Steve44

I can put some perspective on how this is affecting prices.

I work for a food-2-go supplies business, we sell packaging to coffee shops and the like. Most of our products are UK made and although we don’t directly import anything a few of our suppliers do.

An example is one 40ft container will hold about 750 cases of 500 x 12oz double walled paper coffee cups, in 2019 would cost us about 30GBP per case wholesale delivered to our UK warehouse.

To ship a 40ft container from China into the UK pre COVID was around $1500-$2000. It started rising as COVID hit (for quite a wide number of reasons all combined) and last year it was peaking at $25,000, most of the year is seemed to be about $20,000. It has dropped over the recent few months,as the article says, but is still very high.

At $2,000 shipping per 750 cases out of the £30 cost that’s about $2.66 / £2.30 per case in container shipping costs. At the peak it worked out to be about $33 / £29 per case. You can see that doubled the UK landed price of the product and so our costs rocketed up.

> Chay Blyth

That's a name I recognise, he's pretty famous now.

https://chayblyth.com/ and also https://www.yachtingmonthly.com/cruising-life/chay-blyth-50-...

> Sir Chay Blyth is known to many as the first person to sail non-stop, “the wrong way” round the world. This however is only one of his many achievements. Since 1966 when he and John Ridgway rowed across the Atlantic, Chay has been pushing the boundaries again and again in sailing, and in business. He has been awarded the BEM and CBE, and is an inspiration to many.

I think the Erdinger Alkoholfrei 0.4% wheat beer is one of the best and that should be widely available in the EU.

I've recently tried Lucky Saint Unfiltered Alcohol Free Lager which again is quite good and I think may be available.

I disagree that it does not enhance the flavours, it is quite a significant factor IMHO.

Regarding it tasting like poison, I can't really comment on that other than to say I would think many people have a similar initial reaction to coffee or chilli for example. They bombard the senses and until you attune yourself in to them can be quite overwhelming.

If you go on any exclusion diet then I'd expect foods you're no longer accustomed to would affect you. I suspect that if a committed vegan were to eat a steak then they would have a variety of both mental and biological reactions.

Regarding your comment about removing carbs being the diet we evolved with, I always presumed that we had always eaten fruit and vegetables. Grains didn't become a significant part of our diet though until about 4,000 years ago with the introduction of bronze age agriculture.

There also seems to be what appears fairly solid evidence that animals, including humans, have sought out fermented fruit, about 1-3% alcohol, for millions of years. Wouldn't that be something we evolved on too?

> The hangover is your body telling you you did something not entirely healthy. You might want to listen to it

Does that also apply to people who drive themselves to the limit in sports? For example many people who do marathons or Iron Man events will feel rough and likely have blisters and bruises for several days. Some people doing sports end up in hospital as a direct result.

Should they listen to the pain of their body and not push themselves?

[I'm saying this as Devil's advocate) to raise a point about your logic, not judging the health issues of hangovers vs exhaustion, blisters, and damaged joints etc]

One thing I've not seen mentioned in this thread is the enjoyment you can get from the wide expanse of flavours & mouthfeels of different alcoholic drinks. Most of the comments seem to be focussed on people drinking either to help with social anxiety or just to blot the world out, or as one poster put it "to dissociate with reality".

I really love exploring different drinks, mainly beers and spirits although I do still enjoy some wine. There is such a wide array available, it's a wonderful 'hobby'.

With cask beers you get the initial mouthfeel of what I think is the live yeast coupled with some natural carbonation; it's not at all like a gassy fizzy drink more like a gentle tingling over the mouth. Some beers then deliver 10-30 seconds of different malt flavours with some being very biscuity or others more chocolaty. There can then the several waves of hops coming over depending how it's brewed. With one mouthful you get to enjoy and savour all those flavours and textures for a good minute with a lingering taste lasting much longer, they ebb and flow like a roller-coaster.

Spirits and cocktails are the same, the depths of flavours can be absolutely wonderful. A well balanced Negroni for example can be a very complex drink.

I've found some alcohol free drinks than can be built up to be a little interesting, but nothing comes close for the expanse and depth. I presume that the alcohol is volatile and is a key part of driving the other flavours, perhaps in a similar way to salt is a flavour enhancer.

I think there is quite a difference though in the lifecycle between glass & aluminium. Glass can work when it's local and smaller producers, but on large scale production and national distribution it can introduce several problems.

Glass is competitively heavy and thick so adds to transport requirements. It also can't [generally] be made on site, unlike cans which are generally formed in the food factory for larger scale producers.

