Author Topic: what I have learned today.  (Read 847221 times)

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2125 on: 10 December, 2017, 02:01:01 pm »
Kid from next door has been defying the fracture clinic since lunchtime.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Gattopardo

  • Lord of the sith
  • Overseaing the building of the death star
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2126 on: 14 December, 2017, 01:41:03 pm »
Audrey Hepburn was Belgian.

andytheflyer

  • Andytheex-flyer.....
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2127 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...)

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2128 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
Quote from: Kim
^ This woman knows what she's talking about.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2129 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.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2130 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.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2131 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.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Tim Hall

  • Victoria is my queen
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2132 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?
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can
"overhaul" it, or you can ride it.  (Jerome K Jerome)

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2133 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.
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2134 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?
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2135 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.

Beardy

  • Shedist
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2136 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.
For every complex problem in the world, there is a simple and easily understood solution that’s wrong.

Beardy

  • Shedist
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2137 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.
For every complex problem in the world, there is a simple and easily understood solution that’s wrong.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2138 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).
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2139 on: 23 December, 2017, 07:49:32 pm »
Surely feet are easy, just yards X three?
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2140 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.
Getting there...

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2141 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.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2142 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.
Quote from: Kim
Paging Diver300.  Diver300 to the GSM Trimphone, please...

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2143 on: 08 January, 2018, 09:17:46 am »
New words this week:

Outtoeing
Seminavalised
Getting there...

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2144 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.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2145 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... :/
Getting there...

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2146 on: 08 January, 2018, 06:58:41 pm »
Alt-0233.  It's the only one I can remember ;D
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2147 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.

Beardy

  • Shedist
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2148 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!
For every complex problem in the world, there is a simple and easily understood solution that’s wrong.

ian

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #2149 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.