Steve44

In the UK I was taught off-side and near side which referred to the sides nearest and away from the kerb as you are driving. That would be localised to which side of the road your location drives on, but not affected by left or right hand drive.

I still use is when checking tyre pressures for example, they are handy and unambiguous acronyms. For example Off Side Front ( OSF ) would be the drivers side front mostly.

You could start by learning the ropes.

Thank you for writing that. I loved the LoTR films and as you say they felt real and natural whereas I've only seen about 15 minutes of the recent Hobbit and I couldn't watch any more. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I just couldn't get into how it looked.

It's not just films, a lot of TV programmes are heading that way too.

One example is the recently released adaptation of Great Expectations[1]. It's not just the overall darkness, but general lack of colour which is striking to me. I think this is just an artistic style and the next stage of colour grading from the Teal & Orange[2] trends of a few years ago.

You get used to it when watching a programme and forget what full colour actually looks like. Watching old films, something like the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia[3] highlighted it for me, really shows how much colour has been drained from modern film & TV productions.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2023/great-expectations-ai...

[2] https://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-h...

[3] I think the recent remasters release may have some colour grading in too though, just looking at some scenes they are darker!

> You might have one thing measuring fuel burn rate in grams/second and another in kg/second.

One of my jobs is reporting on packaging weights[1] in the UK and it's not uncommon to have this problem when I request data.

For example we request in Kgs, but one manufacturer sent back the report table of numbers in grams. That meant the thin plastic sleeve a tube of paper coffee cups comes in was reported at 30Kgs rather than 30g.

These components are all taxed / levied at various stages in the supply chain so being out by a factor of 1,000 can make a significant difference - we sanity check all our data, but a surprising number of people don't. It's not life threatening, but expensive!

[1] It's for the UK packaging waste regulations and packaging taxes. For a case of paper coffee cups we report on the weight and materials of every component such as the cardboard outer box, labels, parcel tape, inner sleeve bags, paper in the cups and the plastic lining in the cups.

From what I've seen a major factor was the cladding manufacturer may have mislead architects regarding the validity of their testing and certification.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56101186

and

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56403431

> The BBA decided the evidence from the more successful European tests carried out on the Arconic cladding meant it "may be regarded" as having met the British standard. > > But the Board was never shown the class E ratings for the cassette version of the cladding and knew nothing about them until a BBC investigation in 2018. > > Arconic's president in France, Claude Schmidt, was forced to admit at the inquiry this would have "misled" anyone reading the certificate, including British architects.

> but no one seems to be acting on it

They've been widely available in the UK for a few years now and are also being looked at by the Government as part of a wider Vitamin D program.

https://www.tescoplc.com/news/2016/mushrooms-vitamin-d/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61392698

My wife has a vitamin / mineral problem and part of what I've found out is the Vitamin D you take is processed by the body into a Vitamin D it actually uses - they aren't the same. There could be a problem with how your body processes it so no amount of supplement will help your body to use it.

I can't remember the details, and don't want muddy the waters with misremember details, but think this is called Vitamin D 1.25. The doctor/hospital is able to inject you with this 'active' type your body can use if they feel it may help.

I feel that part of the problem fuelling fraud like this are reviews such as the three star one I've copied below. Given it corrupted files why did the person keep it and also still give it three stars.

3.0 out of 5 stars Good storage capacity

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 January 20231

Colour: Black-1Verified Purchase

While the storage capacity is good for the value I would only use this for small files as it corrupted any large video files I had, additionally, the transfer speed was quite slow (especially for USB 3.0) reaching speeds of up to 16mb/s and regularly dropping to 0mb/s, this is not a fault of my pc as other USB 3.0 devices can reach speeds of 80mb/s on my pc.

New regulations came in a few years ago to cover that. Hopefully anywhere serving rare burgers is diligent about their supply chain and kitchen processes.

https://catersafeconsultants.co.uk/new-regulations-rare-burg...

https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/f...

I'm fat and well into my 50s and agree. I can fairly easily not eat until lunchtime, it's later in the day when it becomes much harder to manage it all.

And yes, the famous "breakfast of champions" as it used to be known. I don't smoke either but do need several mugs of tea to get me through.

