Author Topic: what I have learned today.  (Read 847411 times)

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3650 on: 07 August, 2019, 12:34:18 pm »
That Scotland still has £1 notes
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Pingu

  • Put away those fiery biscuits!
  • Mrs Pingu's domestique
    • the Igloo
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3651 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.

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3652 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.
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3653 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.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

TheLurker

  • Goes well with magnolia.
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3654 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.
Τα πιο όμορφα ταξίδια γίνονται με τις δικές μας δυνάμεις - Φίλοι του Ποδήλατου

Gattopardo

  • Lord of the sith
  • Overseaing the building of the death star
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3655 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.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3656 on: 13 August, 2019, 10:06:30 pm »
More than I ever wanted to know about TNC connectors, 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 )
<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

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3657 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.  ::-)
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

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 #3658 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...
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3659 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.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3660 on: 16 August, 2019, 04:43:11 pm »
Reading my travel insurance I learnt that Ostrich riding and racing are a thing.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3661 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
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

bludger

  • Randonneur and bargain hunter
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3662 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
YACF touring/audax bargain basement:
https://bit.ly/2Xg8pRD



Ban cars.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3663 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.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3664 on: 16 August, 2019, 05:45:42 pm »
Surely Calvinball's good enough for anyone?

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3665 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?
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

Beardy

  • Shedist
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3666 on: 16 August, 2019, 08:29:52 pm »
Surely Calvinball's good enough for anyeveryone?
FTFY  :D
For every complex problem in the world, there is a simple and easily understood solution that’s wrong.

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3667 on: 16 August, 2019, 09:29:49 pm »
Surely Calvinball's good enough for anyone?
Except on reverse day
Miles cycled 2014 = 3551.5 (Target 7300 :()
Miles cycled 2013 = 6141.4
Miles cycled 2012 = 4038.1

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3668 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


Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3669 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
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3670 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.

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3671 on: 24 August, 2019, 06:43:19 pm »
Or carry a whole cable ?
Rust never sleeps

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3672 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.

Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3673 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.
Rust never sleeps

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: what I have learned today.
« Reply #3674 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.