The Night Mail

[Happy Hippo]

4 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

You can still be buried at sea if certain conditions are met. Absolutely no metal fittings on the coffin and all artificial joints, pacemakers etc. are to be removed. The coffin is to be weighed down with rock salt and placed in a designated area. After three months nothing remains. In the event of an implosion the air  would not have time to ignite any flammable material before it rises to the surface although at that depth the air bubbles would be extremely small due to the pressure.

I sometimes worry about the expertise shown by various TNMers when it comes to the disposal of human remains so that they cannot be found

[PhilJ W]

Just now, Happy Hippo said:

I sometimes worry about the expertise shown by various TNMers when it comes to the disposal of human remains so that they cannot be found

I read that in an article about an occupied coffin found floating off of the south coast. Apparently they didn't add enough rock salt.

[Happy Hippo]

15 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I read that in an article about an occupied coffin found floating off of the south coast. Apparently they didn't add enough rock salt.

 

 

Did the journo who wrote the article try to get a comment from the occupier?

[Happy Hippo]

Soldering seems to have featured in this morning's activities.

 

The first was to turn an M5 machine screw into a hanging hook. The screw part was to hold two parts of a plastic battery box together:  Obviously the hook part was to allow it to be suspended.

 

The second job was to repair the wiring inside the aforementioned battery box.

 

Finally, I was required to re attach the lid to a rather elderly stainless steel teapot.  The lid had become detached from the hinge.  It was of sentimental value as Nyda had owned it since before we met!  Having looked at the rather pathetic attempt of the original construction, I am really surprised it lasted as long as it did.

 

Perhaps, I tend to over engineer things! 

 

Still, it has now been silver soldered back together, and now should now be good for another 40 odd years🤣

[railsquid]

21 hours ago, SM42 said:

 

I was in Japan in 97, mainly around Osaka, and was mightily impressed with the railways and how far ahead they were with the use of technology  compared to the UK 

 

It was also noticeable how many more staff they had, jobs that the UK railways had or were trying to cut out, abounded. 

 

The Kintetsu lines  seemed to have a signalbox at every station  and maintenance machinery parked up every few miles. 

The stations and platforms ax well ax hhd trains wete immaculate. Passenger information was clear, up to minute and the fate structure simple.

 

 

The odd thing is, reps from JR did visit the UK to see how we ran a railway. 

I'm sure they were very polite, but probably fell about laughing back at their hotel.

 

I did actually meet, in a non-railway context, a former employee of JNR (the former nationalised railway of Japan) who went on such a trip and he showed me some photos. I don't recall the conversation but the photos were of them standing around in grimy sheds which probably hadn't changed much from the steam era (visit would have been late 70s/early 80s).

 

One area where Japan sadly lags behind is preservation, both of stock and structures, there aren't any "preserved" lines as such, and apart from a few mainly steam engine excursion routes, there's no real chance of travelling on "classic" trains, and certainly not on main lines.

 

11 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

You mentioned the amount of staff present, but it’s not just the railways, it’s pretty much everywhere. Ian, our occasional Tokyo correspondent @railsquid pointed out that actually Japan is a low wage economy, but in comparison with the UK, in Japan people on low wages can actually afford a decent life style/quality of life. IIRC, Ian mentioned that most people who work in Tokyo actually live in Tokyo.

 

More precisely, it's feasible to live in Tokyo on something around the minimum wage; you won't have a great apartment in a fashionable area, but it will actually be able to rent an actual apartment (rather than say a bunk in an illegally converted garden shed) and still have money left over to live on. You can also trade commuting time for cheaper rents/property prices outside of Tokyo itself. Also, as a rule, your employer will cover your commuting costs tax-free, which levels the playing field a little.

[SM42]

The wind is up and dark clouds are peeping over the treeline in the direction of Hipposhire. 

 

It's either about to rain or a Hippo is unhappy. 

 

Andy

[polybear]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I sometimes worry about the expertise shown by various TNMers when it comes to the disposal of human remains so that they cannot be found

 

If Bear revealed his methods you'd never eat another Cornish Pasty ever again.....

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

If Bear revealed his methods you'd never eat another Cornish Pasty ever again.....

 

Surely that would be a Cornish Style Pasty?

 

[AndyID]

9 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

The Daily Express posted an article about British equipment being sent out via the RAF when the emergency was in it's early phase.  The aircraft that was doing the lift, according to the journo was an A400M Atlas. (A prop job.)  Yet all the photos supporting the article were of a C17, which as we all know is a jet.

