Early Risers.

[jjb1970]

One of the things I found particularly vile about the MAX debacle was the not at all subtle messaging to the effect of 'well, they were operated by airlines from Indonesia and Ethiopia, what do you expect,  pilots from a proper country know how to fly an aeroplane'. Echoed by quite a few reporters (especially those keen to preserve their position as 'insiders' with Boeing. I found that despicable, especially given all the subsequent revelations. 

[monkeysarefun]

21 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

All the time here.  

 

As in "Girt big 'un" for anything large.  

 

🤣

 

 

Well  then I shall expect you to use that in sentences  on here from now on when referring to large items! 

[iL Dottore]

Today's Medical Curiosity (from Medscape:https://www.medscape.co.uk/viewarticle/12-most-curious-medical-stories-2023-2024a10000c7)

 

Talking About Money Could Counter Superstitions and Pseudoscience

From the supposed bad luck of encountering black cats to the promotion of supplements to restore "hormonal balance", what lies at the heart of superstitions and pseudoscience is a cognitive bias known as causal illusion: the mistaken belief that two unrelated events are linked. Spanish researchers from the universities of Deusto and Granada found in a series of experiments that causal illusion decreases when participants have fewer economic resources. This has two main implications. On the one hand, it helps explain why more affluent sectors are more likely to adopt certain alternative medical practices*. On the other hand, it suggests that a measure to combat causal illusions could be reminding people that resources (e.g., budget) are finite and must be used carefully.

 

The take away message is that if you can afford to take crystal pyramid healing courses, you've probably got too much money...

 

* a.k.a. medical b******s for the gullible.

[PMP]

31 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

Its reported on BBC that the plane has had least 2 depressurisation  incidents in the last couple of weeks and the plane has  been ‘diagrammed’ not to fly over sea while the problems is resolved.

I wonder if the passengers were aware of this restriction? And what about the crew, what did they know?

What a state of affairs, almost criminal in my eyes. 

 

You have to take a pinch of salt with these media reports due to inaccurate reporting.

There had been two previous incidents of a pressurisation warning light coming on. Not a depressurisation.

The aircraft had been taken off the Hawaii routes. A sensible operations decision. If you have an aircraft with certain technical problems, you keep it closer to ‘home’, you don’t want an aircraft with a technical problem  ‘overseas’, as recovery and rectification is far more difficult than if it’s on the same landmass.

The flightcrew were very likely aware of the previous reports, both through reading the tech log on accepting the aircraft, and route restrictions placed on it by operations. Any sensible captain scan read the previous few days/flights tech log before signing for it.

Passengers certainly wouldn’t be informed. If the aircraft is airworthy, it’s airworthy. 

[Grizz]

Mmmmmm…..and every minute that it is not in the air with people in it….then it is costing money! 

[jjb1970]

I wouldn't like to stand in front of a judge under cross examination and explain why the airline had saw fit to restrict the aircraft to continental US routes because of concerns over a technical issue over a depressurisation alarm but keep it in service given what has happened. 

[monkeysarefun]

6 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Today's Medical Curiosity (from Medscape:https://www.medscape.co.uk/viewarticle/12-most-curious-medical-stories-2023-2024a10000c7)

 

Talking About Money Could Counter Superstitions and Pseudoscience

From the supposed bad luck of encountering black cats to the promotion of supplements to restore "hormonal balance", what lies at the heart of superstitions and pseudoscience is a cognitive bias known as causal illusion: the mistaken belief that two unrelated events are linked. Spanish researchers from the universities of Deusto and Granada found in a series of experiments that causal illusion decreases when participants have fewer economic resources. This has two main implications. On the one hand, it helps explain why more affluent sectors are more likely to adopt certain alternative medical practices*. On the other hand, it suggests that a measure to combat causal illusions could be reminding people that resources (e.g., budget) are finite and must be used carefully.

 

The take away message is that if you can afford to take crystal pyramid healing courses, you've probably got too much money...

 

* a.k.a. medical b******s for the gullible.

 

 

Not taking anything away from the time and effort put in by the Spanish researchers, but if someone asked me "who would be most likely to pay for alternative medical treatments - those who have a lot of money, or those who have not so much money?" I'd have had a stab at option A,. 

[jjb1970]

The process safety guru Trevor Kletz was fond of saying 'if you think safety is expensive try having an accident '. I am sure it predates Kletz, but given his achievements in improving process safety I am happy to let him take credit.

[iL Dottore]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Fruit bats roost down near the  local river and  each evening head out to  Sydneys  outskirts where there are fruit orchards.

 

On a cloudy night you can see them against the grey and its like watching thousands of bombers heading off  to bomb jerry or something.

 

 

 

The baby ones  are furry and cute, but harbour scary viruses that mean that although their orphaned young (being a native animal and therefore protected)  get cared for like this

 

 

 

 

The bat Lyssa Virus  and the  Hendra virus that they can harbour makes  COVID look like a bit of a sniffle.