There is also breakages to consider. Modern 'bottling' plants move at an incredible speed and where glass is fragile any chips or breakages can shut the line down for cleaning; shards of glass are nasty to get in your drink. There is also transport, rough handling is much more likely to break glass bottles than burst cans, the cleanup is also easier with cans, and as glass weighs more it also adds to handling costs. This also applies to recycling, a bottle takes up much more space in your recycling bin than a bottle does.

Personally I too prefer glass, but once you get beyond extremely local small scale production the considerations change dramatically.

OK, fair enough. It was just something I was pondering.

> Those compostable fiber salad bowls are up to 25% PFAS

Do you have a source for that? I work with these and as far as I'm aware they are made with bagasse[1] and are not coated. The hard surface comes from pressure and heat.

Even in standard PE lined paper coffee cups the plastic is only 3-4& by weight, the rest being virgin paperboard.

Some of the board products, like the take-away containers and "plastic free" paper coffee cups use an aqueous dispersion coating. The manufacturers are generally quite cagey about what's in it because it's commercially sensitive, but they are all certified for direct food contact.

[1] It's a by-product of sugar cane.

Is there a chance you are sensitive to the sodium part of MSG?

I believe that, in addition to the blood pressure issues some people have, some react quite strongly to higher salt levels in food.

The Chinook helicopter synchronises both sets of rotor blades too, they are both driven from the same drive shaft.

https://chinook-helicopter.com/standards/areas/drive_train.h... covers the gearboxes and driveshafts with https://www.chinook-helicopter.com/standards/areas/blade.htm... covering the rotor blades.

Thanks you. Yes I think we looked at that but it doesn't seem a good enough fit and also not anything the consultants have brought up.

Thanks for that, it's certainly something we can take into account. Her D3 was low a few years ago but is now well into the normal range, B12 is fine, I can't see B1 or lactate on any of the blood test results.

We'll keep all this in mind, I appreciate all the information as it helps putting the whole picture together. Cheers.

That's really interesting thank you very much. I presume my leaching comment was a drastic oversimplification of how the nutrients are processed/diverted and shows my complete lack of knowledge in this field.

Looking online we're not seeing any lumpy thrombophlebitis, but there is a possibility marks on the legs are similar to what seems to be referred to as Superficial Thrombophlebitis. I don't recall any of the doctors mentioning that but perhaps that's not something they are too worried about at this stage.

> causing a gradual quality decline of patient's life through months/years.

She's currently getting noticeably worse over a few weeks, including breathing, and we are doing what we can to expedite the diagnosis and hopeful treatment.

> If you are interested in details then let me know and I will provide the framework for a protocol.

Yes please, that's very kind and I am interested in trying to understand what's going on within my bounds.

Email sent.

She was being treated for osteoporosis but as that was settling down her muscle spasms were getting worse. We had assumed they were related to the osteoporosis and so hadn't discussed much about them until the bones had 'healed', the endocrinologist wasn't that aware that they were becoming a problem. She started looking into Hyperparathyroidism as a possibly cause.

As that was progressing slowly we went privately to see a consultant neurologist; he examined her and looking at things like jaw strength concluded it was metabolic myopathy related to a problem with the muscle cells and phosphate. He said he'd only seen it a couple of times before and it's very rare and not surprising it hadn't been picked up earlier. We're now going in for muscle tests, DNA tests, and all sorts to try and identify what is wrong and how/if it can be fixed.

The thought is her osteoporosis was likely caused by the cells leaching nutrients from the bones as they couldn't get them normally, that has been stabilised by traditional Alendronic acid, calcium, and Vit.D.

I think the 1962 photograph[1] of an English Electric Lightning about to crash illustrates that point pretty well.

[1] https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-story-behind-a-famous-ph...

My wife was recently diagnosed with metabolic myopathy and they ( NHS in the UK) are currently trying to identify what actual problem is; so far it's something to do with ATP and Phosphates affecting how the muscles convert fuel into energy I believe.

My chemistry and biology knowledge are fairly limited, but I di like to understand things and so started looking into this and found [1]. For my level of knowledge I feel it gave a great balance between what I could understand whilst also showing how incredibly complex human chemistry is.

There is currently a related discussion here in "A physical wiring diagram for the human immune system" / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32381790 but the link to biochemical-pathways.com is way over my head.

