn (£38bn) has an  economy minister.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 22 October, 2023, 11:09:09 pm
A Russian anti-war protester who became a symbol of resistance to the Kremlin has died in a mysterious fall.
Local media said that Olga Nazarenko had now died in hospital after a “fall from a height” two weeks ago that was described as an accident.

No surprises there then.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 22 October, 2023, 11:12:10 pm
But on a lighter note, there is a 'user' on Instagram called    ...   owlsoftheday  ... 

I urge you to check it out.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 October, 2023, 12:53:05 pm
That the phrase "Bob's your uncle" refer to a real uncle Bob and, unsurprisingly, nepotism. Tory nepotism, in fact.
Quote
The British phrase 'Bob's your uncle' is thought to have derived from Robert Cecil's appointment of his nephew, Arthur Balfour, as Chief Secretary for Ireland.[76]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gascoyne-Cecil,_3rd_Marquess_of_Salisbury
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 24 October, 2023, 05:44:23 pm
Old smart phones make a good alternative to a pocket camera - ideal to take on bike rides - saves getting your good phone out to take photos while riding (thus avoiding the risk of dropping your lifeline on the tarmac).

With the apps all removed and given a factory reset, they can work well and don't present a data security problem if lost, but they are slimmer than pocket cameras.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 October, 2023, 06:32:35 pm
Today I are mostly learning that TV's Tomasz Schafernaker “loves llamas”.  The dirty sod.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 27 October, 2023, 01:23:24 pm
Today I are mostly learning that TV's Tomasz Schafernaker “loves llamas”.  The dirty sod.

Ah... Tomasz

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 27 October, 2023, 10:25:01 pm
That wave-style bicycle parking stands are a thing, and the 5-bike version is not to be confused with an M-type stand intended for two bicycles.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 27 October, 2023, 11:22:34 pm
That the surface of the "computer table" is made of wood and not, as thought, piles of misc bank statements, receipts, dust and shit.

<feeling smug, recycling bin full>
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 27 October, 2023, 11:27:04 pm
Chuckle......rings a bell here.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 04 November, 2023, 07:29:01 am

We have the world’s oldest suspension bridge..
 (https://www.itv.com/news/border/2023-11-03/exploring-the-restoration-of-the-worlds-oldest-suspension-bridge)

Apparently Sam Brown was sitting in a cave watching a spider when he came up with the idea..
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: sam on 04 November, 2023, 08:08:05 am
Today I are mostly learning that TV's Tomasz Schafernaker “loves llamas”.  The dirty sod.

Ah... Tomasz

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 04 November, 2023, 03:20:54 pm
That there is a cat called Archie that frequents the A&E department of Stoke Mandeville hospital.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1046399815766046/?locale=en_GB
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 November, 2023, 03:34:07 pm
All the best hospitals have a cat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Peter on 04 November, 2023, 03:46:44 pm
As do the worst; just a less efficient one.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 04 November, 2023, 04:31:29 pm
The longest manned flight was two blokes flying round and round the desert starting from Las Vegas in 1958. 64 days, 22 hours, and 19 minutes in a little Cessna, with food, water and fuel being passed up from a truck on the ground that they speed matched.

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2008/march/pilot/endurance-test-circa-1958
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 November, 2023, 05:00:39 pm
As do the worst; just a less efficient one.

 ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 04 November, 2023, 06:04:20 pm
That there is a cat called Archie that frequents the A&E department of Stoke Mandeville hospital.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1046399815766046/?locale=en_GB

Apparently someone had a stroke when they saw him, at least they were in hospital.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 05 November, 2023, 09:59:37 am
That during storm Ciaran, in souther Britain, the boiling point of water was nearly 2C lower that the norm, due to extreme low pressure.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: sam on 05 November, 2023, 12:38:15 pm
That I can be right about something I haven't the technical expertise to pronounce upon.

Gutters were recently redone on our long term rental. Builder removed the top half of the soil pipe, which had previously followed a fair way up the slope of the roof, because he said it was in the way. Replaced it with a vertical pipe, pvc atop the old cast iron. He said it was the legal height, but I had a bad feeling about this, thinking whoever had done it the way it was had probably done it for a good reason.

I didn't even know what a soil pipe was until last week.

The day after the builders left we got a bad smell in the house. Fortunately it dissipated, but I just knew it was the new pipe. When you live in a place for 20 years and a problem crops up right after work is done, it's not a big leap of logic, is it.

Got the smell again a few days ago. We figured the fact that both days were windy might have something to do with it; a very local weather system that the previous pipe been configured to thwart.

Landlord sent a drainage expert (happy to stop by on a Sunday!) who has just confirmed my suspicions.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 05 November, 2023, 09:00:59 pm
Cuckfield,a village in West Sussex, is an independent state.
Quote
The state was established by a Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1966,  in response to the annexation of the land used for the annual Donkey Grand National at Whiteman’s Green (which had been used to raise funds for the local community).

Quote
MAYOR’S ELECTION
Held on the third Friday in October, the Mayor’s Election prides itself on being completely and openly corrupt – whichever candidate buys the most votes is declared the winner and elected as the next Mayor of The Independent State of Cuckfield.
Votes cost 1 penny each
https://cuckfieldstate.org/ (https://cuckfieldstate.org/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 06 November, 2023, 01:24:26 pm
Blackbirds sometimes have black beaks.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 08 November, 2023, 12:02:51 pm
That there's a village in Durham called Pity Me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 November, 2023, 12:12:39 pm
My grate frend gNick has lived there for years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 08 November, 2023, 01:34:54 pm
That there's a village in Durham called Pity Me.
It's not really a village- it's an extension of suburban Durham. I'm in the middle of trying to buy a house there.

Quaking Houses (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Quaking+Houses,+Stanley+DH9+7ES/@54.853802,-1.7142167,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x487e7f4eef2a073f:0x546bacef2314e50c!8m2!3d54.853803!4d-1.703917!16zL20vMDQ3eDFs?entry=ttu), however...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 November, 2023, 02:11:27 pm
Quaking Houses (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Quaking+Houses,+Stanley+DH9+7ES/@54.853802,-1.7142167,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x487e7f4eef2a073f:0x546bacef2314e50c!8m2!3d54.853803!4d-1.703917!16zL20vMDQ3eDFs?entry=ttu), however...
Wikipedia suggests it may have been originally settled by Quakers. I'd have thought in that area its name was more likely due to mining subsidence. Whatever the origin, it's a great name.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JonBuoy on 08 November, 2023, 06:24:40 pm
Quaking Houses (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Quaking+Houses,+Stanley+DH9+7ES/@54.853802,-1.7142167,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x487e7f4eef2a073f:0x546bacef2314e50c!8m2!3d54.853803!4d-1.703917!16zL20vMDQ3eDFs?entry=ttu), however...
Wikipedia suggests it may have been originally settled by Quakers. I'd have thought in that area its name was more likely due to mining subsidence. Whatever the origin, it's a great name.

I see that there is somewhere called No Place (https://maps.app.goo.gl/cLC6ZVwU51tEiepU8) just the other side of Stanley from Quaking Houses.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 November, 2023, 07:33:25 pm
There's No Place like home.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Flite on 08 November, 2023, 08:17:52 pm
Legend has it that No Place was a tax evasion ploy
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 09 November, 2023, 09:50:07 am
Office has it that No Place has nice views - if you're lucky and haven't had your windows smashed and replaced with wood.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 November, 2023, 08:37:31 am
The graves of French soldiers who died on 11th Nov 1918 are dated 10th Nov 1918 "to spare the families extra grief".  The last to die, Augustin Trébuchon, was killed at 10:55 on 11/11/1918, 16 minutes before the cease-fire took effect.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 17 November, 2023, 10:23:51 am
Gal Gadot has a brother called Guy.

Yes, the parents called their kids Guy and Gal  :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 17 November, 2023, 03:27:36 pm
^^
Very disappointed to find that's not actually true.  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 17 November, 2023, 04:56:45 pm
Maybe this'll cheer you up: In 1967 a Bavarian gent built a catapult to shoot potato dumplings at Starfighters...

https://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A87904407
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mark on 17 November, 2023, 06:26:06 pm
Maybe this'll cheer you up: In 1967 a Bavarian gent built a catapult to shoot potato dumplings at Starfighters...

https://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A87904407
I lived in Munich from late 1967 until 1972. We were on the opposite side of town from this gentleman, but we had a pretty good stream of passenger jets flying overhead on their approach to Munich-Riem airport (the old airport, much closer to town than the current airport. We also had a steady stream of helicopters landing at the nearby hospital. I can't say I blame the man for doing this.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 November, 2023, 09:19:35 pm
In the part of Germany that was the location of Fort Larrington in 1968-70 supersonic overflights were pretty common, though not generally at low altitude.  Though you needed to be ready to run if the aircraft in question was a Luftwaffe F104-G :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ElyDave on 17 November, 2023, 11:15:41 pm
In the part of Germany that was the location of Fort Larrington in 1968-70 supersonic overflights were pretty common, though not generally at low altitude.  Though you needed to be ready to run if the aircraft in question was a Luftwaffe F104-G :demon:

Because they were generally prone to uncontrolled flight leading to unintended contact with random parts of Germany?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 17 November, 2023, 11:38:20 pm
In the part of Germany that was the location of Fort Larrington in 1968-70 supersonic overflights were pretty common, though not generally at low altitude.  Though you needed to be ready to run if the aircraft in question was a Luftwaffe F104-G :demon:

Because they were generally prone to uncontrolled flight leading to unintended contact with random parts of Germany?

