Early Risers.

[BR60103]

20 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

The thought of Hippos under parachutes is beyond my limited imagination.  However  I did find a rather underexposed photo of my kids thst included a hippo wearing a tutu in the background. 

 

The fellow modellers you come across in New York.

 

[AndyID]

2 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

We had a steam leak in its gaseous form at one of the refineries on the river a few months ago. There was just a white cloud sitting above the refinery, tapering down towards it. You couldn’t actually see where it came from, because the steam was transparent, I would hate to imagine what would have happened had someone walked into it. 

 

What strikes me as odd is the number of politicians who obviously haven't the faintest clue about any sort of science, least of all Thermodynamics, seem to think if they wave their arms around enough they can bamboozle enough people into believing a body does not get hotter to maintain equilibrium.

 

That's tantamount to saying HH and I weigh the same, which we do, just not on this planet.

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, AndyID said:

which we do, just not on this planet

Is there a planet upon which you would weigh the same, or are you suggesting each being weighed on different planets?

[iL Dottore]

12 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

Evening.

 

I got sidetracked then....oops..... meant to post hours ago.

 

iD, when we shipped abroad, it was 'at cost', but any warranty returns would be at our cost both ways.  When it may be a 7kg live steam loco, things get silly expensive very quickly.  We once had some coaches (G Scale bogie coaches) warranty returned from New Zealand - that smarted.  Easy to make the decision after that!

 

28 days covid free here today, declared 'locally eliminated'.  Borders remain closed.

 

 

Now that’s interesting, Neil. I can understand why you would initially pay for a warranty return, but surely if the product is defective any costs that you incur by the defective product should be borne by the manufacturer? Or would it be the case of: “nothing to do with us Squire, it was perfect when it left the factory (whistles tunelessly between teeth)“?

 

I note, with pleasure, that a number of ER posters have had some nice surprises over the past day or so. Well I am rather chuffed to be able to say that I can now include myself amongst that number: a teleconference with a potential client last night turned out to be pretty much a confirmatory job interview. A CDA has been sent to me and contracts will be exchanged in the next couple of days (barring any unforeseen circumstances). All going to plan, it will be a great gig: decently remunerated, 50% working and WFH. So the remainder of this week will be spent greatly enjoying some deliberate inactivity as opposed to the hitherto imposed inactivity of recent months.

 

Also on the good news front, Schotty seems to be improving and out of pain-even though he still is a little bit stiff in his hindquarters. A consultation with the vet awaits this morning and it is the plan to give him some dog physiotherapy. Lucy on the other hand, after her bout of gastritis, is slowly regaining her appetite. Which was a bit of a concern for me as she is, I think, underweight (not starving or anything so terrible, but 1kg or 2 kg off her optimal weight). Having said that, I wonder how much of Lucy’s not wanting to eat was her “trying it on“. Boiled chicken, co-op hotdogs, beaten egg, plain rice, left over roast potatoes etc., when mixed into her bowl was carefully separated out from her regular dog food, which was then spat out (her regular dogfood is a  semisoft dry food mix that contains all the vitamins, minerals and trace elements that she needs).

 

Reading through several pages of ER posts, one thing that strikes me is the unintended humorous effects of typographical errors and misspellings. Creating, at least in my mind, some very amusing word pictures. Now whether this is due to “fat fingers“, word blindness (something I suffer from, there are a number of words that I really should know how to spell by now, but which I invariably misspell - “occasional” being one of them) or the stupid AutoCorrect feature that you get on so many so-called “smart devices“ nowadays, is hard to say. The latter is a particular bugbear of mine; I sometimes find it is faster and more efficient to dictate text using voice recognition software on my Apple devices than to use the teeny tiny keyboards on the screen. But, and this is a big but, the voice recognition software correctly records what I am saying and then AutoCorrects it into garbage, which is most frustrating. Unfortunately, although Apple devices do many things very, very well, in comparison to their competitors the Apple voice recognition/dictation software is pretty crap (for example, unlike some of the competitors, it doesn’t “learn” nor make allowances for pronunciation).

