The Night Mail

[Happy Hippo]

11 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

From what I've seen "twirl" might not be the correct term. It looks to more closely resemble the oscillatory action of windscreen wipers on high speed.

 

I think this is borne out by the fact that the waste product follows an omnidirectional path whereas a twirling motion would result in a more unidirectional distribution.

 

Anyway it seems like a good topic for further scientific research. I'm sure it would immediately receive funding. 

Would metrology be in the scientific mix?

[TheQ]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

All this talk of metrology makes me glad I've still got a decent 12 inch ruler.

As defined since 1958 as 304.8mm🙂

Edited April 10, 2023 by TheQ

[Oldddudders]

I have quite been expecting someone to say "I have 12 inches - but I don't use it as a rule"!

 

Life is full of disappointments. 

[Tony_S]

1 minute ago, Oldddudders said:

I have quite been expecting someone to say "I have 12 inches - but I don't use it as a rule"!

 

Life is full of disappointments. 

I was going to interrupt and ask “what’s afoot”. 

[Oldddudders]

Just now, Tony_S said:

I was going to interrupt and ask “what’s afoot”. 

I believe young people these days say "What's occurring?".

[Canal Digger]

7 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

how long is the coastline of Britain?

As you say almost impossible to say, how close to the cliff edge, how precisely you follow various headlands, how to choose where to cross a river etc, coastal erosion, ..... but you set me wondering so here goes:

• English Costal Path 2700 to 2800 miles depending upon source of information, so go for 2750 miles
• Welsh Costal Path 870 miles.
• The Scottish National Heritage estimated the total coastline length Scotland to be 6333 miles for a conference in 2010.  

Sum total 9953 miles

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, TheQ said:

As defined since 1958 as 304.8mm🙂

 

It was the yard rather than the foot that was defined, 1 yd = 0.9144 m; this was proposed in the 1940s and adopted in the UK by the Weights and Measures Act, 1963. The BSI had adopted an exactly equivalent definition 1 in = 25.4 mm in the 1930s.

 

14 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Would metrology be in the scientific mix?

 

Yes, certainly. There's some research to be done to establish the calibration of any instrumentation used. 

 

As a physicist, I would take as my starting point a simple model. I shall assume a spherical hippo emitting into 4 pi as a first approximation, adding the effect of any angular momentum as a perturbation.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Compound2632

[jamie92208]

But has anyone yet defined the tad and the gnats follicle. 

 

Jamie

[Compound2632]

Just now, jamie92208 said:

But has anyone yet defined the tad and the gnats follicle. 

 

https://www.npl.co.uk/si-prefix

[Oldddudders]

Ronnametre and the Quettagrams sounds like a cool singing group.

[BoD]

The Marx brothers are in there somewhere too.

[iL Dottore]

7 hours ago, br2975 said:

.…my mum put more emphasis on "make sure you have clean underpants, just in case you are rushed into hospital"

I’ve always wondered about that. I have no idea why mothers insist on offspring having clean underwear before going out.

 

Quite frankly, and speaking from the listening side of the stethoscope, when someone comes in, and they are broken up/blown up/stabbed/shot/crashed or in otherwise no fit state to be keeping up their reputation as a fashionista, the last thing on anyone’s mind is the state of the patients outer wear, inner wear or underwear.

 

Having said that, I do remember a young lady coming into our ER with a broken leg who was wearing very expensive and very tight jeans. She, at first, refused to let us cut the jeans off her, but a few gentle tugs on the bottom of her trousers soon convinced her that cutting off her designer jeans was the least worst options (I still have my paramedic bandage/clothing shears somewhere, with those I could get a patient stark naked and ready to be treated in two minutes or so [and, no, they were never used in a - ahem - civilian capacity]).

[bbishop]

A true story, before my time at Lord's.  A young lady, wearing a minidress, was helped into the treatment centre by her boyfriend having fallen off her high heels and twisted her ankle.  She initially refused treatment before the pain reached the stage that she confessed to the (female) treatment manager that she got her kicks by going to events without wearing any nether garments.  The manager turfed all the male first aiders out of the centre.

 

My medical scissors live with a razor in my defibrillator case.  Bill.

[Tony_S]

32 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

I’ve always wondered about that. I have no idea why mothers insist on offspring having clean underwear before going out.

Historical novels suggest it was a good idea if you were possibly going to be punctured by a musket ball. 

[iL Dottore]

Just now, Tony_S said:

Historical novels suggest it was a good idea if you were possibly going to be punctured by a musket ball. 

Quite true, musket balls and other projectiles would drive contaminated cloth (and other material) deep into the wound and if the gunshot/cannon shot/shrapnel splinter didn’t get you the ensuing infection would.

 

How that ties in with a skoolboy being told by mum to wear clean clothes is - for me - a bit of stretch.
 

Perhaps certain parts of the UK’s school system are a lot rougher than others 🤣

[New Haven Neil]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

But has anyone yet defined the tad and the gnats follicle. 

 

Jamie

 

No, but we have the Olympic Swimming Pool, Football Pitch, and at sea, the Metric Bucket Full.

[The Johnster]

12 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

No, but we have the Olympic Swimming Pool, Football Pitch, and at sea, the Metric Bucket Full.

 

Not to mention London buses, Nelson's Columns, Eifel Towers, Greater London, Oxfordshire and Wales, the last three having been seen over the last few years in the press as measurments for Antarctic icebergs/ice shelf broken-off fragments.  Shorter periods of time can be measured in Missisippis, and everything is subject to the standard UK measurement of two firkin (2 firkin long, 2 firkin heavy, etc).  The standard units of measurements for capacity in the sense of how many people can be fitted in one are minis and telephone boxes.

[PupCam]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

But has anyone yet defined the tad and the gnats follicle.

 

In my line of work the measurement had nothing to do with the size of a gnat's hair ...... 🤣

[br2975]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Quite true, musket balls and other projectiles would drive contaminated cloth (and other material) deep into the wound and if the gunshot/cannon shot/shrapnel splinter didn’t get you the ensuing infection would.

 

How that ties in with a skoolboy being told by mum to wear clean clothes is - for me - a bit of stretch.
 

Perhaps certain parts of the UK’s school system are a lot rougher than others 🤣

.

So you do know where I grew up !

[rockershovel]

I don't recall when I last saw a Gideon Bible in a hotel room, not that I look for them. 

[polybear]

28 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

I don't recall when I last saw a Gideon Bible in a hotel room, not that I look for them. 

 

Bear saw one just a few weeks ago - they were in the rooms at Missenden Abbey

[newbryford]

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

But has anyone yet defined the tad and the gnats follicle. 

 

Jamie

 

I don't work to thousandths of an inch, I work to "bob on"......

[pH]

9 hours ago, newbryford said:

I drove the motorhome over the Applecross bit …

Did it still have the “three point turn” corner on it?

[Winslow Boy]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Quite true, musket balls and other projectiles would drive contaminated cloth (and other material) deep into the wound and if the gunshot/cannon shot/shrapnel splinter didn’t get you the ensuing infection would.

 

How that ties in with a skoolboy being told by mum to wear clean clothes is - for me - a bit of stretch.
 

Perhaps certain parts of the UK’s school system are a lot rougher than others 🤣

 

And of course the clean handkerchief in case you needed to stem the bleeding.

 

Not certain what you were supposed to do if you had a dirty one, use the clean underwear?

 

Mores to the point how you were supposed to keep it clean r in the first place- have two one for accidents and the offer for .....?

[Winslow Boy]

2 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

No, but we have the Olympic Swimming Pool, Football Pitch, and at sea, the Metric Bucket Full.

 

Would that be the canvas one then?