Steve44

On a related note there are documents called "Bills of Mortality" showing weekly deaths during the plague in London during 1665 ( the year before the Great Fire ) which list the causes. There some descriptions we'd recognise and other would be a surprise to die from these days, such as "Teeth" - 113 in the week of the linked image.

Having had a quick search the best seems to be from the Wellcome Collection.

https://wellcomecollection.org/images?query=Bills+of+Mortali...

and specifically the "Diseases and casualties 15-22 Aug. 1665 from London's dreadful visitation" page

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/r4cx4qgx/items

> seen their shipping from China to Europe quintuple

It's actually gone up about ten fold since the beginning of 2020.

For a long time a 40ft container from China to the UK was in the region of $1,500-$2,000. By about November 2020 that had increased to around $7,000 and then in January quotes were coming through of up to $16,000. I think it's been fairly stable in the $15,000 region for a few months now.

The last I heard this is expected to continue for several months.

Glad you enjoyed them, it was great for me remembering old memories about my dad too.

Yes sorry about Araldite, it's a common word for me.

As others have correctly said it's a two part epoxy glue, but it can do much more that just stick two surfaces together. It sticks to pretty much anything and also has volume so they don't need to be a perfect fit, it fills in the gaps so you can also repair things with chips missing. It's also long lasting and quite hardy to heat and water. Just make sure everything is in place when it sets!

Not quite typewriters, but my dad started working for Burroughs in the UK during the 1960s repairing their adding machines. They were the ones with blocks of every number and you'd press one digit in each column to select it and then perform the calculation. I don't remember those, but it was lots of levers to clean and adjust.

He then moved onto coin counting machines, this I do remember quite well. They were fully mechanical with a spinning disc, not too dissimilar to a meat slicer, and the coins would filter off and pass through a channel & mechanical counter into cloth bags. In most machines the coins would be pre-sorted, this would be bagging up say 200 coins per batch. The heavy cotton bags were then sealed with lead crimps. These machines were fully mechanical, every component could be swapped out and adjusted. [1] looks very much like the early ones I remember, but I knew the electric ones. These machines were full of rubber drive belts and micro switches.

Many things in our house were stored in those cotton bags, they were great and I’ve still got quite a few to this day. He also collected the used lead seals from them. Every year or so we’d smelt them down into lead bricks to sell for scrap. He built a 'blast furnace' in the garden powered by a 1950s cylinder Hoover, they sucked at one end and blew out the other! Image searching it looks similar to a ZA55 Electrolux [2].

Sometime in the late 1970s the machines changed and gradually became electronic. They had modules you just changed, the display unit was about the size of an A5 folder with a row of Nixie tubes along one edge; I had loads of dead modules to play with as a kid - if only I’d have kept them!

They then moved onto LED modules and with even fewer moving parts in the machine. It was about this time my dad retired, he was getting fed up with the job too. He didn’t want to be the engineer, yes he did wear a white coat over his suit for work, who just changed modules. He loved the mechanical and problem solving aspect of his work.

Slight diversion, but sometimes customers would place 'traps' for the engineers. He went to one place and found a coin in a place he knew a coin could never get to. He Araldited it back in the same place. When he left the owner asked "did you find any money in there" and my dad replied "if there was any in there, it's in the same place".

Another tale, a toll tunnel used their system and he was called in because it kept jamming. He worked through the problem but during that found a lot of coins 'lost' under the conveyor belt between the toll booths and the cash room. The curios thing is, for years the cash collected by the toll booths had exactly matched the cash counted…..

Sorry third one, when we had a telephone installed there should have been a 6-9 month waiting time, but because my dad serviced the machines which did the wages for a lot of companies we not only got one quickly, it was also on the priority repair list along with doctors. It was still a party line, we shared the phone line with the neighbour and had to press a button on the phone to 'claim' the line. If the office wanted to get in touch with him urgently, they would phone the customers they thought he was at that day.

I was also one of the first people in the UK to spend a £1 coin. Because my dad had to configure the machines he initially he had blanks but then had real coins. On the day they were launched he let me have some to spend, so I bought my breakfast at collage with them at about 08:30 on launch day. That was before banks opened so 'normal' people wouldn't have had access to them.

I know I’ve rambled, but this triggered some memories and I though to add them here and hope someone enjoyed reading. I will add this to my "family scrapbook" as I've not thought about these for years.

[1] https://www.catawiki.eu/l/16108097-icc-intercount-v2-bank-co...