Many F-104G losses were attributed to controlled flight into terrain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_flight_into_terrain) (CFIT) - IOW, they were under control, but the pilot didn't realise they were about to hit the scenery until it was too late to do anything about it. This was a product of the type being employed in the low-altitude fighter-bomber role (for which it hadn't been originally designed), in an environment with crummy weather, flown by pilots with insufficient fast jet experience (the USAF recommended 1,500 hours logged before flying a F-104, West German pilots typically had around 400 hours).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter#West_German_service
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 November, 2023, 12:00:38 am
Two hundred and fifty is all we can cope with!

We! Need! Seven! Hundred! At! Least!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 18 November, 2023, 12:02:34 am
Franz Josef Strauss walt. ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 November, 2023, 01:57:23 pm
C.f. Lockheed slush fund (alleged, of course).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 19 November, 2023, 09:53:08 pm
Turbojet trains and Aérotrain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 November, 2023, 03:04:31 pm
That ticks and other invertebrate parasites can actually teleport.
Quote
“This is quite unique given that ticks cannot jump to reach their hosts,” says Martin Giurfa, a neuroscientist at University of Toulouse in France who studies learning and memory in insects and who was not involved in the study. “The fact that they are teletransported by the electrostatic fields produced by their hosts … is remarkable.” It’s possible, he adds, that other parasites that latch on to skin might be similarly attracted to their hosts. Previous research has demonstrated how parasitic nematodes can use static electricity to catapult themselves on to fruit flies (SN: 3/16/23).
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/static-electricity-pull-ticks-hosts
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 20 November, 2023, 06:29:16 pm
I'd say that was more 'levitate' than 'teleport'.  Which is still pretty cool.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 21 November, 2023, 05:13:05 pm
Yesterday, actually, but it is so important that I have to share it.

The Latin name for the Lesser Earwig is labia minor.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 November, 2023, 07:32:44 pm
Courtesy of a post by M le Maire, today I am mostly learning of the existence of the Upgoer 5 text editor (https://splasho.com/upgoer5/)

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 22 November, 2023, 07:43:45 pm
’Napoleon’ is a great Dad-movie with exploding horses.
 (https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/napoleon-movie-review-18499144.php)

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 22 November, 2023, 07:50:52 pm
’Napoleon’ is a great Dad-movie with exploding horses.
 (https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/napoleon-movie-review-18499144.php)

Do they fall into a ravine, explode and then a single flaming horseshoe rolls out of the fireball inna Music With Rocks In style?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 22 November, 2023, 08:08:17 pm
’Napoleon’ is a great Dad-movie with exploding horses.
 (https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/napoleon-movie-review-18499144.php)

Do they fall into a ravine, explode and then a single flaming horseshoe rolls out of the fireball inna Music With Rocks In style?

Oh, I so hope it’s as good as that..
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wombat on 23 November, 2023, 12:16:04 pm
I hope you know nothing about the Napoleonic era, Asterix?  As a person who is a member of the Napoleonic Association, I have it on good authority that it is utter garbage, and Ridley Scott should be ashamed of himself.  If you know nothing about the subject, it'll be a good lively action thing, though. Always the way, with any film or TV programme about "your subject".
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 23 November, 2023, 01:17:21 pm
The media reports suggest that it's a movie with little more than a tenuous connection to historical fact ("inspired by", no doubt), and that when challenged on this, Mr Scott's response might be lightly paraphrased as "So? Have you mistaken me for somebody who gives a fuck?"

Still had decent reviews though, albeit not from historians or the French (WOCAB).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 23 November, 2023, 05:49:01 pm
I am looking forward to Ridley’s ‘Nelson’. Huge scope there for fun and games.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 23 November, 2023, 08:07:24 pm
There's a journalist in NL called Wierd Duk. Made me chortle when I saw his name come up on C4News tonight.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 23 November, 2023, 08:25:17 pm
There is a charity called The Lady Garden Foundation    https://www.ladygardenfoundation.com/     There was a piece in the local rag about a fundraiser event.

OK the name has relevance to the cause(s) . . .
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 24 November, 2023, 02:25:44 pm
I think there's a peer in the House of Lords called Lady Garden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Garden,_Baroness_Garden_of_Frognal). This came up in a workshop about words for genitals once and some of us may have had giggling fits.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ScumOfTheRoad on 24 November, 2023, 02:40:49 pm
Back to F104 - the F104 and the U2 share a central section - ie the fuselage and wing roots.
Source - Skunkworks by Ben Rich.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 24 November, 2023, 06:32:43 pm
That waste management companies have to clear fly-tipping inside 48 hours after it is reported.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 November, 2023, 06:42:23 pm
Today I are mostly learning that Wild West outlaw Big Nose George Parrott, following his lynching by an angry mob of townspeople, had part of his skull turned into an ashtray and some of his skin tanned and made into a pair of shoes worn by the first Governor of Wyoming.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 24 November, 2023, 06:44:40 pm
Today I are mostly learning that Wild West outlaw Big Nose George Parrott, following his lynching by an angry mob of townspeople, had part of his skull turned into an ashtray and some of his skin tanned and made into a pair of shoes worn by the first Governor of Wyoming.
Handy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ian H on 24 November, 2023, 09:40:59 pm
Over the last few days I have learnt that old buggers don't bounce as well as they did when they they were younger.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 25 November, 2023, 05:37:13 pm
Replacement Stylus for my 40+ year old Ortofon VMS3 MkII cartridge are still available.

I reckon my turntable deserves one!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: sam on 26 November, 2023, 11:08:03 am
That I literally cannot stop drying dishes once I start. A precariously balanced cup may trigger me; I'll reckon I can just take care of that one, and let the rest air dry... But no.

God knows why this activity is so moreish – perhaps it's because I used to be a professional dishwasher at a restaurant half a lifetime ago. (Until they promoted me to baker. Frankly I was better at dishes.)

(https://i.imgur.com/SHU9sRQ.jpg)
Stock photo of dishes. Our drainer has never been this tidy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 27 November, 2023, 09:08:10 pm
That the founders of the USAAF and the RCAF were first cousins whose ancestral home was Aberdeenshire.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: alfapete on 28 November, 2023, 11:35:19 am
That the tower you see from the M5 north of Bristol is not the Somerset Monument, it's the Tynedale Monument. Been telling the kids the wrong information with dad-like regularity for years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 December, 2023, 06:30:32 pm
Today I are mostly learning that, according to one scholar* in Mr Zuckerberg's Walled Garden:

Quote
the irish created Islam  in the first place to get the holy lands meaning irish government and nationalists parties are to blame for bringing them here. […] Yip thats right the pope /vatican and catholics created Islam and all the terrorist parties that are the cancer of the world !so save your criticism for your own leaders the true rulers of islam ?!

Whatever she’s on, I want some.

* Lie
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 December, 2023, 08:22:20 pm
Today I have learned about "Ghana Must Go" bags. I had no idea that was their name. Or even, one of their many names. They used to be a common sight at Victoria coach station on the Eurolines and other services from and to Eastern Europe, particularly the eastern and southern countries, but I'm not aware of them having been given any particular name. The origins of the name seem a little unpleasant.
(https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/4DC6/production/_131901991_gettyimages-2395141.jpg.webp)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-67581683
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 December, 2023, 08:35:58 pm
I thought they were laundry bags, me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 December, 2023, 08:43:08 pm
Washingt(ton) Must Go!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 01 December, 2023, 09:14:39 pm
Quote from: Mr Larrington
Today I are mostly learning that, according to one scholar* in Mr Zuckerberg's Walled Garden:

Quote
the irish created Islam  in the first place to get the holy lands meaning irish government and nationalists parties are to blame for bringing them here. […] Yip thats right the pope /vatican and catholics created Islam and all the terrorist parties that are the cancer of the world !so save your criticism for your own leaders the true rulers of islam ?!

Whatever she’s on, I want some.

* Lie
Gobsmacked.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 04 December, 2023, 12:16:32 pm
[Yesterday]

Barilla (Pasta) has a Spotify where each playlist lasts the cooking time of the pasta (https://open.spotify.com/user/w2p1oq867ns7jele6g3lw66fk)

Presumably everyone else knew this in January 2021 when they set them up (https://www.marketingdive.com/news/barilla-cooks-up-pasta-timer-playlists-on-spotify/593694/).

