The Night Mail

[AndyID]

4 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

No need to be silly!  Elegoo have a soon-to-be-released FDM printer (the Orange-Storm Giga) -   at 800mmx800mmx1000mm build-size it  might just be big enough. 

 

AS is the case with every other 3D development, you can except Anycubic, Creality etc etc to follow suit at some point. 

 

I'd prefer one that's 1000x200x150mm.

[J. S. Bach]

5 hours ago, Northmoor said:

I did suggest at work today that if caught, their sentence should be to clean it all off.

With a toothbrush.

On an outside depot road.

In their underpants.

In February.

You are being way too generous.

[J. S. Bach]

5 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 ...snip...   at 800mmx800mmx1000mm build-size it  might just be big enough. ...snip...

31" x 31" x 39" does not sound all that large.

[J. S. Bach]

55 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

I'd prefer one that's 1000x200x150mm.

Make that 1000 x 200 x 200mm and I'd be right behind you.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[polybear]

6 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

 

Last Saturday (so its still easily available on iPlayer) the first edition of TG was re-broadcast on BBC Four.  The title music was the familiar tune, with stodgy graphics. It was then introduced by some bloke behind a desk, who rambled on a bit and then passed things over to Angela Rippon, without mentioning what the segment would be about.  Angela then did a piece while she drove her Capri down a motorway, rambling on about good and bad drivers, before pulling into a motorway services to interview a woman about the price of motorway meals.

 

At that point I gave up, it was so DULL. I'm surprised it lasted long enough to be rebooted by the CHM era!

 

 

Ah, but you were watching it all wrong....you should've had the sound on mute....

 

 

 

[iL Dottore]

Back at the Railway Museum in Saitama. Drove a train (may explain later) and got loads of snaps, including some of the beautiful ship models (ships owned by Railway Companies). Here's a taster....

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Hello all,

 

Ive been away from TNM for a while but as it is Spooky Season I figured I’d come back to haunt you all.

 

I decided to take a gap year after graduating highschool as I was not entirely sure what to do with myself. So far this has been pretty enjoyable, I’ve gotten myself a part time job as a machinist running an ancient Southbend 10 inch lathe (in the UK I believe it would be a 5 inch) and have been very busy rebuilding an ancient loco I “found” in a barn in Ohio. The link, it be below.

 

In other news, I’ve taken up cooking with vague frequency. At the moment I am trying to master bread, which is a lot harder than it looks. The current dryness of Oklahoma makes the yeast I use somewhat reluctant to inflate. I await the day it rains to see if that will make a difference.

 

Ive also gotten involved in some full size preservation. A group has been formed in Tulsa with the aim of restoring Dierks Forest 207, a 1916 built Baldwin 2-6-2. It is about a mile down the road from my house, plinthed at the fairgrounds like so many American engines. Currently we are working on repainting it, with the eventual goal to have it removed to a different site where restoration to running order will commence. As engines go she’s in a sorry state, and if the cylinders are oval we intend to find another engine to restore, possibly Frisco 4500 (Baldwin 4-8-4 express passenger, preserved on the other side of town).

 

That’s me in the brown pants standing on top of the boiler in between putting coats of black on the steam dome.

 

 

hope everyone is doing well,

 

Douglas

 

PS: a photo of the lathe I now operate at work. It’s in pretty terrible condition (I had to rebuild the compound slide) but has its merits. Definitely a big step up from my Rivett at home.

 

[iL Dottore]

@Florence Locomotive Works Welcome back, young Padawan. Learning to cook? The Force is strong in you!

 

What kind of yeast are you using? Lukewarm water and some sugar might help improve things.

 

Also have a go at one of various soda breads (which use sodium bicarbonate and an acidic compound - like buttermilk - to act as the raising agent). And unlike with yeast based bread, soda breads don't require much in the way of kneading!

[Florence Locomotive Works]

15 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

What kind of yeast are you using? Lukewarm water and some sugar might help improve things.

 

Currently just standard self activating yeast in granulated form. I’ve tried the water, it seems to work a little but I think the dough could rise some more. The sugar, now that is a good idea…..

[zarniwhoop]

16 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Currently just standard self activating yeast in granulated form. I’ve tried the water, it seems to work a little but I think the dough could rise some more. The sugar, now that is a good idea…..

