Author Topic: what I have learned today. (Read 864070 times)

PeteB99 · « **Reply #2400 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.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #2401 on:** 11 March, 2018, 07:32:31 pm »

They probably get Agatha Christie too.

rogerzilla · « **Reply #2402 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.

andytheflyer · « **Reply #2403 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.

Torslanda · « **Reply #2404 on:** 11 March, 2018, 10:06:52 pm »

Do you have to have the gravity on all the time . . . ?

Beardy · « **Reply #2405 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!

fimm · « **Reply #2406 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.

clarion · « **Reply #2407 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).

andytheflyer · « **Reply #2408 on:** 14 March, 2018, 05:56:56 pm »

Quote from: Torslanda on 11 March, 2018, 10:06:52 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!

Kim · « **Reply #2409 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)

Quote from: andytheflyer on 14 March, 2018, 05:56:56 pm

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...

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #2410 on:** 14 March, 2018, 07:36:36 pm »

Quote from: andytheflyer on 14 March, 2018, 05:56:56 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.

ElyDave · « **Reply #2411 on:** 14 March, 2018, 08:41:47 pm »

Quote from: 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)

Quote from: andytheflyer on 14 March, 2018, 05:56:56 pm
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

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #2412 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

T42 · « **Reply #2413 on:** 15 March, 2018, 08:12:14 am »

Emp, nap, tpru, ent and tprus look like entomologist's shorthand.

rogerzilla · « **Reply #2414 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.

Beardy · « **Reply #2415 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)

mrcharly-YHT · « **Reply #2416 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).

ElyDave · « **Reply #2417 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

Found through a typo

clarion · « **Reply #2418 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.

rafletcher · « **Reply #2419 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!

T42 · « **Reply #2420 on:** 16 March, 2018, 10:40:20 am »

Break a leg.

barakta · « **Reply #2421 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!

Pingu · « **Reply #2422 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

David Martin · « **Reply #2423 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

ElyDave · « **Reply #2424 on:** 19 March, 2018, 06:56:48 am »

Quote from: 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

Surely the o ahead of the p changes it from silent to non silent?