 

I suspect that sheer ignorance and laziness played a part in this, probably because the recent news of the C130 being retired and its replacement by the A400M, probably was in the writer's mind so they assumed that since this was an RAF transport aircraft, then it must be an A400M.

 

Just don't get me started on those who report every tracked vehicle, and even some wheeled AFVs as tanks.

 

Newspapers can be a bit slow on the uptake.

 

https://www.neatorama.com/2023/06/21/The-Media-Ignored-the-Wright-Brothers-Flight-for-Years/

[pH]

Article on “online trainspotting”:
 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jun/25/online-trainspotting-rail-streaming

 

(Apologies if this has already been posted. I thought it would have been, but didn’t find it in a search.)

[figworthy]

9 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

You can still be buried at sea if certain conditions are met. Absolutely no metal fittings on the coffin and all artificial joints, pacemakers etc. are to be removed. The coffin is to be weighed down with rock salt and placed in a designated area. After three months nothing remains. In the event of an implosion the air  would not have time to ignite any flammable material before it rises to the surface although at that depth the air bubbles would be extremely small due to the pressure.

 

Oddly enough, this came up in conversation last week.  A mate of mine is a barrister, and he'd been called in to act for one of the parties when a burial at sea didn't go quite according to plan.  It seems that the lady in question was committed to the deep, but a few days later the coffin resurfaced, complete with occupant.  The local police (Hants ?) took an interest until such times as the circumstances were established, at which point they had another attempt (which I understand worked).  It seems that there is a designated burial area off the Isle of Wight.

 

Adrian

[iL Dottore]

5 hours ago, polybear said:

 

If Bear revealed his methods you'd never eat another Cornish Pasty ever again.....

....not to mention curly fries....

[figworthy]

A question arose on Test Match Special today, and it may be relevant to some regulars here.

 

The question was :

 

Which would you rather fight, 100 duck sized hippos or a hippo sized duck ?

 

Adrian

[AndyID]

I think the Titan incineration is overstated. I ran the numbers and assuming all the air in the sub was trapped and compressed to a pressure equal to the pressure at that depth the temperature of the air would "only" rise to around 1200C. Obviously pretty hot, but not hot enough to do that sort of damage. Anything burning would then consume the oxygen rather quickly and there would be no further heating. The remaining heat would then dissipate into the water.

 

And that assumes the hull remained gas-tight. It also assumes pure air. Any water vapor would further decrease the temperature.

 

It might be the case that the air is trapped within titanium hulls but carbon-fiber could just disintegrate. At that point all the air would escape and there would be no further heating.

 

If you want to try the numbers yourself there is an easy to use tool here: https://www.calctool.org/thermodynamics/thermodynamic-processes

 

The compression process is Adiabatic meaning the heat energy in the gas is not lost. That's a reasonable assumption because the compression was extremely fast.

 

[iL Dottore]

Of course, the best way of disposing of a body is to do so legally...

 

iD knows of at least one way whereby the victim is not actually disposed of directly by the murderer. Instead, the murderer initiates a chain of medical events which culminates in an innocent third party (usually a hospital doctor) administering a fatal medication to the victim. As the fatal medication is the treatment that should be given for the event being treated anyway (and death also a potential outcome of such treatment) no one thinks anything amiss and the body is then interred or cremated without any fuss, suspicion or investigation.

 

The clever bit is setting up the chain of medical events so that the final treatment is unavoidably fatal.

[Northmoor]

59 minutes ago, pH said:

Article on “online trainspotting”:
 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jun/25/online-trainspotting-rail-streaming

 

(Apologies if this has already been posted. I thought it would have been, but didn’t find it in a search.)

An interesting article linked from it as well:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jan/29/trainspotting-unites-my-family-we-share-the-pleasure-of-intricate-details

 

41 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Of course, the best way of disposing of a body is to do so legally...

 

iD knows of at least one way whereby the victim is not actually disposed of directly by the murderer. Instead, the murderer initiates a chain of medical events which culminates in an innocent third party (usually a hospital doctor) administering a fatal medication to the victim. As the fatal medication is the treatment that should be given for the event being treated anyway (and death also a potential outcome of such treatment) no one thinks anything amiss and the body is then interred or cremated without any fuss, suspicion or investigation.

 

The clever bit is setting up the chain of medical events so that the final treatment is unavoidably fatal.