As Barilla are vocally homophobic I will use these to time the cooking of other pasta. That'll show them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 December, 2023, 01:10:46 pm
I did not know either of those things. Google suggests Barilla have reformed: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/5/7/18535740/barilla-homophobia-italy-chick-fil-a-comparison but as it's still the same people in charge, you have to wonder.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 December, 2023, 01:30:53 pm
Never mind the homophobic CEO, I'm boycotting them for that atrocious cookies policy.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 04 December, 2023, 03:13:45 pm
Never mind the homophobic CEO, I'm boycotting them for that atrocious cookies policy.
That wasn't them, that was some god-awful advertisers being self congratulatory 'magazine'. I've swapped the link to a different one, which is differently bad.
I did not know either of those things. Google suggests Barilla have reformed: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/5/7/18535740/barilla-homophobia-italy-chick-fil-a-comparison but as it's still the same people in charge, you have to wonder.
I note neither company suffered financially from their 19301830s CEOs remarks. Which just agrees with other research I've seen about companies' ethical policies and consumer behaviours. We say we care but we still buy the same crap.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 December, 2023, 04:35:02 pm
My pasta is either Tesco value or equivalent (probably made by Barilla), or wholewheat, organic, handwoven by fairtrade hobbits (who probably work for Barilla).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 04 December, 2023, 05:11:12 pm
Never mind the homophobic CEO, I'm boycotting them for that atrocious cookies policy.
That wasn't them, that was some god-awful advertisers being self congratulatory 'magazine'. I've swapped the link to a different one, which is differently bad.

Which I really ought to have noticed, but there was a massive un-refusable cookies popup demanding my attention...   :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 05 December, 2023, 03:57:18 pm
What Keith Flett looks like.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 December, 2023, 09:20:51 pm
Today, in fact this evening, I have learned about Watkin's Folly. A tower that was to have been built in Wembley to outdo the Eiffel Tower. It never got beyond the first stage. One of the early designs, unfortunately not chosen, had a railway ascending a spiral to the top of the tower.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-50628714
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 09 December, 2023, 06:09:34 pm
While looking for bags to put herbs in (you know, like bouquet garni) that you can buy a 'smell proof discrete bag with combination lock' on Amazon. Presumably for transporting one's, er, herb.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Wowbagger on 09 December, 2023, 11:00:00 pm
What Keith Flett looks like.

Yes, I learned that too. Wasn't/isn't he a regular contributor to the Grauniad's letters page? I don't usually get to see the letters these days because I don't buy the paper version (I haven't for about 25 years) and it's not obvious where they lurk.

What I have learned today is that Geoff Capes' most recent world championship is in breeding budgerigars.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 December, 2023, 12:50:27 am
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Flett

Edit: today I are mostly learning that the original artwork of Axis: Bold As Love is banned in Malaysia.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 10 December, 2023, 08:14:25 am
Quote from: Wowbagger
Quote from: TheLurker
What Keith Flett looks like.
Yes, I learned that too. Wasn't/isn't he a regular contributor to the Grauniad's letters page?
He was the letters page. :)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 December, 2023, 11:50:11 pm
Today I are mostly learning about the squirrels in south London [that] could have become addicted to crack cocaine (https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/oct/08/drugsandalcohol.patrickbarkham).

Quote
If they are not launching themselves at you in drug-fuelled desperation, their bloodshot eyes are searching for their next fix, pink paws scrabbling in the ground. Sometimes they seize upon a rock of crack hidden in front gardens, and scarper to feed their addiction.

This explains a lot.


(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 December, 2023, 08:56:14 am
Quote from: Wowbagger
Quote from: TheLurker
What Keith Flett looks like.
Yes, I learned that too. Wasn't/isn't he a regular contributor to the Grauniad's letters page?
He was the letters page. :)
Quote
Letters from "Keith Flett, London N17" are regularly published in the press, literary and political journals, advancing his favoured causes of socialism and the Beard Liberation Front.
He may be at the front of liberation, but he's a long way behind Wowbagger. Call that a beard! Doesn't even reach his collar!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 12 December, 2023, 06:43:40 pm
Research Councils (UKRI but they still all use their old names) Disabled Students' Allowance (DSA) is available for overseas students. Unlike ANY OTHER DSA type and indeed not mentioned in the shitty unclear 'framework' where they dump all the legwork onto universities.

Good news for one of my students, but how many students have been missed out cos this was NEVER made clear. I've only been working in this area for 15 years, with special interest in postgrads for 12yrs.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 13 December, 2023, 11:54:35 am
What Keith Flett looks like.

Yes, I learned that too. Wasn't/isn't he a regular contributor to the Grauniad's letters page? I don't usually get to see the letters these days because I don't buy the paper version (I haven't for about 25 years) and it's not obvious where they lurk.

What I have learned today is that Geoff Capes' most recent world championship is in breeding budgerigars.


He is also a friend of Michael Rosen...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 13 December, 2023, 12:44:16 pm
What a Hofmeister Kink (or Knik) is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 13 December, 2023, 02:06:17 pm
What a Hofmeister Kink (or Knik) is.

When you've got a thing for bears in lederhosen...
(https://www.gaywelcome.com/ll-event-img/s400x300-h-yes/event-photo-1411704639-zalot-1865055122.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 15 December, 2023, 01:07:47 pm
What a Huck bolt is.  The subject came up on social media so I googled it.  Very interesting technique for what seems to be a constant replicable tension and then better shear strength.
https://www.hfsindustrial.com/us/how_huck_works (https://www.hfsindustrial.com/us/how_huck_works)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 15 December, 2023, 06:57:28 pm
What a Huck bolt is.  The subject came up on social media so I googled it.  Very interesting technique for what seems to be a constant replicable tension and then better shear strength.
https://www.hfsindustrial.com/us/how_huck_works (https://www.hfsindustrial.com/us/how_huck_works)

That's pretty cool. Never seen that system before.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 15 December, 2023, 09:09:11 pm
What a Huck bolt is.  The subject came up on social media so I googled it.  Very interesting technique for what seems to be a constant replicable tension and then better shear strength.
https://www.hfsindustrial.com/us/how_huck_works (https://www.hfsindustrial.com/us/how_huck_works)

That's pretty cool. Never seen that system before.

It's a very similar fastening to a "rivnut" as frequently used to fit bottle cage bosses bike frames.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: orienteer on 15 December, 2023, 10:20:37 pm
But how is it removed? :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 16 December, 2023, 07:27:50 am
But how is it removed? :demon:

Sorry - I meant that fitting concept was the same as a rivnut, but that it's for a permanent fixing.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 16 December, 2023, 11:04:46 am
But how is it removed? :demon:

I read that you either grind it off or use a torch
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 17 December, 2023, 12:12:23 am
But how is it removed? :demon:

How is which removed? The huck bolt simply unscrews, if that is what you meant.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tod28 on 17 December, 2023, 11:02:25 am
What a Huck bolt is.  The subject came up on social media so I googled it.  Very interesting technique for what seems to be a constant replicable tension and then better shear strength.
https://www.hfsindustrial.com/us/how_huck_works (https://www.hfsindustrial.com/us/how_huck_works)

That's pretty cool. Never seen that system before.

Look at the next lorry chassis passing you, used on at least Volvo truck for more than 25 years.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 17 December, 2023, 07:50:02 pm
The actress who played the tearoom assistant in "Brief Encounter" is still alive.  She's 97 and was 18 when the film was shot.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 17 December, 2023, 10:17:44 pm
But how is it removed? :demon:

How is which removed? The huck bolt simply unscrews, if that is what you meant.
No they don’t unscrew. That is the point of them. You apply a known compression and then the “nut” compresses and locks into the grooves but the nut is round not hexagonal and so will not undo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: readingjohn on 17 December, 2023, 11:23:58 pm
Then why are the grooves is the groove helical as shown in the graphic in your original link?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 18 December, 2023, 12:57:35 am
Easier to machine that way?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: readingjohn on 18 December, 2023, 09:06:38 am
I guess so. (I'm not arguing, just mildly curious.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 18 December, 2023, 04:15:45 pm
I guess so. (I'm not arguing, just mildly curious.)
Don’t know. I have no personal knowledge of them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 18 December, 2023, 04:20:20 pm
But how is it removed? :demon:

How is which removed? The huck bolt simply unscrews, if that is what you meant.
No they don’t unscrew. That is the point of them. You apply a known compression and then the “nut” compresses and locks into the grooves but the nut is round not hexagonal and so will not undo.

It is the fact that these new ones undo because the nut compresses into a helical thread that makes them new to me.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: grams on 18 December, 2023, 04:41:37 pm
Easier to machine that way?

Bolts are manufactured by rolling a rod between two big flat grooved jaws, so circles would be just as easy as spirals.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 19 December, 2023, 09:33:39 am
The name of the skin colour of Caucasian Lego minifigures is “light nougat”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 December, 2023, 10:40:48 am
Whereas one of the driver models buried deep in the strata of Euro Truck Simulator 2 is “vanillaice”.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 19 December, 2023, 11:01:48 am
What a "thumb turn" is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 22 December, 2023, 10:14:59 am
The PC game Doom was released 30 years ago this month.  That's not the interesting fact.