[2] Sorry for deep link https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/FgoAAOSweFJfZjmg/s-l300.jpg

> They don't make the air fresher, they mask bad odors

I read a little while ago there are some which just add scent to mask the smell, but others have a doughnut shaped molecule which captures the smelly molecule. It doesn't 'clean' as such and does nothing to stop the source of the smell though so perhaps calling it masking is correct.

I don't know enough about the specific science of cyclodextrin, I've put a couple of links below.

https://www.direct365.co.uk/blog/how-air-fresheners-work/ > The key to odour eliminating air fresheners is a molecule called cyclodextrin. This is a donut shaped molecule suspended in a water carrier. Due to cyclodextrin’s hydrophobic interior, it attracts the odour molecules in the air. As the water dries, the molecules on the interior of the cyclodextrin are encapsulated inside, therefore reducing their volatility and minimising their smell.

https://helix.northwestern.edu/blog/2015/06/take-whiff-chemi... > When you spray Febreze the hydrophobic cavity of the β-cyclodextrin traps these volatile, odor causing molecules, preventing the molecules from binding to the odor receptors in your nose

I remember the Hobbit very well, it came in a large pack and included a full copy of the book. It was great to play and the language parsing felt way ahead of all the other games of the time. Playing it, you got a real feel that you were inside a real living environment, not just solving a sequence of steps to complete it.

The illustrations were slow but comparable with the computer speed and we marvelled at the sheer number of them in the game. I think they used guts of an internal tool that later became Melbourne Draw, also by Philip Mitchell, which was controlled by commands rather than just storing a bitmap. This meant each image could be stored in just a few bytes.

At one of the computer shows I went to, probably Earls Court in 1984, Melbourne House had the animated film of the Hobbit continually running in a ‘tent’ on one of their stands. It was always packed in there and I’m fairly sure the air was thick with rather aromatic smoke, this was back in the days when indoor smoking was allowed.

Melbourne House set up a UK development team about that time based in Richmond, West London. The Australian team were Beam Software and the UK ones called Studio B, Melbourne House remained the publisher.

In the article it talks about assembler as if it’s some kind of magic voodoo. It was cumbersome with few development tools and very little in the way of real time debugging, but was very satisfying producing not only the game but optimising for size and speed. Almost all of the video games were written in assembler back then. There were a few games written in BASIC but it wasn’t for a while before high level languages because mainstream.

This is just an analysis of some cups on a campus in India so I agree that it's interesting and worth looking at but possibly not directly comparable with products which meet EU / UK / USA food contact regulations.

Sample B seems to have vastly mode copper and manganese leaching out than the other samples.

Do you know how your reusable one compares to these PE lined paper ones?

If it's one of the recently trendy 'bamboo' cups, I'm fairly certain most of them are made of predominately with melamine.

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/reusable-bamboo-mugs-lea...

> Overall, the BfR tested 228 bamboo mugs for formaldehyde and 180 for melamine. In each case, more than 35% of the cups released harmful substances in amounts that surpassed safety limits. Moreover, the amount of melamine – but not formaldehyde – the mugs released increased with repeated exposure to hot and slightly acidic liquids.

> You act like I invented the custom

I think you've misunderstood, it was I don't think there should be a product which encourages littering. We have paper plates, paper bags, paper napkins which when littered will 'vanish' in probably a few weeks. They are still a litter problem even though they eventually disappear.

It doesn't need to be an ICBM, it could be in a shipping container or a fishing boat. They just sail right into position.

It's not the recycling, it's the sending them back through the same supply chain that would be the problem.

> And the reverse supply chains to get containers back to producers put in place.

That isn't as straightforward as it seems, they are returning what is a contaminated waste product. That needs to be kept very separate from the clean food-grade food & packaging deliveries, you can't just chuck a bag of waste in the delivery vehicles.

KFC trialled an edible cup in 2015 here in the UK. I don't think it took off, more of a gimmick in this form but quite an interesting experiment.

https://metro.co.uk/2015/02/25/kfc-unveils-the-uks-first-edi...

I've had a quick look at those bags. They seem to do two types, one has an Oxo-degradable additive which is currently being banned in the EU[1] because all it does is break the bag down into microplastics. The visible litter problem may be reduced but it's not a good solution to anything.

Their other bags, the light green ones, are only industrial compostable. They will stay as a plastic bag unless they go down the correct waste stream.

People leaving their dog poo bags has been a problem for years, in the UK they are know as Dog Poo Trees and are disgusting.

[1] https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/wrap-caught-up-...

> When you're done you smash the cup on the road when you're done.

Why would you ever want to encourage people to litter. We need to encourage people to be responsible and dispose of their waste correctly.

In the UK we have the capability[1][2] to recycle all the traditional PE lined coffee cups we use here.