 

AS for the birds, there's always Mrs Beetons 1909 cookbook.

 

 

Bats are very useful animals in the ecosystem. But disrupt their habitat at your peril.  As Chimpey posted, they carry viruses that - if they got into humans on a widespread basis - would make CoVID look like kindergarten sniffles. And in addition to Bats, there are quite a few other small mammals that carry potentially devastating diseases (many of the order Rodentia*).

 

Over the aeons, in isolated animal communities, a sort of status quo develops whereby a virus is no longer deadly to its host, both having evolved into a sort of symbiosis in a cicrcumscribed environment. But release that virus into a population that has never been exposed to it and if the virus has the potential to be lethal (and many do) it will go through the previously unexposed population like a hot knife through butter. As Native Americans found out when European settlers turned up carrying smallpox.

 

* Rodents are significant vectors of disease. The black rat, with the fleas that it carries, plays a primary role in spreading the bacterium Yersinia pestis responsible for bubonic plague, and carries the organisms responsible for typhus, Weil's disease, toxoplasmosis and trichinosis. A number of rodents carry hantaviruses, including the Puumala, Dobrava and Saaremaa viruses, which can infect humans. Rodents also help to transmit diseases including babesiosis, cutaneous leishmaniasis, human granulocytic anaplasmosis, Lyme disease, Omsk hemorrhagic fever, Powassan virus, rickettsialpox, relapsing fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and West Nile virus. (from Wikipedia). None of the above are at all nice...

[grandadbob]

Well we had an Amazon delivery about an hour ago, doorbell was deployed and one of our regular happy, smiley drivers waited and handed over the parcel.  Evri are due to deliver in the next hour or so and if it is regular driver Michael he too will wait and hand over the parcel.

Is there something in the water in The Land of Sutt?

[Erichill16]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

 

That could be expensive, I know we criticize the litigation culture of the US which is increasingly seen in the UK and other countries but if this is anything like how it sounds in reports then the airline and possibly  Boeing deserve to be taken to the cleaners.

Heres the report on the Beeb.

 

Alaska Airlines placed restrictions on the Boeing plane involved in a dramatic mid-air blowout after pressurisation warnings in the days before Friday's incident, investigators say.

The jet had been prevented from making long-haul flights over water, said Jennifer Homendy of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

 

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Bats are very useful animals in the ecosystem. But disrupt their habitat at your peril.  As Chimpey posted, they carry viruses that - if they got into humans on a widespread basis - would make CoVID look like kindergarten sniffles. And in addition to Bats, there are quite a few other small mammals that carry potentially devastating diseases.

Over the aeons, in isolated animal communities, a sort of status quo develops whereby a virus is no longer deadly to its host, both having evolved into a sort of symbiosis in a circumscribed environment. But release that virus into a population that has never been exposed to it and if the virus has the potential to be lethal (and many do) it will go through the previously unexposed population like a hot knife through butter. As Native Americans found out when European settlers turned up carrying smallpox.

There is a theory that the same happened to the Neanderthals when our ancestors, the Cro-Magnon showed up carrying pathogens to which they had no resistance. The Neanderthals had been around for between five or six times as long as modern humans have been today but as soon as we turned up it took only a few years for them to disappear.

[Sidecar Racer]

2 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I wouldn't like to stand in front of a judge under cross examination and explain why the airline had saw fit to restrict the aircraft to continental US routes because of concerns over a technical issue over a depressurisation alarm but keep it in service given what has happened. 

 

 Especially as it was a new plane , only delivered last October , surely having had two warnings for the

same serious  problem warranted it being grounded for serious inspection to try and find the fault .

[Sidecar Racer]

2 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

All the time here.  

 

As in "Girt big 'un" for anything large.  

 

🤣

 

 Similar use in Somerset .

[Sidecar Racer]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

Well  then I shall expect you to use that in sentences  on here from now on when referring to large items! 

 

 Well I'm off to get a girt plate of ham , egg and chips .

Edited January 8 by Sidecar Racer

[iL Dottore]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

Not taking anything away from the time and effort put in by the Spanish researchers, but if someone asked me "who would be most likely to pay for alternative medical treatments - those who have a lot of money, or those who have not so much money?" I'd have had a stab at option A,. 

Ah, yes! But this is merely a supposition, a hunch, a presumption. 
 

Although scientific research sometimes proves "what everybody knows is true" is indeed true, often science proves that "what everybody knows is true" is in fact not true (e.g. tinned baked beans are the poor man's Viagra 🤣)..

 

We wouldn't be where we are today (both good and bad) without the scientific method.

 

And remember "if it hasn't been peer-reviewed, it hasn't happened).

[iL Dottore]

I have been let off the leash this evening and I'm in town and have just finished a pleasant supper (before going to my Japanese language class).

 

I had a "spicy" artisanal burger (which was anything but "spicy", 'tho enjoyable) and bowl of "loaded fries" - the latter being a bowl of fat french fries/skinny chips smothered in "stuff". It was probably about 1000000000000 kcals, but most enjoyable after the post yuletide desert of turkey breast and salads.

 

Definitely a novel and enjoyable experience, but I'll not be repeating any time soon (too many calories for one thing)

[pgcroc]

I've just had a email to say that Hattons is closing down.

Checked their website and it seems that that is so.

[Grizz]

 

Edited January 8 by Grizz

[iL Dottore]

6 minutes ago, pgcroc said:

I've just had a email to say that Hattons is closing down.

Checked their website and it seems that that is so.

Wow!

 

An end of an era, indeed. At least (according to their website) they are solvent but have decided to wind down the company - citing increased costs and changing customer demographics.

 

I wonder if this is just the first tremor before the tsunami as more and more hobbyists in the UK become increasingly unwilling or unable to pay the sort of prices hobby shops in Europe and Japan charge - the sort of prices needed nowadays to keep businesses afloat

[Tony_S]

16 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

which was anything but "spicy", 'tho enjoyable

Spicy seems to have such a wide range. We took Aditi’s Uncle to a local Turkish restaurant.  The starters were accompanied by a selection of sauces/dips. The waitress (her description) said some people found the chilli dip quite hot. Aditi tried it and said it was and she used the other sauces. Uncle Vinay said it was bland. At least it didn’t turn violent. On a school sixth form field trip Matthew and his friends were in a late night kebab shop. He asked for the special chilli sauce and the server said it wasn’t “for little boys”. So Matthew asked for a taste and said his Nan would call that “totally bland”. The man chased him out waving a cleaver. One of his friends loved that story so much she told it during the ‘does anyone want to say anything”. at his funeral. 

Edited January 8 by Tony_S

[TheQ]

Evening Awl,

Work on boat carried out, darn chilly, definitely not nice stood up on a boat 6 ft up in a 40mph wind giving a "feels like" of -2C.

Centre console removed to give more access, and to do some minor mods to it.

Old temporary mast step, removed,

Cross tube no longer needed, removed,

New mast step measured against old mast step and boat. Work started to do final trimming up before varnishing and fitting.

 

Ben taken for his long walk, during that I thought , "it feels like it's going to snow",  so it did. I didn't let Ben persuade me to go on the full long walk.

Didn't settle though, still blowing a girt big Hoolie out there.

 

Didn't Hattons spend a lot of money on a new warehouse not long ago?.

I suspect the loss of a big discounter like Hattons will increase average prices, and reduce pressure on other retailers.

 

Still awaiting two orders from the bay of E, I'd really like them to arrive before doing much else on the upstairs unmentionable.

[The Lurker]

2 hours ago, grandadbob said:

Well we had an Amazon delivery about an hour ago, doorbell was deployed and one of our regular happy, smiley drivers waited and handed over the parcel.  Evri are due to deliver in the next hour or so and if it is regular driver Michael he too will wait and hand over the parcel.

Is there something in the water in The Land of Sutt?

Or is it that the local delivery drivers have been warned what might happen if they fail to deliver with suitable politeness to GDB?

[New Haven Neil]

14 minutes ago, TheQ said:

I suspect the loss of a big discounter like Hattons will increase average prices, and reduce pressure on other retailers.

 

 

Absolutely - the manic discounting has to stop - they cost what they cost.  A shame for the staff's jobs, I feel for them, it wasn't easy closing Trackshack for similar reasons (Covid killed us really) as all our staff were or became friends too.

 

As for black dogs, well there's one hovering around here at the moment, due to (differing) medical issues we have both managed to suffer in the last few weeks.  It hasn't hung around me since my NHS days, when I ended up feeling like I was in a tunnel, in sight of the light in the exit but never getting any closer to it - total workload overload being the problem.  Cured by walking out of the door.  THEN senior management asked if was OK - after asking for help for months.  too late - I was off for the ferry!

 

Enjoyed Vera last night, there were some places I didn't know, then one I did know very well indeed, as I was a neighbour of the house the people were filmed in! Felt a bit odd.

 

[The Lurker]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

There is a theory that the same happened to the Neanderthals when our ancestors, the Cro-Magnon showed up carrying pathogens to which they had no resistance. The Neanderthals had been around for between five or six times as long as modern humans have been today but as soon as we turned up it took only a few years for them to disappear.

I am not sure it was “only a few years “. There was significant overlap in some areas and even evidence of Neanderthals replacing local archaic sapiens (in the Levant and IIRC in parts of Western Europe). Lastly there is significant DNA evidence of interbreeding- excluding sub-Saharan Africans, modern humans have up to 4% of Neanderthal DNA.

 

having said that the theory may well have weight and have led to local extinction events for isolated groups- and I can’t help feeling isolation was a frequent factor given the difficulties of travel at various stages.