The interesting fact is that it repaid the development costs and was profitable ONE DAY after release  :o

You can buy it for a couple of quid via Steam.  I'm afraid it's a bit rough by today's standards; the fact that you can't look or aim up or down is odd if you're used to Quake, or more or less anything released since 1996.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 22 December, 2023, 01:55:52 pm
Doom was what got the first company I worked at networked. The engineers did it as a lunchtime project, drawing network cards out of stores (they were supposed to have been for customer deliverable machines) and draping coax around the factory to connect the different offices together so they could play.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 December, 2023, 02:41:54 pm
Doom was entirely responsible for the marked drop in notwork performance at my then-employer every lunchtime, on account of the System Support Team shooting each other utterly to DETH.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 22 December, 2023, 03:48:53 pm
Curiously, I just writing some blurb for my PhD supervisor's elevation to emeritus and semi-retirement status, and commenting on that fact that many evenings were spent using the lab computers for network Doom against other labs across the building (and yes, the Trewavas Lab sucked the hardest, I killed so many of them). Quite a few late-night, post-pub competitions, fueled with more beer and the occasional whiff of volatile organics.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Hot Flatus on 22 December, 2023, 04:07:03 pm
The PC game Doom was released 30 years ago this month.  That's not the interesting fact.

The interesting fact is that it repaid the development costs and was profitable ONE DAY after release  :o

You can buy it for a couple of quid via Steam.  I'm afraid it's a bit rough by today's standards; the fact that you can't look or aim up or down is odd if you're used to Quake, or more or less anything released since 1996.

I was a master of Quake II, played online circa 1998/99.  3dfx card rendered it as shiny magic. Dial-up Internet meant having to wait until about 2am to play a brief 15 minute game before connection speeds dropped. Connecting had more in common with a ouiji board session than anything technical.

My speciality? Leaping from a high up camping spot and loosing off the Rail gun in mid-air for a one-shot kill.

In some ways, parallels could be drawn to my online forum activities in the early days of acf/yacf.  ;) :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 22 December, 2023, 04:29:25 pm
The meaning of confabulation. And although I was correct(ish) that confab derived from it, it is not a contraction and has a completely different meaning.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 December, 2023, 12:51:26 am
Today I are mostly learning that while Iceland has many crime writers it has only one forensic pathologist.  Consequently said pathologist decided to hold a seminar to bring the crime writers up to speed instead of bothering him all the time.  It sold out, obliging him to hold another.  Which also sold out.

This also led me to wonder what happens to suspicious stiffs when the forensic pathologist is on holiday.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 25 December, 2023, 08:42:52 am
They send them to Grindavik for the annual Christmas barbecue.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 25 December, 2023, 10:49:41 am
That the lights transformer I’ve just had to replace has a timer function built in (8 on, 16 of). No matter as I use a Tapo plug to operate them.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Hot Flatus on 27 December, 2023, 10:52:51 am
I've learned a new french word when doing the french version of wordle.

And the word is: nonce. (nm)

Turns out it means a representative to the Pope  ;D
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 27 December, 2023, 11:26:28 am
That wine could be bought by the pint until we joined the EU in 1973. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 29 December, 2023, 11:15:23 am
That Kith as in Kith and Kin is an old English word originally meaning uncouth, which today should more properly refer to places and people well known, rather than family.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 30 December, 2023, 04:44:50 pm
I've learned a new french word when doing the french version of wordle.

And the word is: nonce. (nm)

Turns out it means a representative to the Pope  ;D

And the Papal equerry who attends a nonce is called the nonce equitur.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Nuncio on 30 December, 2023, 09:23:09 pm
I've learned a new french word when doing the french version of wordle.

And the word is: nonce. (nm)

Turns out it means a representative to the Pope  ;D

I think I must be a nonce. At least for the time being.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Feanor on 30 December, 2023, 09:50:50 pm
And the word also has a meaning in cryptography...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 31 December, 2023, 06:06:58 am
And the word also has a meaning in cryptography...
All the two-factor authentication systems are too squeamish to use the word "nonce" and use the far clunkier description of "one time passcode" or similar.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 31 December, 2023, 10:56:44 am
And the word also has a meaning in cryptography...


I once managed a project around SSO that had nonces everywhere. As a result, all the British people would snigger, and the Americans looked puzzled. Then we'd get to crabs and all the younger British people would also be confused. I'm fairly sure they wouldn't get that on TV these days.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: FifeingEejit on 31 December, 2023, 03:48:20 pm
And the word also has a meaning in cryptography...


I once managed a project around SSO that had nonces everywhere. As a result, all the British people would snigger, and the Americans looked puzzled. Then we'd get to crabs and all the younger British people would also be confused. I'm fairly sure they wouldn't get that on TV these days.
Given the Americans liking of forcing their censorship on us, it's time we force it back on them, Mongo DB can go in the bin to start...

Sent from my IV2201 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 31 December, 2023, 05:11:23 pm
There is a bird called the Sunbittern which looks like a giant butterfly when it spreads out its wings.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 31 December, 2023, 09:13:16 pm
The father of the founder of Scouting Robert Baden-Powell was called Baden Powell.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 01 January, 2024, 09:53:10 am
The father of the founder of Scouting Robert Baden-Powell was called Baden Powell.

Or Bathing-Towel by his contemporaries, according to that august 1957 authority the Eagle comic.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Hot Flatus on 01 January, 2024, 10:01:52 am
During the Great Statue Panic of June 2020, I saw with some considerable amusement, that a small platoon of thumbheads had taken it upon themselves to guard the statue of Baden-Powell in Poole Harbour lest it be toppled by those anarchists keen on "destroying are history"*.

One of the people interviewed was somebody I recognised and have met, who is worth idly googling if you want to see how weird some of these people are. Her name is Viv Endecott, and she ran a little gift shop in Corfe Castle called the Ginger Pop Shop




*statues aren't history, but never mind
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 January, 2024, 12:30:24 pm
Could’ve been aRe HeRiTiJ.  Gam-gams are very keen on heritages and keep putting the Tufton Street Irregulars up for election to the high offices of the National Trust to stop the tofu-munching Wokerati from deheritaging us.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: mattc on 01 January, 2024, 07:18:42 pm
Today I are mostly learning that while Iceland has many crime writers it has only one forensic pathologist.  Consequently said pathologist decided to hold a seminar to bring the crime writers up to speed instead of bothering him all the time.  It sold out, obliging him to hold another.  Which also sold out.
Well. This needs further investigation ...
Findings so far:

The island nation of Iceland, which has a population of just over 300,000, has more writers per head of population than any country on Earth. Astonishingly, over the course of their lifetime, one in 10 Icelanders will publish a book. The country has a high literacy rate and a small population, which may contribute to a relatively high number of authors per capita. Additionally, there is a strong culture of reading and writing in Iceland, and the country has produced many internationally acclaimed authors, further fostering a literary tradition.
/END
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 01 January, 2024, 07:31:01 pm
There's only 300 000 of them 'cos they're all busy killing each other utterly to deth if you believe their crime literature.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 01 January, 2024, 09:43:19 pm
There's only 300 000 of them 'cos they're all busy killing each other utterly to deth if you believe their crime literature.

Or rather, there's only 300,000 of them because they spend the long arctic winter writing crime fiction instead of making' whoopie. :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 January, 2024, 10:58:01 pm
That most calls from BT cashless phone boxes can currently be made free of charge. This is because the debit/credit card service which BT had outsourced collections to, BBG Global, went bust during lockdown as a result of no one making calls from airports etc. This only applies to BT not New World phones, it's current as of May 2023 and I haven't tested it, so "caveat dicentis". (Translation by google, of course)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 16 January, 2024, 12:25:51 pm
That there's tiny writing near the edge of a pound coin. I can't see it other than using optical assistance (much more than my varifocals can offer). Like this. I reckon the letters are about 0.25 - 0.3 mm high

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53467970035_7f59f90c6e_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2psMjGk)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 January, 2024, 12:51:27 pm
An anti-forgery device?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 16 January, 2024, 01:02:10 pm
An anti-forgery device?

That's what I assumed.

PS and that's what the Royal Mint says
https://www.royalmint.com/new-pound-coin/#:~:text=Micro%2Dlettering%20%E2%80%93%20it%20has%20very,%E2%80%9D%20side%2C%20for%20example%202017.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 16 January, 2024, 01:04:37 pm
Or anti-clipping perhaps.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 16 January, 2024, 01:26:16 pm
During the Great Statue Panic of June 2020, I saw with some considerable amusement, that a small platoon of thumbheads had taken it upon themselves to guard the statue of Baden-Powell in Poole Harbour lest it be toppled by those anarchists keen on "destroying are history"*.

One of the people interviewed was somebody I recognised and have met, who is worth idly googling if you want to see how weird some of these people are. Her name is Viv Endecott, and she ran a little gift shop in Corfe Castle called the Ginger Pop Shop




*statues aren't history, but never mind

Wasn't she the golliwog woman?  The one who wasn't from the pub in Grays...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 16 January, 2024, 01:27:36 pm
There's only 300 000 of them 'cos they're all busy killing each other utterly to deth if you believe their crime literature.