There are also quite a few collection services[3][4]. One of the challenges is separating the waste ready for recycling so having collection points in cafes, offices, and railway stations[5] is a really good start.

There are also some new cups with reduce the amount of plastic in a cup so that it's below the 5% contamination level fr general paper recycling. Personally I think this is not a solution as it's just gaming the system buy encouraging contamination of the waste stream.

[1] https://www.dssmith.com/recycling/insights/case-studies/case...

[2] https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/james-cropper-paper-m...

[3] https://thefirstmile.co.uk/service/coffee-cup-recycling

[4] https://www.veolia.co.uk/services/coffee-cup-recycling

[5] https://www.networkrail.co.uk/news/network-rail-introduces-c...

The EU 1999 Landfill Directive is about the phase-out of biodegradable waste going to landfill. Nothing which composts or biodegrades should be disposed of this way.

These cups should not go in this waste stream, the only end of life is commercial composting as I don't believe they are suitable for home composting.

https://www.ciwm.co.uk/ciwm/knowledge/landfill-directive.asp...

The current PE lined cups will also leak after some time. They are designed for immediate use, not as liquid storage containers. Most of them, especially the higher quality ones, will usually last a day or two before significantly leaking but not always. Don't leave one on your desk overnight, I've seen the messy results!

This clicked with me when I watched The Brain with David Eagleman [1] on BBC a little while ago. I've always know there is a disconnect between reality and what you interpret but the way he described it stuck. Note this is my layman's way of describing how I understand it.

Firstly your eyes are not connected directly to your "brain". You don't see what is in front of you.

Your eyes write a rough scan of elements of what is in front of you to a "frame buffer". Your brain looks at this "frame buffer" and interprets what it thinks you are seeing. At this stage it can fill in blanks and do all sorts of manipulations to make it look smooth and complete.

What can also happen is your brain can write to this "frame buffer", this is indistinguishable from the information the eyes have put there. This is pretty much how psychosis works - those monsters/spiders/people/objects seem as real as if they are there.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06yjrdp

I was taught a long time ago that it's the act of jotting down notes which helps you to remember things. Yes you can always refer back to them, but there is something about the action of physically doing it strengthens the memory retention.

I'm fairly sure that the feeling was typing notes didn't have as strong an affect on retention, the notes needed to be physically written.

Another anecdote. When I was 19 I did a quick conversion job for a company. I'd take an early train down on a Monday morning, worked about 20 hours a day with just a quick nap each night on the reception sofa, and then a train home of Friday. I did that for two weeks, I was shattered but got through it OK.

Regarding the self-care document, I'd never heard of acetaminophen before so had to look it up but perhaps medical people know the term? I'd half guesses by seeing the precautions though.

In the UK it's generally called Paracetamol and is in a lot of over-the-counter medicine.

I know this is London only but they are changing over. I think generally the busses have a ten year life and more will be changing as time goes on.

"London’s electric bus fleet becomes the largest in Europe" https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2019/septem...

> Does anyone know how it is in the UK wrt heating with fossil fuels? Is there a ban on the horizon there too?

There was a planned ban on gas heating for new build houses from 2025[1] announced last year.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47559920

There was a famous 'gaff' by commentator Ted Lowe, who said: "Steve is going for the pink ball - and for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green."

His tomb is quite spectacular, it's based on a Bedouin tent and is in a small Churchyard in Mortlake, not far from Richmond in West London.

https://www.london-walking-tours.co.uk/secret-london/sir-ric...

http://burtoniana.org/tomb/index.html

About 20 years ago I was following a friend in a car and we ended up a few cars apart. I called his mobile and just said “which way are we going at the roundabout”. The person on the other end was very confused, it wasn’t my friend but the car directly in front of me. I’ve no idea how that happened but was incredibly bizarre and I think the other driver was more freaked out than I was.

Just a guess, but perhaps the only other map users had pulled over to the side and stopped. Google may have interpreted that as a traffic jam and you didn’t see them. I’m not arguing a point, it’s just a thought as to how that may happen.

I’ve never used Wayz so can’t compare but quite a few other comments note how aggressive Wayz is at re-routing.

At points where there are multiple route options it will indicate how many minutes faster or slower each option is.

> The main difference between Waze and Google Maps is that Waze uses real time traffic data.

Google Maps has real time traffic data and the accuracy is staggering. I occasionally use Google Maps for navigation in the car and it even highlights traffic stationary at traffic lights and temporary road works as I’m approaching.

This level or real time detail really amazed me. I’ve not spent any time looking onto how they do it but assume they are continually tracking everyone with a phone, or at least running Google Maps Navigation, and using their real time location and speed.