 

Well, time to finish my muggacoffee and get ready to take the Wolfpack for their morning PPS (piddle, poo and sniff).

 

iD

Edited June 18, 2020 by iL Dottore
Typo

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

Chilterns Area Group met electronically yesterday evening, thanks to Zoom and to members who know how to use it.  There were dreams of meeting in the flesh and in a pub as we used to do but thoughts of that are over the hills and far away.  Among other things we wondered how many pubs will reopen when permission is granted.  Once a quarter we meet for lunch but if the current guidance on social distancing remain in place we wil find ourselves yelling at one another: hardly the convivial and civilised gathering that we have come to expect and enjoy.

 

For some reason - sloth, probably - the ironing did not get done yesterday.  Never mind, it is still there.  I braved the supermarket in the morning.  I am still caught out by arrows on the floor which indicate, in stony silence, that I am going the wrong way again.  Do not expect me to enjoy shopping, for I am incapable of it.  At least it gets me out of the house.

 

Oh dear, that wasn't very positive, was it?

 

Best wishes to all, especially the lesser spotted Barry.

 

Chris 

[polybear]

7 hours ago, Simon G said:

SSD has now been installed into the ageing PC.  Cloning the old hard disk onto the SSD proved more difficult than I hoped, as my installed Acronis 2010 software recognised the SSD OK, but wouldn’t copy to it.  A visit to the Western Digital website found a 2016 version of the Acronis, which worked.  Once I made the SSD the first disk to boot from, the PC booted up in a fraction of the time it previously took.  Loading programs like Word and Excel was also very much quicker.  The SSD looks like a worthwhile investment!

 

It may be worth investing in an external HDD caddy for the old drive (less than a tenner from Ebay) and using the old drive as an external back-up drive for data, photos etc.  I'd erase it first (ideally multiple times), using one of the free programs available (often on the drive manufacturer's websites) and run one of their HDD test/diagnostics programs also, to make sure all is well.

[TheQ]

5 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Indeed they are sir, and I have had my fair share of such encounters (with wet steam). Everything you see in the pictures above is completely temporary, and will be fully steam tight as soon the new regulator valve arrives. I’ve heard about those burns, apparently when working on a new or recently recommissioned marine engine it is best to walk with a broom held in front of you. This will go flying out of your hand when you hit a leak, and then you mark the offending area with something. Learned that from a book I have by Daniel Kinnear Clark, I believe he was with the Highland Railway for much of the 1870s.

 

 

 

 

Sadly Knowledge of the dangers of steam, Didn't help David Jones CME of the Highland Railway who was forced to retire in 1896 after a scalding incident..

[TheQ]

13 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

Hermes delivered my new walking boots bang in the middle of the allotted slot, now just need for wee Jimmie Crankie to let me out to try them in the Glens.

Please stop insulting the real wee Jimmie...

Edited June 18, 2020 by TheQ

[jamie92208]

Good moaning to all and of course sundry.  Much progress with the bench yesterday, all ironwork now in black, 2nd coat of gloss varnish applied after rubbing down.  Many more negatives scanned whilst doing this. As it's a batch process I can set a batch scanning, wander off unto other regions of the shed, do something useful then return and set the next batch off.  Thecarea round the layout was tidied and certain objects were circulated.  Before tea I managed to write and print a hand out about thevlayout, one version in Anglais and another in Francais in preparation for visitors tomorrow afternoon.

 

Hopefully  today will be spent working on the layout and scanning.  Tonight it's fish and chips.  I hope to see news from Baz and BoD.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

 

 

[Kelly]

34 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

It may be worth investing in an external HDD caddy for the old drive (less than a tenner from Ebay) and using the old drive as an external back-up drive for data, photos etc.  I'd erase it first (ideally multiple times), using one of the free programs available (often on the drive manufacturer's websites) and run one of their HDD test/diagnostics programs also, to make sure all is well.