Or rather, there's only 300,000 of them because they spend the long arctic winter writing crime fiction instead of making' whoopie. :demon:

We're thinking about a trip to Iceland next month...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 January, 2024, 02:49:05 pm
An anti-forgery device?

That's what I assumed.

PS and that's what the Royal Mint says
https://www.royalmint.com/new-pound-coin/#:~:text=Micro%2Dlettering%20%E2%80%93%20it%20has%20very,%E2%80%9D%20side%2C%20for%20example%202017.
On that page I noticed the artist's initials below the Queen's portrait. J.C. Queen's head by Jeremy Corbyn?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 16 January, 2024, 03:29:42 pm
An anti-forgery device?

That's what I assumed.

PS and that's what the Royal Mint says
https://www.royalmint.com/new-pound-coin/#:~:text=Micro%2Dlettering%20%E2%80%93%20it%20has%20very,%E2%80%9D%20side%2C%20for%20example%202017.
On that page I noticed the artist's initials below the Queen's portrait. J.C. Queen's head by Jeremy Corbyn?


Most of the coins circulating have one of two portraits of the Queen.  From 1998 to 2012 by Ian Rank-Broadley and from 2012 by Jody Clark.

Pre-1998 coins carry portraits by Raphael Maklouf*, Arnold Machin and Mary Gillick (Mary was the first to do the Queen's portrait for coins).

Mary and Ernest Gillick were friends of my paternal grandmother and encouraged my father to pursue art (which he ended up teaching).  We have several of Mary's pieces in the family.




*Maklouf did the Stations of the Cross in 'Thomas, by the Grace of God's carbuncle in Brentwood.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: sg37409 on 16 January, 2024, 06:12:43 pm
Per R4 today, I learned a red kangaroo has 3 vaginas.

(didn’t even crack a joke…)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: ian on 16 January, 2024, 09:35:20 pm
I thought female marsupials have two vaginas (and two uteruses) to cater for the male's double penis (they only fire, erm, one barrel at a time, no sense blowing the bloody doors off).


However, let me present the echidna (https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/solving-the-mystery-of-the-four-headed-echidna-penis) with a four-headed spectacular, a sort of coital Gatling gun. The platypus disappoints with two, but wait for it ladies, keratinous spines. Apparently, no one has ever seen a platypus erection, but really who have they been asking. I think a lady platypus might have.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Legs on 17 January, 2024, 09:10:13 am
I thought female marsupials have two vaginas (and two uteruses) to cater for the male's double penis (they only fire, erm, one barrel at a time, no sense blowing the bloody doors off).


However, let me present the echidna (https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/solving-the-mystery-of-the-four-headed-echidna-penis) with a four-headed spectacular, a sort of coital Gatling gun. The platypus disappoints with two, but wait for it ladies, keratinous spines. Apparently, no one has ever seen a platypus erection, but really who have they been asking. I think a lady platypus might have.

My life is complete.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 17 January, 2024, 09:25:53 am
An anti-forgery device?

That's what I assumed.

PS and that's what the Royal Mint says
https://www.royalmint.com/new-pound-coin/#:~:text=Micro%2Dlettering%20%E2%80%93%20it%20has%20very,%E2%80%9D%20side%2C%20for%20example%202017.

I always check the pound coins I get for tiny writing and stuff, doesn't everyone?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Sergeant Pluck on 20 January, 2024, 05:47:25 pm
New to me:

“Depauperate”:

Of a flora, fauna, or ecosystem: lacking in numbers or variety of species.

Of a plant or animal: imperfectly developed.

Context: discussion of the environment in NI.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 January, 2024, 01:22:32 am
28 persistent myths about naked mole rat biology (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/brv.12660)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 21 January, 2024, 11:19:41 am
28 persistent myths about naked mole rat biology (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/brv.12660)

ObligLehrerQuote: "This may prove useful to some of you some day, perhaps, in a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances."
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 January, 2024, 01:26:11 pm
The differences between taro, cassava, yams and kumara. Maybe.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 21 January, 2024, 04:37:58 pm
Yet another way that USAnians came up with to do rascism...  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: CAMRAMan on 21 January, 2024, 05:19:15 pm
That Merthyr Tydfil was the home of Viagra, by accident.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 January, 2024, 11:31:58 am
It would be an exaggeration to say I've learned this, but this morning I stumbled upon the Homoousion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoousion) v Homoiousian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoiousian) v Homoian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacians) controversy of 4th century Christianity. It must have been easier to avoid typos in those days, before the keyboard with the i next to the o.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 January, 2024, 03:17:24 pm
More usefully – okay, more interestingly – well, additionally – I have learned that the Nivkh language, spoken by some indigenous people of Sakhalin, has 26 ways of counting from 1 to 10, according to the social status of what's being counted. And that in 1950, Stalin decided to build a tunnel under the Tatar Strait separating Sakhalin from the mainland. It collapsed, killing hundreds of engineers and gulag interns. The Nivkh people had predicted this; that stretch of water is home to the God of Thunder.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 23 January, 2024, 07:32:14 pm
Learnt today, what a modern 16 year old keeps under his bed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 23 January, 2024, 07:43:46 pm
Learnt today, what a modern 16 year old keeps under his bed.
You really ought to share this new-found information with us.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 23 January, 2024, 08:02:25 pm
Your imaginations are probably working overtime. Possibly somewhere near the reality though!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 23 January, 2024, 08:07:33 pm
Your imaginations are probably working overtime. Possibly somewhere near the reality though!
He's got a set of golf clubs impressed into a boxful of marshmallows, hasn't he.
I am assuming that it is a 'he'.
A girl would never do that.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 23 January, 2024, 08:17:26 pm
 ;D  :)  O:-)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 25 January, 2024, 04:36:52 pm
The original meaning of the phrase "old hat" as in "something considered to be old-fashioned, out of date, unoriginal, or hackneyed" was....

Vulva.

According to the OED, at least.

They have a hilarious citation from 1796 (which they dismiss as facetious rather than genuine etymology, the spoilsports):

1796
Old hat; a woman's privities: because frequently felt.
F. Grose, Classical Dictionary of Vulgar Tongue (1963) at Hat

This one is interesting too:
1980
'Tis a Nest, a Niche, an Old Hat, an Omnibus, an Oyster, a Palace o' Pleasure.
E. Jong, Fanny i. xv. 120

Omnibus? I say!  :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 January, 2024, 04:15:53 pm
That the electric cargo trikes used delivery firm Zedify have no direct connection between pedals and wheels. Pedalling just charges the battery. Also, that Zedify pay their riders a wage rather than per drop like eg Deliveroo.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: MattH on 30 January, 2024, 12:33:45 pm
So, presumably it needs you to pedal in order to be legally a bicycle rather than a motorbike, which would then allow you to control the speed by your pedalling rate.

So, power would be interesting. Assuming limited to a 250W motor, on a normal ebike I could climb a hill at say 550W, by my legs putting in 300W and the motor giving the max rated output. If my legs are just charging the battery, does that mean that you'll only get 250W to the wheels no matter how hard you pedal, or can it (legally) measure that you are putting in 300W and so run the motor higher? That doesn't sound right legally, but I've not given this much thought yet.

Unless, of course it is actually an electric motorbike, in which case pedalling would be optional and just a way of extending range - but need you to wear a helmet and have a moped or bike license.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 January, 2024, 12:53:10 pm
Neither. The power limits for cargo cycles are higher, though I can't remember what. They do seem to be pedalling all the time (though the rider demographic looks very different to standard Roos, ie Zedify seem to employ cyclists, whereas takeaway delivery cos seem to hire people who are in the gig economy and have a bike) so I think there must be some sensing. Possibly the pedals actually drive a generator of some sort?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 30 January, 2024, 01:04:21 pm
Neither. The power limits for cargo cycles are higher, though I can't remember what. They do seem to be pedalling all the time (though the rider demographic looks very different to standard Roos, ie Zedify seem to employ cyclists, whereas takeaway delivery cos seem to hire people who are in the gig economy and have a bike) so I think there must be some sensing. Possibly the pedals actually drive a generator of some sort?

Not in the UK, they're not.  All EAPC (irrespective of use) are limited to 250 watts.  The only way round that is type approval, which then requires insurance, VED, a registration plate and the appropriate driving license.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: grams on 30 January, 2024, 01:13:09 pm
This calls itself a "series hybrid" and says the motor is rated for "250W".

https://www.fullycharged.com/vok-s/

AIUI EBike motor ratings are somewhat flexible and short bursts above 250W are acceptable.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Kim on 30 January, 2024, 01:14:31 pm
It's an interesting legal question.

I reckon if you made a bike with an electric transmission, but no power to the motor from a battery, it would be a pedal cycle in law, and power ratings would be irrelevant.

