Reorte

I'm a little sceptical - you're still shifting focus to something close in front of you; it sounds potentially more distracting. But I'm admittedly biased due to really, really disliking computerised cars.

Admittedly sometimes it's probably a good idea to change - a certain old jam and marmalade jar design probably wouldn't go down too well today.

More daft change for the sake of it. Never impressed with people who think things need to be "modernised" or "made more relevant", almost always just comes across to pandering to the banal and ignorant.

Just out of curiosity, since I don't know the area, I've been trying to match it up with Streetview. Has the road been skewed differently since the photo was taken? And whilst every other building might've changed from the angle of the OP's picture I'd have thought the signal box would be visible, although I might well be getting caught out by the exact direction we're looking in due to the change of road. edit: Looking at the old maps, no, just a trick of the camera angles.

She might be right. It always used to look like it was far more likely to rain outside the pub windows on one side of the pub than the other (not a phenomena I've noticed at home, perhaps I spend too much time in the pub!) But I've not noticed it for a while. Must be climate change.

I've had my cat hanging around the door, waiting for me to open it as I go out to work, oblivious of the fact it's pouring with rain. Until I open the door and she rushes towards it, only to screech to a halt as soon as she sees the weather outside.

Cats will never use a catflap if they know you'll open the door for them sooner or later!

Something's not clicked with me - why does everything need to be powered up all the time? I'm getting the impression this isn't just between departure and arrival, it's sitting in the same place for hours.

Fair point, a balance somewhere in between then.

If the handbrake was a new invention, only in new cars, they'd all praise it about how much effort it's saved them from keeping their feet on the pedals...

Wouldn't it make more sense if the KERS didn't kick in until the brake pedal was pressed? Cars are full of electronics anyway, may as well make some use of them to distribute the braking between that and the pads as required. Although there's possibly something to be said for the braking system being as simple as possible so you can be absolutely sure it does what you want it to when you press the pedal.

Presumably that's only 5 miles longer if you don't go to Sheffield and reverse, which all passenger services do that head south from the Hope Valley.

Slaves aside (and I imagine your average Roman soldier would've had to sort himself out) the toilets at Housesteads are one of the interesting bits that survive. A stream flowing below the seats gave a flush, and a raised smaller channel of water in front provided a supply for cleaning. Might not be what we'd want to use nowadays but that's pretty good hygiene compared to a lot of history. They found a Roman toilet seat at Vindolanda a few years ago.

Definitely, I should probably clarify that I'm not grumbling about those.

Building on flood plains. Some things never change!

Since it's pretty much all LEDs (for new) now anyway it's a while since I've seen "but they're much better because they're brighter" even though it wasn't the technology but the law created for a very good reason that kept the brightness down. This might get be a bit of abuse but I'm fed up with bike lights now. Thanks to LEDs they can be as bright as car headlights now. That on it's own certainly isn't a bad thing, but they're rarely adjusted accordingly, and I find flashing at that brightness level is disorientating, especially if it does a strobe-type flash (beats me how anyone can standing cycling with that). When the law was changed to allow flashing bike lights it was probably a good idea, when they were nowhere near as bright, but they've changed.

"How likely" is important for engineers. That's why we don't concern ourselves about earthquake survivability when designing buildings in the UK, but in some other parts of the world it's very much a good idea to.

My grandparents lived in the Lakes. The road to their house was often almost blocked with badly-parked cars, I used to worry about what would happen if a fire engine needed to get to them. Now that they're no longer with us the road's had double yellows painted along it.

To be fair it's not always new stuff I find a bit intrusively out-of-place. Old structures usually managed not to be but perhaps very controversially (and relatively local to Horton) I do think the Ribblehead Viaduct is. Not anywhere to the degree a modern one would be, but I'm not mad keen on it. The line's other viaducts don't give me that impression. For the sake of balance a (non-railway) example in the other direction is the Kylesku Bridge. On paper I should loathe everything about it yet it somehow really works well (although admittedly I've never seen it in person).

Well that's bad form from me! I'll blame getting up rather earlier than normal today!

Maybe, but I do rather dislike that argument because it's frequently used to handwave away any complaints about anything new, there's often quite a strong sense of false equivalence about it. As for the 21st century so far I am massively unimpressed with it in general and find it incredibly unlikeable. We managed to do away with most of the problems of the 19th before it started and most of what it's added I'd love to remove, certainly when it comes to physical surroundings; the direction things are going in there has a pretty significant negative effect on my mental health, which isn't great anyway.

Well if we're doing the cheesy cheese puns... What cheese can be used to disguise a horse? Mascarpone!

Last time I crossed that (and that was just from Ingleborough rather than the whole Three Peaks) I was happy enough with any excuse to stop for a few minutes :) Poor decision-making would put you at bigger risk along the road afterwards.

If it's nothing new then it's worse, since there's the added factor of failing to have learned.

The Railtrack lesson forgotten?