There's definitely a short TV series in there if you want to write it......

[SM42]

1 hour ago, figworthy said:

A question arose on Test Match Special today, and it may be relevant to some regulars here.

 

The question was :

 

Which would you rather fight, 100 duck sized hippos or a hippo sized duck ?

 

Adrian

 

5 days of cricket can do that to you. 

 

I don't dislike the game, in fact I quite enjoy it, but when it's the 15th over and there at 10 runs on the board ( Worcs vs Northants, 199x  or  2000 and something)  the mind can wander a bit

 

Andy

Edited June 25, 2023 by SM42

[bbishop]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

 

5 days of cricket can do that to you. 

 

I don't dislike the game, in fact I quite enjoy it, but when it's the 15th over and there at 10 runs on the board ( Worcs vs Northants, 199x  or  2000 and something)  the mind can wander a bit

 

Andy

Well I 've got four days coming up at Lord's. 

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, figworthy said:

 

Oddly enough, this came up in conversation last week.  A mate of mine is a barrister, and he'd been called in to act for one of the parties when a burial at sea didn't go quite according to plan.  It seems that the lady in question was committed to the deep, but a few days later the coffin resurfaced, complete with occupant.  The local police (Hants ?) took an interest until such times as the circumstances were established, at which point they had another attempt (which I understand worked).  It seems that there is a designated burial area off the Isle of Wight.

 

Adrian

That is the case I mentioned.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[SM42]

22 minutes ago, bbishop said:

Well I 've got four days coming up at Lord's. 

 

Not jealous.

 

No  

 

Really. 

 

Andy

[SM42]

Actually that got me thinking about things I'd like to do after I retire. 

 

An Ashes test match is definitely one 

 

Andy

[iL Dottore]

3 hours ago, SM42 said:

 

5 days of cricket can do that to you. 

 

I don't dislike the game, in fact I quite enjoy it, but when it's the 15th over and there at 10 runs on the board ( Worcs vs Northants, 199x  or  2000 and something)  the mind can wander a bit

 

Andy

If I may be a little bit contentious, I would venture that cricket is up there with baseball as one of those sports which both mystifies and bores the average person, but which traps its aficionados into a heroin-like addiction.

Of the two, if I had to, I would preferably watch cricket simply because a proper Afternoon Cream Tea is infinitely superior to a hot dog and the yellow fizzy alcohol water sold at baseball games under the misnomer "beer"

 

Of course for real excitement, nothing beats watching Polish Andy's paint dry....🤣

(having bravely and foolhardily nailed his colours to the mast, iD dons tin helmet and flak vest and retires to his private nuclear bunker)

[rockershovel]

James Cameron seems to be making some rather leading comments about the likely sequence of events aboard Titan - particularly about the ballast weights being released, suggesting that they were attempting to abort the dive. I can only assume that US law regarding jeopardising a possible inquest, is somewhat different to ours? I don't doubt we will be seeing this on the big screen, sooner rather than later.

 

Regarding the recovery of bodies, I don't understand the maths of the  compression/ignition part. I also suspect that the amount of actual documented research surrounding this subject is quite small. That said, I can easily believe that such a violent event leaves few,if any recognisable remains. There's also the fact that the USCG went straight to the wreck location once they had the right ROV and if there were anything to recover, they would know. 

 

Various TNMers have already made the point about design life vs repeated operational cycles. I've seen some comment in the technical press about Finite Element Analysis in contiguous and non-contiguous structures. Again I don't fully understand the maths of this but the general sense seems clear enough. 

 

[rockershovel]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

If I may be a little bit contentious, I would venture that cricket is up there with baseball as one of those sports which both mystifies and bores the average person, but which traps its aficionados into a heroin-like addiction.

Of the two, if I had to, I would preferably watch cricket simply because a proper Afternoon Cream Tea is infinitely superior to a hot dog and the yellow fizzy alcohol water sold at baseball games under the misnomer "beer"

 

Of course for real excitement, nothing beats watching Polish Andy's paint dry....🤣

(having bravely and foolhardily nailed his colours to the mast, iD dons tin helmet and flak vest and retires to his private nuclear bunker)

The thing I've always found puzzling about cricket, is the way that nation teams seem to be on top form one year, and quite useless the next. 

 

For an exercise in testosterone-fuelled aggression, I recommend an afternoon in the nets... I definitely find that cricket is one of those sports best appreciated by those who have actually played it.