But as soon as it's providing assistance, the motor's continuous power rating becomes subject to regulation.  I don't think there's any scope for having a, say, 1000W motor where only 250W can come from the battery.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 January, 2024, 01:37:26 pm
There have definitely been proposals to allow higher power motors for cargo bikes, I thought the regulations had been amended, but maybe not. Anyway, the vehicle I saw, which looked like this below, definitely had no registration. Don't know about type approval. And as it's a trike, helmet not required. But like I said, no number plate.
(https://www.zedify.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Local-authorities-square-second-1.jpg)
Bloke I spoke to said he found it quite stable but one of his colleagues had had one blow over in high winds.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 30 January, 2024, 01:39:57 pm
There have definitely been proposals to allow higher power motors for cargo bikes, I thought the regulations had been amended, but maybe not. Anyway, the vehicle I saw, which looked like this below, definitely had no registration. Don't know about type approval. And as it's a trike, helmet not required. But like I said, no number plate.
(https://www.zedify.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Local-authorities-square-second-1.jpg)
Bloke I spoke to said he found it quite stable but one of his colleagues had had one blow over in high winds.


They're standard EAPCs (those that are electrified - not all of their vehicles are).
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 January, 2024, 03:10:29 pm
They they are misinforming their riders.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 30 January, 2024, 03:18:06 pm
They they are misinforming their riders.

I doubt it.  I know one of the Zedify co-founders, Rob King.  He's straight up.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 January, 2024, 03:41:21 pm
What's that got to do with it? Unless he's the bloke in his 20s, with a bit of a beard, I was talking to yesterday.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 31 January, 2024, 01:05:01 pm
It's an interesting legal question.

I reckon if you made a bike with an electric transmission, but no power to the motor from a battery, it would be a pedal cycle in law, and power ratings would be irrelevant.

But as soon as it's providing assistance, the motor's continuous power rating becomes subject to regulation.  I don't think there's any scope for having a, say, 1000W motor where only 250W can come from the battery.
Would there be anything to stop you having an electric transmission (no power limit apart from fitness) and an electrical assist (250 W limit)?

If not, the faff of having to split the drive motor into two in order to be able to limit the power just shows how badly-worded the law is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 February, 2024, 12:28:24 pm
That if you sprinkle salt on a leech and the surrounding skin, which it has attached itself to, nothing appears to happen for a few minutes. And then it suddenly explodes. This could even be more useful than some of other learnings in this thread.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 February, 2024, 12:33:58 pm
… in a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 05 February, 2024, 12:48:40 pm
Reminds me of the time when my nephews were here and spied one day a very large orange slug in the garden.  I mentioned that an American chap had told me that when he was a kid they used to put salt on them, whereupon the wee buggers dashed into the house and re-emerged with the salt cellar. I didn't stay to watch.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 05 February, 2024, 03:35:45 pm
(Yesterday) I learned that those huge cattle in 18th and 19th century paintings (Comme Ca (https://stories.field-wt.co.uk/why-did-they-paint-fat-cows/index.html)) despite what that article said, actually were pretty fecking huge. As potential sale instructions, if the paintings weren't representative, there would have been trouble. Fat beasts were in favour because they weren't only bred for meat, but for tallow.

At least that's what the nice lady in fancy period dress told me at Beamish when we were laughing at the chonkiest of chonky cattle in the pictures.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: spesh on 05 February, 2024, 03:47:30 pm
(Yesterday) I learned that those huge cattle in 18th and 19th century paintings (Comme Ca (https://stories.field-wt.co.uk/why-did-they-paint-fat-cows/index.html)) despite what that article said, actually were pretty fecking huge. As potential sale instructions, if the paintings weren't representative, there would have been trouble. Fat beasts were in favour because they weren't only bred for meat, but for tallow.

At least that's what the nice lady in fancy period dress told me at Beamish when we were laughing at the chonkiest of chonky cattle in the pictures.

Reminds me of something from a few years ago: https://merl.reading.ac.uk/blog/2018/04/history-behind-absolute-unit/
Title: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 06 February, 2024, 09:43:50 pm
What an atmospheric river is.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 February, 2024, 08:48:56 am
By coincidence, I read the same phrase last night, though only tangentially connected to weather. I think I'd heard it before but couldn't say it was part of my vocabulary.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 07 February, 2024, 08:49:39 am
What an atmospheric river is.

Ditto old colleagues of mine in CA.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 07 February, 2024, 06:54:17 pm
Recently learned of these mesh plasterboard patches https://www.duluxdecoratorcentre.co.uk/gyproc-easipatch-plasterboard-patches
Look like they should be handy for covering up the hole where the CH stat used to be and also where the old doorbell chime is, in conjunction with my now l33t filling skillz.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 February, 2024, 10:11:21 pm
That the association between tall pointy hats and practitioners of magic started in the 12th century when illustrations in a Zoroastrian book reached Christendom and were taken to show wizards. Later, in the 15th and 16th centuries, tall hats were worn by brewers, which was a typically female profession at the time (you could do it in small batches at home in between feeding the chickens and so on). The tall hats served as advertising in the market place. There was also an association between brewers and magic, because how else do you describe turning water into beer? And also because ale wives were relatively independent women, having their own income – and not least because they spent time getting pissed on their own wares! So the tall brewers' hat became merged with the tall pointy wizards' hat as a witches' hat.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 08 February, 2024, 08:07:54 am
 :thumbsup:  Nice.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Salvatore on 08 February, 2024, 03:34:04 pm
That until 1968 police officers wore an armband on their left cuff to indicate that they were on duty. Like this one talking to Irish playwright Sean O'Casey. They could wear their uniform without being on duty.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53515317462_8df9c5b6bf_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2pwXZrh)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_armband
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 08 February, 2024, 09:29:00 pm
What Dry Needling is.

Now in proper pain, both calfs. Can hardly stand let alone walk. Not impressed.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 09 February, 2024, 07:34:33 am
That until 1968 police officers wore an armband on their left cuff to indicate that they were on duty. Like this one talking to Irish playwright Sean O'Casey. They could wear their uniform without being on duty.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53515317462_8df9c5b6bf_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2pwXZrh)

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

I thought there was also some rule about armbands when a policeman was directing traffic?   [For younger readers: yes policemen did direct traffic on some junctions at busy times - especially in London in the 1950s/early 60s]
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 February, 2024, 08:01:06 am
That until 1968 police officers wore an armband on their left cuff to indicate that they were on duty. Like this one talking to Irish playwright Sean O'Casey. They could wear their uniform without being on duty.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53515317462_8df9c5b6bf_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2pwXZrh)

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

I thought there was also some rule about armbands when a policeman was directing traffic?   [For younger readers: yes policemen did direct traffic on some junctions at busy times - especially in London in the 1950s/early 60s]

In 60's Edinburgh there was just one policeman who could handle the rush-hour traffic at the staggered junction of the Mound, Princes St. and Hannover St. on his own.  He was very relaxed about it. We used to call him the Smiley Policeman for he always was.  Other peelers needed to be two-up.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 09 February, 2024, 11:14:33 am
What Dry Needling is.

Now in proper pain, both calfs. Can hardly stand let alone walk. Not impressed.

Cf acupuncture?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 09 February, 2024, 11:37:55 am
What Dry Needling is.

Now in proper pain, both calfs. Can hardly stand let alone walk. Not impressed.

Cf acupuncture?

I have no idea what the difference is between acupuncture and dry needling. The intended benefit was removal of the muscle knots. It caused Cramps in both legs calf muscles, not sure why the physiotherapist was so determined to do it, nor why he would do it to both calfs in one session??? He did not ask permission just went ahead with doing this dry needling (my first experience of it) after massaging both calfs. I had pulled the right calf when doing the last set of exercises he gave me, and had just about fully recovered from that episode (I was seeing him regarding Achilles injury late summer 2023). Caught a bus 3 miles home, after a painful walk to the bus stop, then covered the last 250metres on foot, which took 10 minutes. Still in pain with both calfs, 17 hours after the treatment. 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: barakta on 09 February, 2024, 11:53:40 am
Not seeking consent is a major breach of basic professional standards. That is very seriously worth complaining about. Consent should be clear, informed and not coerced or rushed.

A GP of mine once stuck an acupuncture needle in me without warning or consent. He was trying to persuade us to try acupuncture for my vertigo. He chose the web between thumb and index finger which in my case is not typical cos of hand surgery as a child. It was meant not to hurt. It bloody hurt and startled me, and I wish we'd complained.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 09 February, 2024, 01:29:09 pm
Hah!  A neurologist once stuck a needle electrode into my calf and hit an artery, causing a haematoma the size of an egg that kept me off the bike for a month. The slapdash bastard didn't apologise, not even after my GP sent him a stiff letter.  No reply: he obviously didn't give a shit.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 09 February, 2024, 01:59:46 pm
Never heard of dry needling before. Just looked it up and it appears to be subtly different to acupuncture.

I have had acupuncture and found it surprisingly effective for pain relief. Surprising because I was very sceptical about it. It was performed by an NHS physio and entirely with my consent.

