Early Risers.

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, pH said:

I know of an oil industry structure which was built in two parts - upper and lower. The parts were built in different countries and then joined. One part was built in imperial, the other in SI units. An interface section was needed to connect the two parts.

The most infamous example is the Mars Climate Orbiter which was lost to gravity due to a bad SI/Imperial unit design interface.

 

Wikipedia

Quote

The primary cause of this discrepancy was that one piece of ground software supplied by Lockheed Martin produced results in a United States customary unit, contrary to its Software Interface Specification (SIS), while a second system, supplied by NASA, expected those results to be in SI units, in accordance with the SIS. Specifically, software that calculated the total impulse produced by thruster firings produced results in pound-force seconds. The trajectory calculation software then used these results – expected to be in newton seconds (incorrect by a factor of 4.45) – to update the predicted position of the spacecraft.

It is inconceivable that in the late 20th century an engineer would design in "Pound force seconds" in orbital controls.

[tigerburnie]

Evening all, another quiet sort of day, morning dossing about, afternoon out with the camera on top of 300-400 foot(I'm a steam man so remain in imperial) cliffs photographing nesting sea birds. Bit of muddling doing some more ballasting, then tea. Phone call from an old pal in Leicester, you're not going to believe this he said, but another old pal from our days in the Kamikaze motor cycle stunt team passed away on holiday, his funeral is an hour before my old band mates, at the same crematorium, next week, what a carry on.

G'night all. 

[Barry O]

Goodnight all!

Baz

[Dave Hunt]

Just learned that SWMBO's cousin, with whom she was very close and who was a lovely person, died today. Feel gutted so will just say good night.

 

Dave

[roundhouse]

Good afternoon from a cool but sunny Portland.

 

Had a good evening a couple of days ago with Andrew C's brother in Corvallis. He was saying how pleasant that university town is but today they had an active shooter. Luckily hes been caught so all safe there.

 

On the dive to Portland an old herse passed us with 'you are next' written on the rear doors. Certainly 'makes Portland weird'

 

Now sitting in Horsebrass pub which has a very English feel and a great sign on the inside of the doors. It even has half a dozen cask ales all generally locally brewed. I did ask was there a connection with the Running Horse pub in Leatherhead as there is a photo of this pub in the food menu but the barman wasn't aware of such. The previous owner died a few years back but its still much the same.

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

I had quite a busy morning, I got the apples ready for peeling and then realised I didn’t have any lemons. So I walked to Sainsbury’s to get some, I also picked up the latest copy of RM. On my way back home I called into our local bookshop to enquire after an order I placed a few weeks ago. Once home I carried on making the apple crumble and custard. Once I’d finished that I did all the vegetables for tonight’s tea then I sat and read RM magazine until dinner.

 

Ian dropped the kids off after school and they all enjoyed tea, especially the apple crumble, not a drop was left! Ian came round early to pick them all up, as they are all have a part in the school end of year production. We then followed a few minutes later to watch it. Now I’ll admit I’m not usually a fan of school productions, but tonight I was pleasantly surprised, it was very good and all the children who took part deservedly got a standing ovation. 

 

Once we’d returned home, I watered some of the plants and then poured myself a bottle of Doombar. 

 

Goodnight all 

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[AndyID]

2 hours ago, pH said:

 

If it's the one I'm thinking of, I lived kitty-corner (there's a good North American expression!) across the railway from their works for my first six years.

 

It's the one where the Keep Left islands on the main road were mounted on steel plates so they could be removed to allow enormous loads from the works to pass. Also a short walk from the house where I was born and not far from my dad's chemist shop.

[AndyID]

5 hours ago, AndyID said:

What is it with ERs and knees? The waters on my knee have failed to subside so I thought I better talk to my doc to find out what options I have, if any.

 

Phoned for an appointment at 10:30. "Can you come in at 2:15?"

 

Yes, I know. Bad form to quote your own posts, but:

 

Back from doc. The X-rays indicate the cartilage on one side is buqqered-up (as in "not there"). The doc has ordered an MRI and referred me to a tree knee surgeon.

[AndyID]

As we approach the 50th Anniversary:

 

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/why-apollo-11-moon-landing-conspiracy-theories-endured-080331958--abc-news-topstories.html

[AndyID]

3 hours ago, BSW01 said:

So I walked to Sainsbury’s to get some, I also picked up the latest copy of RM.

 

That gave me a flashback. About sixty years ago, on my way home from school, I passed a little confectioner/newsagent shop owned by a very nice lady. In the window there was something called "The Railway Modeller". I'd never seen one before but I was immediately entranced.

[roundhouse]

My first Railway Modeller mag was in 1978.

Thats lifetime ago.

 

Coincidentally listening to Prince music in a bar - thats also from a longtime ago. We used to alter the words from Little Red Corvette to Little Red Chevette as an ex schoolfriend had a red Chevette as his first car.

Edited July 19, 2019 by roundhouse

[AndyID]

1 hour ago, roundhouse said:

My first Railway Modeller mag was in 1978.

Thats lifetime ago.