You definitely need sugar for ordinary dried yeast. Start it in the warm (not hot!) water, let  it get active, then add the flour in stages (perhaps 200% hydration, mix, rise, 100% hydration, repeat, then add the salt, stir to try to stretch it (one of my Californian books said it should look "like taffy" which is perhaps more meaningful to you than to me), then add the rest of the flour. And the amount of hydration (I assume you are familiar with baker's percentages) varies with different flours.

 

I mostly bake wholemeal, my preferred flour is not particularly strong (American bread flours tend to be very strong), but even so I find that 66% hydration tends to be dry and does not rise as well as it could.

 

For baking, a spray of water before you put it in the oven, and (depending on your oven), bake covered for the first 15 minutes or more. Your countrymen are very fond of Dutch ovens, I use a metal (stainless steel, I think) mixing bowl warmed in the oven, then removed, put the sprayed loaf in and cover with the steel bowl.

 

But my oven is a Neff (the vowel a would be better in my opinion as a sometime baker) which tries to expel everything from inside the oven so that multiple dishes cooked at the same time do not conjoin their flavours. And once the steel bowl has been heated to between 230 and 250 degrees Celsius it will be blackened and only useful as a cover for baking loaves etc.

[bbishop]

6 hours ago, BR60103 said:

Please remember:  Do not stand to clap at the end of a Bruckner symphony or they might play it again.

Oh yes please.

Edited 1 hour ago by bbishop

[Dave Hunt]

10 hours ago, Chris Snowdon said:

My own experience is that VW's beepy-beepy bits are useful, but my only experience of automation was on a Volvo, and it scared me.

My 2011 VW Passat has automatic wipers and headlights plus ‘Blue Motion’ stop/start and automatic parking brake, all of which I find useful. Unlike other cars I have been in with automatic headlights, those in my car don’t stay on when the light levels rise again, e.g., when exiting a tunnel. When I first got it I must admit that I found the switch rather than a traditional handbrake a bit annoying but I soon got used to it. It also has cruise control, which I had on its predecessor, a 1986 BMW, but I seldom if ever use it.
 

Jill’s car is a 2016 Golf and in the years after my Passat was made VW ‘improved’ things by fitting so called ‘active’ cruise control, which I tried once and never repeated. At least it isn’t automatically engaged so you can choose not to have it activated. It also has a really annoying feature in the stop/start system whereby if the engine has turned off, as soon as the car in front of you (or even sometimes the one on front of that) moves it starts again. Thus, if you are in a traffic queue and the car in front moves even a foot, the engine starts again, which I find annoying. That feature can be disabled but as with other things people have referred to, it resets once you have shut down and has to be turned off again when the car is started. Since my experience with lane assist on the courtesy car I had recently, though, I thank the good Lord that neither of our cars has it.
 

I think that as others have stated here, you should actively drive a car and the more automation that is installed the result will be that drivers become less cognisant of what is happening around them with potentially bad results.

 

Dave

 

[Dave Hunt]

Good to see Florence (street) Locomotive Works back with us - a welcome injection of youth in TNM. Welcome once again Douglas.

 

Dave

[PhilJ W]

33 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

My 2011 VW Passat has automatic wipers and headlights plus ‘Blue Motion’ stop/start and automatic parking brake, all of which I find useful. Unlike other cars I have been in with automatic headlights, those in my car don’t stay on when the light levels rise again, e.g., when exiting a tunnel. 

I think that as others have stated here, you should actively drive a car and the more automation that is installed the result will be that drivers become less cognisant of what is happening around them with potentially bad results.

 

Dave

 

My car has automatic headlights. Yesterday, which was a bright sunny day I was heading west into a setting sun which cast very deep shadows. While I was in the shade waiting at some temporary traffic lights they came on. They stayed on for another mile or so as the road was still in the shade. 

[Hroth]

 

From what I've read recently, cars need to include all these "driver aids" to get a high NCAP rating.  This might explain why the manufacturers make "always on" the default setting, make it difficult to disable them and reset to default on restart.

 

I'm surprised that the folk who do aftermarket engine remapping don't supply a package to control driver aids too...