I'd be livid at someone sticking needles in me without asking first.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 11 February, 2024, 05:07:27 pm


ICONIC MOTORCYCLE MOVIE EASY RIDER TO GET MODERN REMAKE

A remake of the motorcycle movie Easy Rider is already in the early stages of production according to rights holders

 (https://www.visordown.com/news/general/iconic-motorcycle-movie-easy-rider-get-modern-remake)

Quote

Maurice Fadida, one of the producers of the remake, explained:

“Our goal is to build upon the counterculture and freedom narrative the original left us with, and give the youth of today a film that pays serious attention to their own countercultures and challenges,” Fadida told Variety. “What the young viewers of today are experiencing in their everyday lives may seem crazy to older generations, but it can very well become the societal norm, as was the case with the cultural shift of the late 1960s. We are hoping to play a part in that shift.”

Will they have mobile phones and stuff?


Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 12 February, 2024, 09:05:54 am


ICONIC MOTORCYCLE MOVIE EASY RIDER TO GET MODERN REMAKE

A remake of the motorcycle movie Easy Rider is already in the early stages of production according to rights holders

 (https://www.visordown.com/news/general/iconic-motorcycle-movie-easy-rider-get-modern-remake)

Quote

Maurice Fadida, one of the producers of the remake, explained:

“Our goal is to build upon the counterculture and freedom narrative the original left us with, and give the youth of today a film that pays serious attention to their own countercultures and challenges,” Fadida told Variety. “What the young viewers of today are experiencing in their everyday lives may seem crazy to older generations, but it can very well become the societal norm, as was the case with the cultural shift of the late 1960s. We are hoping to play a part in that shift.”

Will they have mobile phones and stuff?

Maurice F can shove it.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Basil on 14 February, 2024, 09:07:26 am
Who Holly Valance is.

Seen the name pop up here and there recently, and assumed it was about a member of Frankie Goes To Hollywood.   :facepalm:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 14 February, 2024, 09:41:48 am
@rafletcher is correct.  'Dry needling' = acupuncture for all intents and purposes.  Medics tend to prefer to refer to 'dry needling' (or sometimes call it 'muscular stimulation') as they think it sounds more scientific.  Some try to claim that its different from acupuncture because it's about myofascial trigger points rather than 'energy'... but the reality is the clinical evidence for dry-needling is similar to that for acupuncture (in fact there's probably more evidence for acupuncture) and no real explanation of if/how/why it works.

As @barakta said, the failure the obtain informed consent is a big no-no.  I'd not go near that physio again and I'd make a complaint.  If this was done via health insurance, I'd let the insurers know - they're very hot on this at the moment.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 14 February, 2024, 10:54:37 am
Who Holly Valance is.

Seen the name pop up here and there recently, and assumed it was about a member of Frankie Goes To Hollywood.   :facepalm:

Clearly you were taking a Liberty - or confusing a town on the Rhone in France
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 14 February, 2024, 10:56:16 am
I urge you all to go lightly on the punnage here.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 February, 2024, 02:23:24 pm
I see what the feathery chap did there, and wish I hadn’t :demon:
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: robgul on 14 February, 2024, 02:33:46 pm
I urge you all to go lightly on the punnage here.


Will do, but not until after breakfast
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Efrogwr on 14 February, 2024, 06:11:24 pm
That the Australian version of thr Corsa was called the Holden Barina.

Is thatbthe Australian feminine form of Barry?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: JefO on 14 February, 2024, 11:28:39 pm
@rafletcher is correct.  'Dry needling' = acupuncture for all intents and purposes.  Medics tend to prefer to refer to 'dry needling' (or sometimes call it 'muscular stimulation') as they think it sounds more scientific.  Some try to claim that its different from acupuncture because it's about myofascial trigger points rather than 'energy'... but the reality is the clinical evidence for dry-needling is similar to that for acupuncture (in fact there's probably more evidence for acupuncture) and no real explanation of if/how/why it works.

As @barakta said, the failure the obtain informed consent is a big no-no.  I'd not go near that physio again and I'd make a complaint.  If this was done via health insurance, I'd let the insurers know - they're very hot on this at the moment.

For me it definitely did not work - still in discomfort from the "treatment" 6 days later.

I did complain, and I assume that the fact they are no longer getting my custom will make them reconsider their enthusiasm for the technique on future self funded (not insured) patients.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: fimm on 20 February, 2024, 09:56:44 am
Archeologists dug up a skeleton buried near a Roman farmstead in Cambridgeshire. Analysis of the bones and teeth suggest that this person died between 126 and 228 C.E. and that he came from the region between the Black and Caspian Seas...
Article here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982223016342 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982223016342) (it is a little technical, but most of the difficult stuff is the science and statistics behind what they discovered)
From this interesting Guardian Long Read (which contains lots of other intriguing-looking links): https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/feb/20/solar-storms-ice-cores-and-nuns-teeth-inside-the-new-science-of-history (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/feb/20/solar-storms-ice-cores-and-nuns-teeth-inside-the-new-science-of-history)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 February, 2024, 10:18:58 am
Comin' over 'ere…
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: jsabine on 20 February, 2024, 07:16:04 pm
Takin' are graves ...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 20 February, 2024, 07:46:23 pm
Recent finds around Cambridgeshire point to some of these farming sites being feeding stations for the Roman Army. For example, finds in and around Fenstanton (which included a crucified local) indicates that bones were being crushed on an industrial scale for marrow extraction purposes
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: andrewc on 20 February, 2024, 09:07:14 pm
The phrase "tin tabernacle"....   https://x.com/SimoninSuffolk/status/1760022538867093794   


https://www.sudburymercury.co.uk/news/24131133.ancient-mission-hall-village-near-clare-goes-sale/


https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2004/9-july/features/worshipping-in-churches-made-of-iron-resolve



Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Jurek on 20 February, 2024, 09:25:40 pm
The phrase "tin tabernacle"....   https://x.com/SimoninSuffolk/status/1760022538867093794   


https://www.sudburymercury.co.uk/news/24131133.ancient-mission-hall-village-near-clare-goes-sale/


https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2004/9-july/features/worshipping-in-churches-made-of-iron-resolve
Ah! There's one on the left as we exit Faversham on the FNRTTC to Whitstable.


(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53540966452_5e82780c67_h.jpg) (http://[url=https://flic.kr/p/2pzerZf) (https://flic.kr/p/2pzerZf)  (https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurekb/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 February, 2024, 09:01:33 am
St Mary the Virgin, Shepperdine
https://maps.app.goo.gl/NFozRVVDxeULXkJQ9
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tomsk on 21 February, 2024, 09:21:57 am
St Peters, Littlebury Green, Essex: https://www.camvillages.org.uk/Groups/321995/St_Peter_s.aspx

An info control on my ACME Tourdax 1 2023. The 'stained glass' is simply printed onto the panes.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 21 February, 2024, 06:02:54 pm
That suburbian is a word, as in:



World's longest-distance drone delivery service makes shopping more exclusive in Norway

 (https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/02/20/worlds-longest-distance-drone-delivery-service-makes-shopping-more-exclusive-in-norway)

Quote
Delivery services for locals and tourists in the opulent Norwegian ski resort town of Lillehammer just got a lot more exclusive.

The suburbians can order deliveries through the company’s Kyte app and can order about 1.5kg worth of goods such as medicine, groceries, and meals from independent restaurants. They can expect an average delivery time of 24 minutes.

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: sam on 22 February, 2024, 03:00:58 am
World's longest-distance drone delivery service makes shopping more exclusive in Norway (https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/02/20/worlds-longest-distance-drone-delivery-service-makes-shopping-more-exclusive-in-norway)

Quote
As the competition for delivery services like Uber Eats and Deliveroo heats up on the ground, there is still an uphill battle of legal restrictions and airspace limitations for drone delivery systems. But Aviant has regulatory approval to operate in EU airspace in Lillehammer.

Aviant's man on the ground:
https://youtu.be/iGvZAJfBk_4
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 22 February, 2024, 04:07:13 pm
That Waitrose Essentials fine cut Seville Orange Marmalade is rather good.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 February, 2024, 12:00:40 am
Today I are mostly learning that the bike shed at St. Catherine's College Oxford is a Grade-I Listed Building in its own right :o
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Pingu on 23 February, 2024, 12:08:24 am
Today I are mostly learning that the bike shed at St. Catherine's College Oxford is a Grade-I Listed Building in its own right :o

Is that 'cos it's got an abandoned original Kryptonite u-lock fixed on one of its Sheffield stands?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rr on 23 February, 2024, 09:58:43 am
The phrase "tin tabernacle"....   https://x.com/SimoninSuffolk/status/1760022538867093794   


https://www.sudburymercury.co.uk/news/24131133.ancient-mission-hall-village-near-clare-goes-sale/


https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2004/9-july/features/worshipping-in-churches-made-of-iron-resolve
Chignal Road, Chelmsford (https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20240223/b1403e1a8e4eda0b5dba0af635c6f995.jpg)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 February, 2024, 10:03:59 am
You can check out any time you like...
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 February, 2024, 10:20:29 am
Today I are mostly learning that the bike shed at St. Catherine's College Oxford is a Grade-I Listed Building in its own right :o

Is that 'cos it's got an abandoned original Kryptonite u-lock fixed on one of its Sheffield stands?
Or is it because Benazir Bhutto and Peter Mandelson (both born 1953 but I can't find their attendance dates) had a snog there?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 23 February, 2024, 12:43:04 pm
The phrase "tin tabernacle"....   https://x.com/SimoninSuffolk/status/1760022538867093794   


https://www.sudburymercury.co.uk/news/24131133.ancient-mission-hall-village-near-clare-goes-sale/


https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2004/9-july/features/worshipping-in-churches-made-of-iron-resolve


There's quite a few in north Essex and Hertfordshire... and some lovely wooden churches as well.  One of the walks I do goes past a particularly fine example.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 February, 2024, 03:52:42 pm
Today I are mostly learning that the bike shed at St. Catherine's College Oxford is a Grade-I Listed Building in its own right :o

Is that 'cos it's got an abandoned original Kryptonite u-lock fixed on one of its Sheffield stands?
Or is it because Benazir Bhutto and Peter Mandelson (both born 1953 but I can't find their attendance dates) had a snog there?