 

Coincidentally listening to Prince music in a bar - thats also from a longtime ago. We used to alter the words from Little Red Corvette to Little Red Chevette as an ex schoolfriend had a red Chevette as his first car.

 

I think mine was 1959. IIRC there was a Baltic tank on the front cover. I never knew such things existed. Unfortunately I gave all my RMs to a lad across the street.

 

An engineer I persuaded to come to Phoenix bought a Chevette. When they were going for lunch his work-mates used to take the whizz. "Alastair, can we take the Vette?"

[AndyID]

6 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

The coulomb, symbol C, is the SI unit of electric charge. Accept no substitutes.

 

Except that it's a convenient unit derived from more fundamental units, so it's not strictly necessary.

[sb67]

2 hours ago, roundhouse said:

My first Railway Modeller mag was in 1978.

Thats lifetime ago.

 

 

I've still got mine, it was August 80 and I was enthralled by Ian Futers Lochside, weathered blue diesels and all! 

Steve.

[Robert]

Morning All,

 

It's a damp morning in this part of the world. 

 

My first Railway Modeller was sometime in the 80s - but I don't have any from that era anymore.  I started reading it again in around 2002 and have the editions on the CDs produced by Peco up until 2010 when they went over to the digital subscription.  I now subscribe to the digital edition because having the magazine sent from the UK was getting more expensive and more unreliable.

 

Concerning imperial units - that's is actually one of my beefs with Railway Modeller why, oh why, oh why can't they quote dimensions and measurements in Metric as well?  Now, I accept that some people prefer imperial units, and that's fine, but I'm not one of them.  I learnt the metric system at school and given that I am in my mid 40s that must be the same for a lot of people.  Say 1.5 Metres and I can picture it, say 4'11 and I have to convert it (unless it's something easy).

 

Have a good day everyone...

Edited July 19, 2019 by Robert

[chrisf]

Good morning one and all, with warm thoughts to all in distress.

 

Good news: I have hot water again and will have a cooked breakfast.  Gus the gas technician spent six hours here yesterday installing new piping to bypass a leak.  So far so good.  A hot bath will be so nice.

 

Bad news: my broadband connection is no more reliable despite the two hours of hard work put in by the guy from BT Openreach yesterday morning.  At least I got him to come.  It now apppears that my router is faulty and with any luck a new one is on the way.  My mobile does not appear to like BT Mail and the guy in the phone shop could not fix it.  More contact with BT, oh joy.  Then at teatime yesterday my landline went down.  BT are due to call me back today about the mobile mail issue, on my landline naturally.  Will they have the gumption to use my mobile number or must I be proactive again?  To fix the landline I am threatened with yet another engineer on Monday.  Overnight BT turned off my broadband backup.  Don't they talk to one another?  Silly question.

 

More bad news: the hotel fire at Cribbs Causeway on Wednesday.  Guess where I stayed over the weekend?

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, AndyID said:

 

Except that it's a convenient unit derived from more fundamental units, so it's not strictly necessary.

 

A derived unit. To some extent the choice of which units are base units and which are derived is a matter of history and convenience. 

[TheQ]

14 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

 

I often wonder when we can throw off the yoke of the old units, particularly in the US. I find it ironic that a country that enthusiastically celebrates it's separation from Britain every July, cleaves so tightly to antique British measures. Nor does it help that Imperial liquid measures are different in the US - all your miles per gallon numbers will be 20% better than comparable data in the US.  It's all a mish mash. Here, soda is commonly purchased in 2l bottles and 12 oz (~375ml) cans.

 

 

Technically the UK measurements are long measure, and the US measurements are short measure, hence the various sayings about not giving me short measure..

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a part of the Charente that's sunny again. I got my planning permission dossier finished and sumitted to the mayor.  Hopefully there will be no problems and we aim to start the work in September.  Today the first job is the ironing then it's off to the old expats model railway  group. A good lunch will be followed  by looking at progress on our host's gauge 1 outdoor layout and some mobile self propelled kettles running on it.

 

As to units.   I was once taught about the erg, which was IIRC a small unit of energy. By sheer coincidence Beth's initials are ERG. 

 

Jamie

 

[AndyID]

22 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

A derived unit. To some extent the choice of which units are base units and which are derived is a matter of history and convenience. 

 

Yes, a derived unit. There are not very many fundamental units.

[AndyID]

4 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Technically the UK measurements are long measure, and the US measurements are short measure, hence the various sayings about not giving me short measure..

 

Except that somewhere along the way it seems the UK switched to the the larger gallon. IIRC the current US gallon was originally the UK gallon. I thought it was the other way around, but it is a complicated subject.

[TheQ]

Just now, AndyID said:

 

Except that somewhere along the way it seems the UK switched to the the larger gallon. IIRC the current US gallon was originally the UK gallon. I thought it was the other way around, but it is a complicated subject.

Many of the so called American isums are actually older English.. The Victorians in particular were much to blame for trying to latinise the written word.

So it wont belong before we Fall into Autumn.

 

[AndyID]

13 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

As to units.   I was once taught about the erg, which was IIRC a small unit of energy. By sheer coincidence Beth's initials are ERG. 

 

 

You can go to work on an erg.

 

(I was waiting for that one )