Slightly different environment, but my dad was a service engineer in the 1960-1980s mainly working on coin counting equipment. His workwear for customer sites was a white coat over his suit. That was fairly normal back then so probably kept to traditions in industry. I've nothing to add about the hat though.

I've not got a photo of him at work, but this is him wearing one of his old & dirty coats after he retired.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevecargill/52576937191/

A zero-zero seat means it can safely be used at zero speed and zero altitude. It needs to give enough height and separation to allow the parachute to open, not just get the pilot out of the aircraft.

As far as I'm aware all modern seats can do that. Earlier ones for example could eject at low altitude it there was enough air speed to open the chute and slow the pilot down before landing.

Regarding the other part of your question, I believe some seats can change direction dramatically in flight. For example if the aircraft is in a steep bank the seat can steer to give more height, but I don't know much about those.

https://martin-baker.com/about/ has some information about seats and their history.

edit : In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbMg2pQW924 you can just about see the seat begin to change angle from horizontal to vertical. It's very fast but does seem to be there.

That looks like a problem with the thrust balance. It pitches forward after the bounce, likely excessive aft thrust or loss of lift fan thrust, which damages the nose wheel.

Once on the ground at a jaunty angle the aft thrust spins it anti-clockwise, then it looks like some thrust transfers to the lift fan which spins it clockwise for a bit.

Quite a wild ride for the pilot, and a very good example of a zero-zero ejection seat doing its job.

We have about five HP 4200 printers in our office and I use genuine 38X toners which I think are rated at 12,000 pages.

When we get a Toner Low message it'll then do about 500 pages before it reports Toner Out, after that print will rapidly fade. We can probably scrape 1-200 pages on Toner Out, but it's not good enough quality to send out.

Basically their Low and Out warnings seem pretty accurate in my experience.

The UK has the plastic packaging tax already in force and the extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging coming into force on 01 January.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/plastic-packaging-...

[2] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-collect-your-packaging-da...

On a related note the Museum of Berkshire Aviation [1], about 30 miles west of London, has a Chevaline[2] reentry module. This includes a dummy warhead along with gyroscopes, decoy 'flares', and all the hydrazine pipes and steering systems.

It's fascinating to see close up, especially the quality of workmanship on it all.

They also have things like a Miles M.52 (1943 supersonic project) and a Fairey Jet Gyrodyne (jet exhaust from the rotor tips). It's a great little museum if you're ever in the area.

I've just uploaded some pictures from my visit [3]

[1] https://museumofberkshireaviation.co.uk/

[2] https://museumofberkshireaviation.co.uk/html/exhibits/cheval...

[3] https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevecargill/52524425464/in/al...

It's one that I know and flick through regularly. It covers the wider aspects of the packaging industry and has a good reputation for following what's going on.

The issue is primarily with sorting and contamination, such as different coloured bottles going on to the same batch meaning that resultant material won't be as clear. 10 years ago rPET containers were slightly foggy, but now it's virtually impossible to tell the difference by just looking - that's how far the infrastructure has come in a short period of time.

Have a look at https://egreen.co.uk/brochure/index.html#p=32 for an example of clear drinks cups made from 100% post consumer waste.

Polymers can degrade, but if it's well managed then generally not a problem and I think it can be recycled more times than paper. Each time that is processes the fibres are broken so it the strength is affected. The lowest grade is toilet tissue which has almost no strength compared to something like virgin Kraft with very long fibres.

One thing to consider is recycling is advancing at a phenomenal rate, what was the case five years ago may no longer be an issue.

That can be one use for it, however certainly in the UK most of the clear food packaging is made from rPET.

PP, usually ready meal and microwave trays, at the moment can't use recycled material and still be certified for food contact. I think much of that goes into things like traffic cones and building materials.

> And virtually all the plastic produced by Coca-Cola is 'new' plastic made from Crude Oil

Not in the UK. They've been using rPET[1] for some time and are now increasing the rPET content to 100% in their smaller bottles.

https://www.packagingnews.co.uk/news/environment/recycling/c...

> This milestone means Coca-Cola will have increased the amount of recycled plastic material in smaller bottles from 50% to 100%. Coca-Cola’s use of recycled plastics in Great Britain now saves 29,000 tonnes of virgin plastic each year – the equivalent of 2,292 double decker buses.

As is PET, the plastic drinks bottles are made from.