 

A worthwhile consideration for 2 reasons:

 

1. SSDs have a finite number of writes. The type of SSD generally determines the number of write operations it will take before it starts to fail, with SLC being the best (generally not available these days) and QLC considered the worst, but also the cheapest. A QLC drive should still give good service, though performance will drop off on reads/writes once the SLC cache inside the drive is full (QLC drives use a small amount of DRAM called SLC cache to speed up operations to counter the slower performance QLC offers (though QLC offers much more storage than others)).
2. It is wise to have a back up drive externally anyway, that way if you go away you can keep a copy of important files in say a fire/water proof safe. Cloud backup is another option to create the best workflow for backups (1 local, 1 external, 1 off site).

[Kelly]

Morning all. Woke up early in agony, and couldn't get back to sleep so figured I'd get some more design work done on a forthcoming issue of DEMU UPDate, using the new software (Affinity Publisher/Photo/Designer) bought recently. Slowly getting my head around this new software, and first impressions are it is much better than the old software (Serif PagePlus), and works well with all 3 programs working together seamlessly without the need to open them individually for things like drawing of diagrams or editing photos.

 

Hope everyone is well? if not, sympathies and best wishes.

 

It looks rather miserable weather outside, something Poppy has made it clear she is unhappy about, snuggling upto Richard instead. I can hear their combined snoring...

[jamie92208]

6 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 Daniel Kinnear Clark, I believe he was with the Highland Railway for much of the 1870s. The book is called “A Treatise on the Steam Engine” (Blackie & Son Ltd 1893) I have volume four, I believe there are six. It has many large drawings of engines and descriptions. Ranging from diminutive fair ground vertical engines, to Midland Rly Johnson 4-4-0’s to triple expansion engines for the S.S. Coot, and even has a large fold out illustrated page of the boiler arrangement for HMS Renown. 
 

a Johnson 4-4-0.

 

Douglas, I'll see your Johnson 4-4-0 and raise you another though the awl may get me.

 

Also the name Kinnear Clarke is of great interest to me.  His book on tramways was one of the standard reference works when I was re building the horse tram.  One page described how a brake test was conducted on the streets of Leeds in the 1880's.  Her Majesties Railway Inspectorate were happy to use that method on our tram. There were also many other parts of the design of the running gear that drew on that source.   However we did not use the standard testing method for the chilled iron wheels.   The originals had been cast in Edinburgh and apparently their test consisted of dropping the castings into the works yard from a first floor doorway. If the wheel didn't break it was sent out to the customer.

 

Jamie

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

It's been raining with pour all night and is still coming down although not so heavily.  Sunny spells and thundery showers are forecast.

Lots of noise outside about midnight apparently with one of our neighbour's cars arriving home on the back of a breakdown wagon.  After it was unloaded the wagon sat that there for about 15 minutes with flashing lights and engine running until given "advice" by another neighbour.  I was watching TV so didn't hear it and only found about it when The Boss told me this morning.

First lot of bin men came at 6.40,  two more to come.  Glad to say that my fox blocking measures have stopped the little sods having a go at ours and next door's food waste bins.  A couple of other neighbours left them an easier task.

A couple of parcels have arrived, more to come over the next couple of days.  Still wondering when we'll next visit a shop although we're not really missing it.

My aches and pains seem to have gone into hiding for now.  Must try not to find them for a while.

The Shed hasn't been visited for a few days so that may be on the agenda for today.

Have a good one,

N.O. Tachingtoday

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by grandadbob

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl Inner Temple hare, 899/562

A much better nights sleep of 5.5 hours + 3/4 of an hour. 

Ben the alarm clock Collie is still failing in his duties though, he didn't appear until I was ready to go upstairs with SWMBO's morning cuppatea.

