Early Risers.

[Gwiwer]

6 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

The sort of cloudburst rain this signalled is brutal, it is not like British rain.

My late father told the story of how, when he was seconded to a National Service post in Singapore, he would be out on the streets with his colleagues and a couple of local "guides" until a particular time each day.  At the precise time their guides would say firmly "You come inside - it rain now".  And did it ever.  Violent, torrential flooding rain unlike anything he knew from home.  Or indeed anywhere else on his National Service which was around North Africa when not assisting, as a medic, with flying-boat duties elsewhere.  

[Gwiwer]

Good afternoon all.  A much better day today at the House of Fun with the usual crop of smiles and greetings rather than yesterday's crop of abusive comments and soaked, delayed and understandably pee'd off folk.  

 

It was even quite warm for the time of year despite the wet start although being fully thermalled-up against a forecast "Feels like" of 4C at the start I was pretty much immune to any cooling breezes.  

 

And it is HUMP Day.  The Camel's Back has been metaphorically broken 😅 and it's all downhill to the weekend now!  

 

 

[Ian Abel]

HUMP day.

 

Nothing to report from yesterday, looks like the same non-events today!

Mrs off for a lunchtime walk with a friend, then lunch and that's it.

 

-5C overcast and STILL something falling from the sky first thing. It's almost imperceptible but is of the frozen rather than liquid variety. High of 1C forecast.

 

Onward.

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

Violent, torrential flooding rain unlike anything he knew from home.

The heaviest rains I think I have experienced were both while I was driving. One was near Houston and the other was in Southern Germany. Definitely had to stop.  Couldn’t see beyond front of car. Wettest not in the car was in the Netherlands. We had been in a theme park all day but as we were returning to the car there was a tremendous storm. Heavier rain than anything I have experienced here.  We were drenched. Fortunately there were some towels and clothes in the car. 

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. The heaviest rain that I have ever experienced was in Barbados. I was driving at the time and the rain was so heavy that I had to stop driving due to the reduced visibility. Not that it stopped me getting wet as I was driving a Mini Moke (with the hood UP!) Fortunately the rain only lasted a short while and the sun came out and you could see the steam rising from the road surface. Within ten minutes everything was dry as if there had been no rain. This was at the tail end of rainy season in October.

[Tony_S]

Aditi has happy childhood memories of playing out in the monsoon rain in Delhi. Her Grandmother’s house had an interior open courtyard and Aditi said she enjoyed poking the drains by the downpipes with sticks. No one told her to come in out of the rain. Even now she can be found in the garden if it is raining but she does have decent waterproofs nowadays. 

[NGT6 1315]

Evening all. Cold, wet, and dark by now. Bank holiday here, so it’s been quiet all around.

 

Not a lot to mention really either, so I’ll just leave it at ta for now and stay safe!

[polybear]

10 hours ago, Barry O said:

Looks like the missile was fired in self defence. Unlike the Swingfire we accidently fired into the butchers garden in Aberporth(!).. oops

 

 

There are many, many stories like that attached to Abbers.  It's a miracle no-one was ever killed.  I've seen photos of them getting to "play" with such things as V1's not long after the war.

Incidentally, the last time a certain Bear was there would've been somewhere between 2010 and 2016 at a guess; the place was a minute shadow of it's former self - many buildings knocked down, a fraction of the workforce, many of the facilities no longer available (they didn't even have a building with a lifting gantry inside anymore FFS).  Very sad.

 

10 hours ago, grandadbob said:

Cake was made at the request of The Boss who doesn't like buttercream although I do.  She would have preferred strawberry jam but I like raspberry so a compromise was made.   

 

Sounds like a "half n' half" cake could be the order of the day.....

 

10 hours ago, grandadbob said:

Just heard on the radio that Asda are joining Lidl in rationing eggs.  Cue the queues of panic buyers.  There will definitely be a shortage now. 

 

Followed by oodles of eggs going in the bin cos' the Ar5ebadgers forget that they don't keep forever.

 

7 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

I can still see it, it's on Facebook.

 

Not for this Bear....☹️

 

7 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

I was thinking on the same lines. I would persevere for the dog's sake as she has obviously attached herself to SWMBO and it would be cruel to take her away. 

 

Though the family needs to be right for doggie, and doggie right for the family in order for it to be a happy match.

 

Bear here.....

Today's fun started with a visit to the Charity Warehouse to drop off three boxes of stuff - the muddlin' room is looking somewhat tidier as a result and Bear Towers gets slightly closer to being minimalist (only 27,854 miles to go....); hopefully they can raise a few quid for the stuff too.

Then it was a tour of various Charity Shops - sadly nothing to tempt Bear this time though ☹️, followed by detour via a F/E Brekkies (no fried bread though ☹️) before a "somewhat overdue" routine eye test; the last was around 3.5 years ago at a Specsavers Branch close to The House of Fun.  However, since I'm no longer gainfully🤣 employed there it made sense to try a different branch - which is conveniently not far from the Warehouse (and a lot closer to Bear Towers); they were also able to access my records from the previous Branch too, which is handy.  The good news is that Bear's Optical Cake Detection Equipment needs no upgrades and is more than capable of spotting the merest crumb at 100+ yards, which means no serious outlay of tokens was required 😄  As I also opted for the super duper eye scan treatment (an extra tenner) and the whole process took up the best part of 45 minutes of their time I did think that the total cost of twenty notes seemed more than fair; I scarpered quick, in case they changed their minds.

 

In other news....

Postie delivered a pair of these today:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/233883957659

The jaw tips are 18mm wide, so I see them being rather useful should I ever wish to bend small pieces of Brass or NS 😉

The same seller offers various other goodies that may well tempt fellow muddlers too....

 

Right, Bear is off into Beamland to rescue the Coving Mitre Box, which will be required for tomorrow's fun n' games.

Bear gone.

[monkeysarefun]

4 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

"Feels like" of 4C at the start I was pretty much immune to any cooling breezes.  

 

A couple of weeks from summer here but right now this mornings apparent temperature is also 4C, and outside I have frosty breath. Yesterday with an icy wind and rain it never got above 18C actual and 13C apparent. I blame our new Labor government, they said they'd tackle global warming but I fear they've gone too far.

 

Speaking of so-called  "renewable" energy this looks interesting - gravity energy, using coal mine ventilation  shafts - and we have a lot of those - to produce energy by raising a weight up it in the day time using solar to then drop it down the shaft at night time  to create potential energy.

 

https://reneweconomy.com.au/former-yancoal-mine-to-be-first-test-site-for-australian-gravity-storage-technology/

 

Seems all hunky dory on the surface (pun!)  but just like solar, no one thinks of what happens when we use up all the gravity and we need to use extra energy to hold things down and stop them floating away. I can predict our lives will be spent negotiating endless trade-offs   like "Should I run the fridge for half an hour and risk the  BBQ floating over next doors fence?" But then of course because all the solar panels would have   greedily used up much of the sunlight too it'd probably be too dark to  be able to find it.

 

I fear  for life in a renewable energy world, but does anybody listen to me? No one I hang out with does........ hmmm, but maybe I just hang out with the wrong people, perhaps there's a MAGA or similar style Facebook group I can post the above seeds of concern in and see how they grow.....?

 

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by monkeysarefun

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

Speaking of so-called  "renewable" energy this looks interesting - gravity energy, using coal mine shafts - and we have a lot of those - to produce energy by raising a weight up it in the day time using solar to then drop it down the shaft at night time  to create potential energy.

Sounds like an engineering student assignment on steroids. I am a bit confused about how this generates power for more than the length of time needed to drop the weight.

 

"Gravity storage" is an old approach, long used in pumped storage hydroelectricity where off-peak power is used to pump water back up into the dam above the turbines used to generate power. Solar power could pump the water up with hydro power at night.

[pH]

4 hours ago, Tony_S said:

The heaviest rains I think I have experienced were both while I was driving. One was near Houston and the other was in Southern Germany. Definitely had to stop.  

 

2 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. The heaviest rain that I have ever experienced was in Barbados. I was driving at the time and the rain was so heavy that I had to stop driving due to the reduced visibility.

I’ve had to stop driving twice because of rain. Once was in the Boundary region of British Columbia (through which we will be driving this afternoon). Quite a few cars pulled off into a large layby. The big transport trucks kept going, though, throwing up huge ‘bow waves’ from the water lying on the road. 
 

The other time was on the M6 in the Lune Gorge. On the shoulder with the 4-ways on seemed safer than dicing with drivers, not of all of whom seemed to be familiar with the idea of driving appropriately for the conditions.