I found that BBC link useful and thought others may do as it's related but simple.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z2vbb9q/revision/1

There was a ship moored on the Thames in London for a few years painted in a modern interpretation of Dazzle. Sadly it was only there for a few years, I used to love seeing it.

https://www.1418now.org.uk/commissions/dazzle-ship-london-2/

> The HMS President (1918), one of only three surviving Royal Navy warships from the First World War, was ‘dazzled’ by the German sculptor Tobias Rehberger. One of the most respected European artists of his generation, Rehberger is a German sculptor whose work blurs the boundaries between design, sculpture, furniture-making and installation.

and https://www.flickr.com/photos/royreed/18228263075

I watched a documentary a little while ago which described the sound as a constant drum-roll during these barrages.

I don't have sound at the moment but think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hscEoupkqv4 is something similar. The scale of these attacks is mind boggling.

> A barrage like this is referred to as "drumfire" by veterans to describe artillery that is so constant, unceasing and uninterrupted, that it sounds like drums. Others say that it sounded almost like a sea. It is agreed that it was impossible to hear individual shells, due to the sheer amount being fired.

>

> A video to describe the sheer scale of WW1 artillery barrages and how they may have sounded. It may also help to convey the experience of shell shock (PTSD) a WW1 soldier may have developed. Although this video pretends to be the experience of an artillery barrage, a true artillery barrage especially on this scale cannot ever be felt in the same way through a demonstration as the world would shatter, pressure and concussive forces would be felt throughout the entire body with each blast, and the noise would be so extremely violent and loud that anyone would have their ear drums ruptured.

One thing that makes it worse from inside the car is going from bright sunshine into quite dark shade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJdQ5wtWqZU is doing a show run, but you get some idea of how little you can see from inside the car. I know the eyes are better than the camera, but even so it's quite a ride.

The Goodwood estate holds another event later in the year, it's a retro vintage weekend at the racing circuit called Goodwood Revival. They race priceless vintage cars and most of them are raced very hard and occasionally some do crash.

Have a look on photo / video sites for "goodwood revival crashes" to get an idea. It's a fantastic weekend and seeing these old classics doing what they were designed for is wonderful.

When I was watching the run I presumed he was keeping to the centre of the track to ensure the fan didn't lose suction and reduce the downforce. It relies on a constant smooth surface, so crossing the edge of the tarmac and especially going onto the grass would undoubtable reduce that.

There is also the mast on the Royal Navy land based training base, HMS Ganges.

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

In the UK it's called Inheritance Tax and is basically a 40% tax on your estate when you die. They add up everything, the house, vehicles, savings & shares, artworks and that is then taxable at 40% in most situations. This means generally you have to sell a lot of things to inherit anything valuable from your parents.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/inheritance-tax

> Inheritance Tax is a tax on the estate (the property, money and possessions) of someone who’s died. > > There’s normally no Inheritance Tax to pay if either: > > the value of your estate is below the £325,000 threshold > > you leave everything above the £325,000 threshold to your spouse, civil partner, a charity or a community amateur sports club

> which would mess with the vertical-blanking signal in a way that wasn't particularly noticeable on playback, but would mess with VHS recording

On a related note, one of the copy protection systems I put on some Sinclair Spectrum cassette games involved changing the baud rate part way through loading.

It was over 35 years ago so the details are hazy, but I had a custom "master maker" to play the audio[1] and at a specific byte count would change the frequency. The mastering and duplication machines coped with it fine and the loader was written to expect it, but it threw out most home tape to tape systems for reasons I can't exactly remember.

[1] These were usually recorded directly from the Spectrum onto 2 inch reel to reel tapes in a studio, that was then used as the master at the duplicators.

You are left pondering if you're a little confused and/or unsure about something.

"I ordered lunch for my parents as they spent too long pondering over the menu and wouldn't make a decision."

Quick edit : I've heard of "over the pond" to mean the other side of the Atlantic, but never heard the phrase "left ponder" at all, let alone to refer to Americans.

> the first submarine named Nautilus dates to 1800

It's possibly not what we'd call a submarine today but the first recorded use of one in warfare is from 1776.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/worlds-first-sub...

> On September 7, 1776, during the Revolutionary War, the American submersible craft Turtle attempts to attach a time bomb to the hull of British Admiral Richard Howe’s flagship Eagle in New York Harbor. It was the first use of a submarine in warfare. > > Submarines were first built by Dutch inventor Cornelius van Drebel in the early 17th century, but it was not until 150 years later that they were first used in naval combat

The 1926 BMJ letters page [1] has correspondence discussing what they thought it was. Nothing specifically medical, but something coming up into the throat and quite possibly croup[2]. For a butcher Lights are generally animal lungs, but the 'cure' was taking a small amount of lead shot or mercury to stop the lights rising.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2523749/pdf/brm...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croup which is now tackled with vaccines and modern medicine.