 

Luckily for me Ben only wanted a splash and dash this morning, not a long patrol in the rain.

 

It's chuckingitdarn, puddles maximum size, right across the roads, including the major roads in places. The combination of full summer leaf and heavy rain means the branches are hanging lower.. All the way into town there were branches torn off by something very big having travelled down the road shortly before me. this required driving on the other side of the road to get past in a couple of case..

 

 Another mile stone is reached as there is less than 900 day till my retirement.. 

 

When to check the results this morning to discover I'd put the wrong cross check instrument on (there are 3 identical), each now has a slightly different purpose, and the correction files for each are different at the levels we work at.. So the correct one is now  on for another 12 hour run.. With the reduced output at the moment the users are not too worried about it..

 

Correction files... each instrument is measured to the best of our abilities, this produces a set of offsets from the nominal Value. So say 1Volt would be recorded as 1.0000065 V OR 6.5ppm ( Parts per Million) from nominal. This is therefore taken from the results when this unit is used to measure another.

None of our instruments is ever adjusted, that way you can plot the changes over time and not worry about an adjustment not being correct.

Some of our histories for standard resistors go back many years 30 to 40 is quite possible. But they become very stable over time, in the 14 years I've been here the 10 Ohm has gone from 9.999868 ohms to 9.999867 Ohms..

 

I have an SSD in my computer, put in a couple of years ago, that made a big difference, but it's really getting to the stage of needing a new mother board, the old one dates from 2007.. I must admit in the intervening years I've lost track of what the latest levels of chip and board development are, Some research will be required..

 

Must go I've measured 10, 19 and 100 MOhms during the typing of this message, but there's little wait while it settles time for below 100K ohms..

 

Time to start typing lots of numbers..

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by TheQ

[Happy Hippo]

5 hours ago, BR60103 said:

 

The fellow modellers you come across in New York.

 

In the UK, I am a county adviser for  Girlguiding

 

They haven't honoured me such, despite my years of service and support!

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

It’s a dull and wet day, it’s raining but not heavily, but enough to stop any sort of outside work being done, pah! So I shall spend most, if not all of the day in the cellar moving the computer etc into the office. However, before each bit is shifted, I’ll give it a thorough clean, both inside and out. 

 

Stay safe, stay sane, enjoy whatever you have planned for the day, back later. 

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Bin wagons have been and gone with only the distant call of the lesser spotted glass and bottle wagon. It really persisted down last night but the garden certainly needed it but the back lawn is still very brown. I felt too knackered last night to catch up on Farcebook so I will have to catch up today. Thats it for now, be back later.

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

It is raining here though it is forecast to stop early this afternoon. There could well be parcels today. The delayed GP consultation may take place I suppose. 
We watched some ballet last night. I didn’t really like it and the music (Mahler) was uninspiring or perhaps it was a bit grim. 
Aditi and I got married 43 years ago today, so the marriage has lasted longer than MiL predicted. We won’t be dining out, we rarely do for our anniversary anyway unless we are on holiday. 
Tony

 

[PhilJ W]

Happy anniversary Aditi and Tony.

[tigerburnie]

2 hours ago, TheQ said:

Please stop insulting the real wee Jimmie...

In my opinion she's actually doing a better job than Boris...……………………………..but then I think we could all do that...……………….

[grandadbob]

Happy Anniversary Tony and Aditi and many more of them!

[Shedman5]

 

Morning,  Steady rain here which is due to last for a couple of hours according the forecasters before a short break then more rain.At least it stops me doing any outside jobs!

 

Congratulations on your anniversary  Aditi and Tony enjoy your day.

[iL Dottore]

Happy Anniversary, Tony & Aditi.

Here’s to another 43!

[TheQ]

Vera Lynn has gone to meet her friends, don't Know where, but when is now.

She was aged 103

 

R.I.P.

 

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by TheQ

[Happy Hippo]

I thought I'd better show this just to show I have another adoring fan: