The Night Mail

[DenysW]

53 minutes ago, AndyID said:

I refuse to discuss politics with anyone at the moment.

Not even the magnificent superiority of 4F tender engines over those pathetic little 3F tank engines that the misguided GWR insisted on perpetuating? Come on! Some politics is to the death.

[J. S. Bach]

1 hour ago, Willie Whizz said:

Sad to say, much of the history of the last hundred years or so suggests that the US Government mindset is that they are very happy to have a country as an ally as long as that country’s interests coincide with, or are willingly subservient to, or at least don’t actively conflict with those of the USA. Otherwise … you’re on your own, pal. 

I suspect that is true of many countries.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, DenysW said:

Not even the magnificent superiority of 4F tender engines over those pathetic little 3F tank engines that the misguided GWR insisted on perpetuating? Come on! Some politics is to the death.

 

Magnificently lumbering with coal trains, blocking the main line and having to be shunted aside to let proper trains get through, the crew having to remember to oil the poxy axle boxes before they started glowing....   Because the LMS(Midland) were such stick in the muds, even Stanier had to allow the construction (through gritted teeth) of a late batch as Operating wanted some more...

 

Something like that anyhow.  🙂

 

 

[Craigw]

2 hours ago, Willie Whizz said:

Sad to say, much of the history of the last hundred years or so suggests that the US Government mindset is that they are very happy to have a country as an ally as long as that country’s interests coincide with, or are willingly subservient to, or at least don’t actively conflict with those of the USA. Otherwise … you’re on your own, pal. 

 I can assure you that many Australians think the same of Great Britain too.

 

Every country has a large degree of self interest in their dealings with others, to shoot yourself in the foot and benefit others is rather pointless.

 

I agree with everything said about Stalin. I hold communists in the same contempt as I hold nazis.

 

 

Craig W

[Compound2632]

16 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Something like that anyhow.  🙂

 

Indoctrinated, what can one do?

[Hroth]

7 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Indoctrinated, what can one do?

 

You'll just have to grin and bear it, rather like a 4F axle box...

 

[Winslow Boy]

5 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

The other alternatives is to overwrite the data on the device with meaningless drivel. There are quite a few programmes out there which can do it for you. If you want physical destruction of the data, you can degauss all your equipment rather than smashing them up (degaussing, apparently, is considered a physical destruction

Not as satisfying as taking a lump hammer to said items though. Ask me how I know.

[Winslow Boy]

20 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

You'll just have to grin and bear it, rather like a 4F axle box...

 

Need a bigger oil can and more oil me thinks then. Sorry did I type that. Scary when your digits go rogue.

[rockershovel]

Great evening with the Olympics! Womens team winning a gold at the velodrome, Keeley Hodgkinson's gold and that amazing pole vault

[SM42]

26 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Great evening with the Olympics! Womens team winning a gold at the velodrome, Keeley Hodgkinson's gold and that amazing pole vault

 

If I can find any covrage it seems to be volleyball or a lot of yappimg whilst they wait for some Poles to compete in something. 

 

Big of a shame about the Skeet result though. 

 

We had a very good chance of gold there. 

 

Amber was robbed.

 

Andy

Edited August 5 by SM42

[Northmoor]

7 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

The other alternatives is to overwrite the data on the device with meaningless drivel. There are quite a few programmes out there which can do it for you. If you want physical destruction of the data, you can degauss all your equipment rather than smashing them up (degaussing, apparently, is considered a physical destruction

Perhaps I'll try that, using the electronic notes from the training courses attended during my years working as a management consultant.

[jjb1970]

4 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

I suspect that is true of many countries.

 

I have found three general truisms in every country I have visited:

 

-Countries act based on perceived self interest;

-People allow a generosity of interpretation to the acts of their own countries which is seldom extended to others; and

-Regardless of what people think of things in their own countries few like being told about it by outsiders.

 

The real issue is not that countries act out of self interest, but trying to figure out what that self interest is. 

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[AndyID]

Yippee! The new network file server did arrive today and it's now up and running. It's running in RAID1 mode. The the disk drives are mirror images of each other. Writing to disk is a bit slower but it's a lot more secure. Reading files is just about as fast as if they are on the PC's local hard drive. It can also be setup to save and serve files for remote PCs, tablets and phones over the Internet but I'm not sure I'll bother with that.

[rockershovel]

6 hours ago, SM42 said:

 

If I can find any covrage it seems to be volleyball or a lot of yappimg whilst they wait for some Poles to compete in something. 

 

Big of a shame about the Skeet result though. 

 

We had a very good chance of gold there. 

 

Amber was robbed.

 

Andy

H'mmm. I watched that and given that it was a shoot-off and that the other competitor undoubtedly hit her target, I thought it was about right. 

 

What I don't agree with, is the decision to use repechage. The problems with it are well known from other sports, from gambling to tactical play; isn't the Olympic motto "higher, faster, stronger" or something of the sort? 

Edited August 6 by rockershovel

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

H'mmm. I watched that and given that it was a shoot-off and that the other competitor undoubtedly hit her target, I thought it was about right. 

 

What I don't agree with, is the decision to use repechage. The problems with it are well known from other sports, from gambling to tactical play; isn't the Olympic motto "higher, faster, stronger" or something of the sort? 

I thought that was Mr Musks motto.

[Winslow Boy]

5 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

I have found three general truisms in every country I have visited:

 

-Countries act based on perceived self interest;

-People allow a generosity of interpretation to the acts of their own countries which is seldom extended to others; and

-Regardless of what people think of things in their own countries few like being told about it by outsiders.

 

The real issue is not that countries act out of self interest, but trying to figure out what that self interest is. 

I've found that a countries self interest changes depending on who is telling you it and that it can rapidly change.

[jjb1970]

16 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

I've found that a countries self interest changes depending on who is telling you it and that it can rapidly change.

 

That's a matter of perspective. As well as changing over time I suspect that the reasons which led to war in 1914 reflected the interests of some but probably not the men killed in vast numbers. I suspect that the co-incidence of interests of 'the state' as defined by the great and good and what really matters to the average person is quite low unless those people are convinced otherwise by clever information management.

Edited August 6 by jjb1970

[SM42]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

H'mmm. I watched that and given that it was a shoot-off and that the other competitor undoubtedly hit her target, I thought it was about right. 

 

What I don't agree with, is the decision to use repechage. The problems with it are well known from other sports, from gambling to tactical play; isn't the Olympic motto "higher, faster, stronger" or something of the sort? 

 

I'm intrigued as to why a hit and loss for both at stand 4 meant they didn't shoot stand 5 but went back to 4. 

 

I  find Skeet  a bit of a mind bender at the best of times, Olympic Skeet more so,  but everyone was expecting to shoot 5, moved to the stand and then they weren't and it was back to 4. 

 

Hard to get your mind back into the game after that. 

 

The question is did a piece break off the target. 

 

If the ref didn't see it then fair enough. It's hard to tell on the replay as I'm restricted to a phone screen. 

 

Personally I think if there was a video review they would probably still be shooting. 

 

Good result for team GB regardless. 

 

Andy

[polybear]

9 hours ago, SM42 said:

 

 

Big of a shame about the Skeet result though. 

 

We had a very good chance of gold there. 

 

Amber was robbed.

 

Andy

Was the winner French by any chance? 🤔

[SM42]

2 minutes ago, polybear said:

Was the winner French by any chance? 🤔

 

No, from Chile. 

 

Today I will be gardening. 

 

Well trimming a hedge, well the  unkempt bushes at the front of the in laws. 

 

A 10 minute job at best and 3 hours for a cup of coffee.

 

Yes I know I'm on holiday, allegedly. 

 

If there is time and it is running, I may get a ride on the Malta Lake Railway later.

 

Its been a good 10 years since I last bounced along it. 

 

Andy

[Compound2632]

10 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

You'll just have to grin and bear it, rather like a 4F axle box...

 

 

Nothing wrong with a 4F axlebox if properly lubricated - much like me.

[DenysW]

11 hours ago, Hroth said:

even Stanier had to allow the construction (through gritted teeth) of a late batch as Operating wanted some more...

This puzzled me until I realised that the impoverished LMS had similar Route Availability problems to the GWR, but not their simple, easy-to-understand, colour coded system (Score 1 for GWR). So LMS Operating will have wanted more 4Fs because they could boldly go where Black 5s feared to tread, were an LMS Standard Design, and Stanier couldn't be bothered to produce a new 4F design just for 40 engines at the same axle loading that wouldn't have been much of an improvement.

 

30 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Nothing wrong with a 4F axlebox if properly lubricated - much like me.

I believe, at least for the axle boxes, that that is a valid technical summary at normal operating speeds for slow goods trains.

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

 

I'm intrigued as to why a hit and loss for both at stand 4 meant they didn't shoot stand 5 but went back to 4. 

 

I  find Skeet  a bit of a mind bender at the best of times, Olympic Skeet more so,  but everyone was expecting to shoot 5, moved to the stand and then they weren't and it was back to 4. 

 

Hard to get your mind back into the game after that. 

 

The question is did a piece break off the target. 

 

If the ref didn't see it then fair enough. It's hard to tell on the replay as I'm restricted to a phone screen. 

 

Personally I think if there was a video review they would probably still be shooting. 

 

Good result for team GB regardless. 

 

Andy

I didn't understand the decision over the stands, but there's a great deal about the technicalities of minor Olympic sports that I don't understand, or indeed care about very much. 

 

 

I'm surprised that there wasn't a high-def slo-mo replay. So it goes. 

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, DenysW said:

 

I believe, at least for the axle boxes, that that is a valid technical summary at normal operating speeds for slow goods trains.

 

Also for me at slow operating speeds. The whole 4F axlebox mythology is blown out of proportion from an episode in the 1930s when the LMS tried skimping by using a lubricant of poorer quality than that for which the axleboxes had been designed. One reads no complaints of 4Fs in this respect in Terry Essery's Saltley Firing Days, describing working with these engines in the 1950s, though he did prefer 3Fs.