[pH]

I’ve long tried to think of a way to capture the energy released by the dynamic brakes on diesels, instead of just burning it off in resistor grids. Something like 15000 tons falling (slowly!) through several hundred feet would generate the equivalent of quite a few old mineshafts.

[Erichill16]

On 15/11/2022 at 16:20, Barry O said:

 

 

ps @Erichill16  you know you want to become Hovis's best dad .. don't you!

I’m gonna be a dad!!!!!!!!!!!

[Coombe Barton]

... If anyone tries to defend Brexit to me or continues supporting it, my reaction will be swift and terminal. I’ll tell them what a ****ing idiot they are and walk away. Life is too short to put up with such rampant stupidity. I’d not make a very good politician. ....

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2022/11/16/on-the-up-again/

[Dave Hunt]

12 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

This might give an idea of how mercurial the weather can be in Singapore, especially at this time of year. The view from my window, five minutes earlier it was bright and sunny, we had one of those cloudburst type deluges for about 5 minutes and now it is clearing up and the sun has reappeared. The sort of cloudburst rain this signalled is brutal, it is not like British rain.

 

Having lived in Singapore I can relate to his post. Those cloudbursts really have to be seen to be believed and the onset is dramatic. I once landed a Hunter at Tengah in bright sunshine but by the time I was halfway down the runway I was in such torrential rain that I could hardly see far enough to taxi. When I managed to find my way back to the Squadron dispersal the only reception I got was someone waving me towards a parking slot from the engineers' office doorway so I shut down and sat in the cockpit until the deluge abated, which only took a few minutes.

 

Dave

[Ozexpatriate]

12 minutes ago, pH said:

the energy released by the dynamic brakes on diesels ...

I'm presuming you are talking about the back EMF from traction motors on diesel-electric locomotives.

 

Yes. It's a big part of EV design - to recapture the energy to recharge the batteries.

 

The article mentions the following:

Quote

ARES is building a 50MW plant in Nevada to test its system of pushing railcars downhill.

Advanced Rail Energy Storage is doing this in Nevada with a rail based system. It looks much more scalable than mineshafts.

 

I can't think of alternative uses of mineshafts without thinking of Dr. Strangelove.

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

"Should I run the fridge for half an hour and risk the  BBQ floating over next doors fence?"

Seriously our life is a bit that way already. My wife just loves consulting the solar panel and battery storage app and planning what to do based on how the weather forecast will affect our power generation and storage. I am absolutely sure she would cope with gravitic problems too!  Now it is winter and we are having to buy some electricity again, she seems to enjoy the added variable of whether to use the  off peak cheaper electricity at night. Fortunately lots,of our appliances have timers. Our tumble dryer isn’t the sort that catches fire either. 

[Tony_S]

28 minutes ago, pH said:

I’ve long tried to think of a way to capture the energy released by the dynamic brakes on diesels, instead of just burning it off in resistor grids. Something like 15000 tons falling (slowly!) through several hundred feet would generate the equivalent of quite a few old mineshafts.

I am sure the electric trains on our local line are advertised as having some sort of regenerative braking returning electricity to the supply .A diesel would need some batteries like those in electric hybrid cars to replace the resistor grid. 

Edited November 16, 2022 by Tony_S

[Dave Hunt]

30 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Sounds like an engineering student assignment on steroids. I am a bit confused about how this generates power for more than the length of time needed to drop the weight.

Presumably if the weight was connected to a gearing system that drove a generator, the resistance could mean it would drop quite slowly and generate power for an appreciable time?

 

Dave

[Ozexpatriate]

20 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Presumably if the weight was connected to a gearing system that drove a generator, the resistance could mean it would drop quite slowly and generate power for an appreciable time?

Yes. Presumably so. The slower it goes, the less power it will produce - the potential energy at the top being a constant.

 

EDIT:
My thoughts were along the lines that it's a 'one shot' per night if solar power is used to haul it back up / recharge the storage. So it would be geared to drop for say nine hours or so to be 'practical'. It makes me wonder about all the limits- shaft depth, total mass → total energy v. drop time → output power.

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by Ozexpatriate

[polybear]

13 hours ago, grandadbob said:

B#####it and that's putting it mildly.  Just seen an email from my car insurers with new annual premium.  Thieving toerags have increased it by £130.  Looks like I will be visiting some comparison sites.

 

Bear has just changed car insurers this very evening; the RAC had upped the renewal by £46 from last year so I went thru' the usual insurance comparison sites and saved £23 on the renewal price that RAC want - they also bung me a twenty quid Halfords** voucher on top (so £43 saved really).