I'm not too far from you, there are quite a lot in the Iver area. One comes in and crosses the M25, then there is quite a lot of them between Iver Heath and Uxbridge.

I've been to Santa Pod in the UK a few times and the Top Fuel cars are in a league of their own, you really do know when they are running. Others have mentioned about the noise which is something very hard to describe in words.

You can walk around the pits and watch the crews doing a partial strip down of the engine for each run, although it's fundamentally basic V8 pushrod technology, it's far more than that.

There is a video [1] with a few slow motion clips of the preparation and running of a Top Fuel car. One poster mentioned a cameraman who stood between two cars, you can clearly see why that wasn't a good idea!!

Looking at how the tyres deform, not just at launch 2:00 but also at 2:50 it looks like they are a real limitation in acceleration. To help them off the line the launch area is really sticky, shoes melt into the 'tarmac'.

The 0-60 time, as with many really fast cars, doesn't tell the whole story of using their 10,000BHP to get to about 330MPH in about 4.5 seconds.

It's something I think you really need to go and see.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt6iltuxD48

> which required computer control to keep it stable.

I think most modern fighters are like than. The fly-by-wire isn't just an electronic control as with early developments, but basically tells the computer what you want to do and the computer then drives the control sequence to do what you ask.

https://www.eurofighter.com/advantages

> Eurofighter Typhoon has a foreplane delta design, which is inherently – and intentionally –aerodynamically unstable in subsonic flight. This was developed with experienced pilots to provide enhanced manoeuvrability while still being highly intuitive to fly.

> The instability in subsonic flight requires a complex flight control system to support the pilot as the computer systems can react more quickly at lower speeds. When Eurofighter Typhoon crosses into supersonic flight, the point of instability moves behind the centre of gravity, giving a stable aircraft for high performance flight.

> The advantages of an intentionally unstable design include greater agility at subsonic speeds as well as reduced drag and an overall increase in lift for enhanced short takeoff and landing (STOL) performance. Proposed engine enhancements such as vectored thrust will further boost the agility of the aircraft.

To add to the examples of the name is the 1950s Fairey Rotodyne[1], a hybrid aircraft-helicopter-gyrocopter with jet exhausts in the tips of the rotor blades.

There is a 1954 prototype[2] at the fabulous but small Museum of Berkshire Aviation near Reading, about 30 miles west of London.

[1] http://www.hmfriends.org.uk/faireyrotodyne.htm

[2] https://museumofberkshireaviation.co.uk/html/exhibits/gyrody...

That's really interesting. In the UK you can cross reference with the National Library of Scotland maps[1] which allows you to overlay quite a few different maps of an area over different time periods.

[1] London Kings Cross area with large rail yard to the north. By changing the transparency you can see things like ST Martins College and the new Coal Drops Yard development. The new British Library is also built over Somers Town Goods Depot.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=51.53529&lon=-0...

Our old cutlery is apparently Dubarry pattern (fairly similar to that linked below) which looks to be a very similar profile but less fancy than your Kings pattern. I much prefer using it over our newer Newton, see my other post in this thread for what I think about that one.

Off down the rabbit hole, https://www.antiquesilverspoons.co.uk/knowledge-center/all-a... seems to be more about the decorative pattern than the basic shape and balance.

[1] https://www.thesheffieldcutleryshop.co.uk/shop/new-dubarry-p...

> It's really very strange how awful a lot of cutlery is in terms of ergonomics

We've got the Amefa Newton[1] cutlery which I think is a good example of design over practicality. It's excellent quality,8mm forged 18/10 stainless steel, and a beautifully simplistic design which feels like it will [unfortunately] last for ever.

Having used it regularly, I'm sure they called it Newton because it continually reminds you of gravity each and every time you use it. They are so badly balanced, particularly the knives, having far too much weight in the handle. It's not too much of a problem using then, for they do work very well, but when clearing the table it's not uncommon for some pieces to fall off the plate handle first.

[1] https://www.lockhart.co.uk/Cutlery/Amefa-Cutlery/Newton-By-A...

We have had to increase prices, but on most things aren't maintaining the normal percentage margin. We've really trimmed down on some products, which is making it tricky because our operating costs are going up too.

Most people in the supply chain are doing the same, 'breathing in' and hoping we get through this mess.