Professor Larrington did her BA there too, but she's younger than Bhutto and Voldemort.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 27 February, 2024, 10:39:29 pm
It turns out the stylus for my work laptop is powered by an AAAA battery. I never knew such things existed before today.

Second thing what I have learned today is that while a) I like pomegranate and b) I like IPA, c) I do NOT like pomegranate IPA.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Snakehips on 03 March, 2024, 12:41:19 pm
That you can get Greta Thunberg full size cardboard cutouts . They cost between 35 and 45 quid normally but there is one going free on Freecycle at the moment in TW9 , but be quick.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 03 March, 2024, 08:16:51 pm
A Shimano Nexus 1/8" chain is too wide for a Brompton, and rubs on the chain tensioner.  The SRAM  chain that came off was over 1mm narrower at the rivets!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Adam on 04 March, 2024, 07:09:49 am
Use an 8 speed chain.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 04 March, 2024, 07:38:27 am
Use an 8 speed chain.
Not on a 3 speed with a 1/8" sprocket!
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 04 March, 2024, 08:42:14 am
The gruesome origin of the phrase Sweet Fanny Adams, and incidentally how it pertained to the slang name of army mess tins.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Adam on 04 March, 2024, 09:23:29 am
Use an 8 speed chain.
Not on a 3 speed with a 1/8" sprocket!

True!

I'm used to more gears.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 08 March, 2024, 05:37:50 pm
"Needles have functional sharp points."

On a sewing kit.  I despair, I really, really do.  They'd be fuck all use without and what's the point (ha ha) of "functional", eh!?
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 March, 2024, 06:49:04 pm
"Needles have functional sharp points."

On a sewing kit.  I despair, I really, really do.  They'd be fuck all use without and what's the point (ha ha) of "functional", eh!?
I'd like to think it was a little act of rebellion. The scenario would be something like this:
Marketroid: Here's an attractive an informative label for the new sewing kit.
Legaloid: That's no good. It needs a warning about sharp points.
Marketroid: ?#@!
Legalod: Paragraph 19, Section 24, Marking Dangerous Goods Acts 2012.
Marketroid: Okay. We'll add a line here. "Needles have fucking sharp points."

I realize this casts the Marketroid as having some common sense and therefore can't have happened.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Regulator on 09 March, 2024, 06:56:43 am
You do get blunt needles though.   Used for darning, and sewing in (when knitting and crocheting). 
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Canardly on 10 March, 2024, 12:25:32 pm
Bought some blunt syringes a while back to inject ivy with a chemical agent.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Diver300 on 10 March, 2024, 06:33:25 pm
Bought some blunt syringes a while back to inject ivy with a chemical agent.
Blunt syringes needles are often used for dispensing small quantities of liquids.  eg. https://www.intertronics.co.uk/product-category/dispensing/dispensing-consumables/dispensing-needles-and-tips/ (https://www.intertronics.co.uk/product-category/dispensing/dispensing-consumables/dispensing-needles-and-tips/)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 11 March, 2024, 08:12:41 pm
Quote from: Regulator
You do get blunt needles though.   Used for darning, and sewing in (when knitting and crocheting).
Indeed you do, but it doesn't alter the fact that anyone using needles for sewing would expect the bloody things to be sharp* (or even crewel - ha ha) and that they'd be precious little use if they weren't.



*In case you don't know.  Sharps are (more or less) general purpose** needles and crewel needles have a longer eye to take embroidery thread.
**A sewing expert will be along shortly to explain in more detail and correct my wild generalisation.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 March, 2024, 10:11:10 am
Inspectors for the Guide Michelin eat around 250 meals in restaurants per annum, all with wine, ranging in price from around 50€ for lunch in a 1-star to 500€ for dinner in a 3-star.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: L CC on 18 March, 2024, 10:40:57 am
Quote from: Regulator
You do get blunt needles though.   Used for darning, and sewing in (when knitting and crocheting).
Indeed you do, but it doesn't alter the fact that anyone using needles for sewing would expect the bloody things to be sharp* (or even crewel - ha ha) and that they'd be precious little use if they weren't.



*In case you don't know.  Sharps are (more or less) general purpose** needles and crewel needles have a longer eye to take embroidery thread.
**A sewing expert will be along shortly to explain in more detail and correct my wild generalisation.
Ball headed needles are also used for knitted jersey (ie anything stretchy) fabric.
Sharp needles have quite limited use. I definitely have more blunt than sharp.

Anyone with a burning interest should head here: https://www.forgemill.org.uk/web/forge-mill/

Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: citoyen on 18 March, 2024, 11:09:25 am
Inspectors for the Guide Michelin eat around 250 meals in restaurants per annum, all with wine, ranging in price from around 50€ for lunch in a 1-star to 500€ for dinner in a 3-star.

If you're ever in danger of thinking this sounds like a glamorous lifestyle, bear in mind that they don't get to choose where to eat and not every restaurant they visit is good enough to get in the red book... in fact, the hit rate is quite low. They also tend to travel and dine alone - although the guide pays for the inspector's meal, they don't pay for companions to eat as well.

Never worked for Michelin but I have worked for other restaurant guides and did quite a few inspections in my time. It sucks all the fun out of eating out. At least Michelin inspectors are professionals. The ones I worked for employed inspectors on an amateur basis - ie they didn't pay for your time, only for your dinner (although one of them did at least stretch the budget to cover a companion's meal as well).

Never got to visit any three-star places* but did a few that were two-star level. Also got to visit some places that were truly terrible.

(*I did once have dinner at Sketch in London, but that was long before it got its third star and frankly I didn't think the food came anywhere close to justifying the £450 bill for dinner for two - which sounds a lot even now, but bear in mind this was ~20 years ago.)
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 18 March, 2024, 04:09:58 pm
It sounds about as glamorous as the life of a foie gras goose.

AFAIK I've only eaten in one starred restaurant, a two-star in a village up the road from here.  It was OK.  What I appreciated most was the waiter steering me away from the wine I'd asked for towards a cheaper Cahors that would go better with what we'd ordered - which I suppose must have been duck.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Ham on 18 March, 2024, 10:38:50 pm
As a counterpoint, close to 50 years ago, I had a mate who got a job as an inspector for Camden environmental health, so we used to get to eat on his expenses at all the dodgy restaurants that had been reported.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 March, 2024, 08:32:57 pm
Today I are mostly learning that Turkmenistan has a Ministry Of Carpets.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: T42 on 23 March, 2024, 08:46:13 am
To ensure airworthiness, no doubt.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rogerzilla on 23 March, 2024, 12:53:24 pm
Oxford has the fabulously-named Squitchey Lane.

Also, the Westgate has sucked the life out of the rest of the city centre - Broad Street and Cornmarket Street are full of empty units, shops selling Harry Potter tat (don't remember Oxford being in the books), and beggars.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 23 March, 2024, 06:29:14 pm
About the New River in London.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 23 March, 2024, 07:48:32 pm
About the New River in London.
"Neither new nor a river" apparently.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: rafletcher on 23 March, 2024, 09:10:59 pm
About the New River in London.
"Neither new nor a river" apparently.

Which is why it’s never featured in the “Rivers of London” series from Ben Aaronovitch presumably.
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 24 March, 2024, 09:18:05 am
About the New River in London.
"Neither new nor a river" apparently.

Which is why it’s never featured in the “Rivers of London” series from Ben Aaronovitch presumably.
Brilliant series.  My only problem is the comic books don't render on my kindle
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: TheLurker on 24 March, 2024, 02:32:16 pm
A day or two ago.  The first railway, to successfully, use steam locomotives was at Middleton near Leeds, some 13 or 14 years before the Stockton & Darlington.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleton_Railway
Title: Re: what I have learned today.
Post by: Tim Hall on 27 March, 2024, 11:13:59 pm
Cleopatra was born closer in time to the building of the Eiffel Tower than the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

At least that's what Natalie Haynes told me.