Tomorrow I'll get the pleasure of telling the RAC to poke their renewal - no doubt they'll immediately respond with "Let's just look at the premium to see if there's anything we can do" (there rarely is, in my experience); I usually don't give them the chance on principle - if they were able to do something then they should've done it at the outset, rather than try to take the p1ss out of a poor retired Poly.....🤣

 

**That'll pay for a can of U-Pol Acid#8 Etch Primer or a couple of cans of grey primer.

Edited November 16, 2022 by polybear

[Gwiwer]

5 hours ago, Tony_S said:

The heaviest rains I think I have experienced were both while I was driving

I recall one particularly heavy downpour whilst driving.  It was the only time I have ever pulled over for safety in such conditions.  

 

We set off up the Peninsula Link Freeway towards Melbourne under threatening skies but minutes into the trip the heavens well and truly opened.  The road surface - a new freeway with good drainage and deep run-off channels either side - quickly became a lake as the channels filled and overflowed.  I pulled in on the shoulder underneath a bridge.  We watched as others sped on in near-zero visibility and as the road simply vanished beneath the water.  I don't recall having seen rain like that before or since.  It lasted perhaps 15 minutes by which time some others had also stopped but most simply carried on regardless.  

 

It eased somewhat after that and the road surface became visible again though was still under several cms of water.  With lights on and both front and rear wipers going full speed I eased out from the bridge along the emergency lane.  In very restricted visibility I was extremely cautious about pulling into the first "live" lane but having made several checks behind I finally did so at around 50kmh - on a 100kmh limited road - before starting to accelerate cautiously into the conditions.  No sooner had I pulled into the lane than there was a blast of horn from behind and a car without any lights showing came screaming past, having run up behind me and changed lanes at the last moment, at what must have been well above 100kmh.  

 

How that driver could see anything let alone react in time remains a mystery.  I had no chance of seeing him in an unlit car closing up on me at that sort of speed in such conditions.  We were both lucky to avoid a (probably terminal) meeting.  

 

A few kms farther in towards the City what appeared to be the same car was on its side in the ditch facing the direction it had come from.  I'm afraid I didn't stop.  It would have been unsafe to have done so and I would have got very wet indeed exiting our car.  

 

I have experienced Tropical storms in Brisbane and Townsville.  And torrential rain in Singapore watched from the rooftop cactus garden of the airport; I wasn't sure whether I was wet from rain or perspiration on that occasion.  One of the Brisbane storms lasted a couple of hours including spectacular lightning and deafening thunder.  But not as intense as that day on the Peninsula Link Freeway.  It did however have the benefit of all the guests at all the backpacker hostels which line the upper end of Roma Street taking the opportunity for a mass street party in the rain with no cares for how wet anyone got.  I learned a certain amount of human geography that night; backpackers come in many shapes, colours and and sizes and of course in both sexes.  I think we all ended up either kit-off-and-dancing-in-the-rain or with anything we still wore leaving nothing imagined.  Australians are a pretty relaxed bunch and any excuse will do for a party!!!

[Tony_S]

4 minutes ago, polybear said:

usually don't give them the chance on principle - if they were able to do something then they should've done it at the outset, rather than try to take the p1ss out of a poor retired Poly.....🤣

Absolutely agree. Being a good customer for years doesn’t seem to generate many discounts. Some companies like to ask what they had done wrong. I am always polite but tell them exactly why they will never get any business from me or anyone I can influence (which in fact is hardly anyone). I was so annoyed with one media company I said even if they gave me everything free for ever I wouldn’t use them again. They still send me offers! 
For car insurance we use same organisation we have always used. They do offer alternative quotes. 

[polybear]

Bear here....

I never did get into Beamland to rescue the Coving mitre box after all (putting the bins out - in the p1ssin' rain - plus comparing all the various small print for the car insurance quotes got in the way) so that has been delayed until tomorrow, along with rescuing the stepladder from the shed; the next mission for the Great H/S/L Refurb will be coving the landing ceiling - hopefully @grandadbob can act as stunt coordinator to ensure all goes smoothly....

[PeterBB]

Skimmed through as at Tolworth , met GDB, and had no computer access  - the show was good.  SInce then cannot believe it is now Thursday and trying to get rid of a cold that has taken hold.  Apologies for missing so many since Friday!

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by PeterBB