ejstubbs

The Bachmann cranked NEM coupling was introduced simply because Bachmann got the NEM pocket height badly wrong on their early releases of NEM equipped vehicles. Nothing to do with being helpful to kit builders (which is not to say that they can't sometimes be useful in that context.) Having converted all my stock to Kadees, I have shed loads of Bachmann straight NEM couplings that you can have for the cost of postage if they would be useful to you - just IM me.

Back in my school days, when I was studying Russian at O-level, I was told that the above originated from behind the Iron Curtain. In those days the USSR had two 'official' state newspapers: Izvestia (Известия), which translates fairly closely as "news", and Pravda (Правда) which translates literally as "truth". Both are still going, so quite possibly the saying is still used. As well as having a degree of trust in certain sources, it's sensible to check anything that looks at all dodgy elsewhere. It's surprising how often something stated confidently in a newspaper article can be found to be, if not false, then at least an incomplete rendering of the facts, simply by referring to Wikipedia as a second source. (Of course Wikipedia is by no means faultless, but the articles do usually list external references which you can follow up.) Even just a minute or two of judicious keyword-based Googling can turn up some worthwhile contrary or more nuanced views (as well as, unfortunately all too often, a bunch of bonkers conspiracy theories). Basically, taking all information on trust whatever the source is all too likely to leave you with an incomplete or biased understanding of the facts. I find a good rule of thumb to be that, if a news source is simply reporting what the government has said, then you can be fairly certain that the statement stretches the boundaries of veracity at some point...

And they capture far more CO2 during their growing phase than they do in maturity. So, actually, cutting them down when they're fully grown and planting new saplings (in more appropriate/less disruptive locations as necessary) has positive aspects. Trees can also fall down naturally, of course (which is part of the reason why managing them in the lineside environment is desirable, assuming that it's done in a responsible manner).

Just a note of information about this product: the collet nut is a larger diameter thread than the 'standard' Dremel ~7mm so if you harboured thoughts of using, say, your Dremel 3-jaw chuck on this beastie, it won't fit. You also cannot use Dremel collets as they're too loose a fit inside the spindle (which does create a small worry about what you'd do if/when the supplied collets and/or nuts break or get lost). The collar thread (for the routing stand etc) is different to that on the Dremel, too. Overall, though, for the money not a bad bit of kit. Update: Reading around online suggests that Proxxon use a larger spindle thread which sounds like it might be a match for that on the Lidl tool.

Or to put it another way: "I thought I was special and didn't have to follow the same rules as everyone else." See it all the time round here, in particular riding through the Haymarket tram stop which has large 'no entry except trams' signs at each end. OK, there's a bit of disruption at the moment due to sewer works but if you don't fancy the diversion you can dismount and walk through on the platform. (But please don't get me started on the arrogant ****holes who *ride* along the platforms. Or on the stupidity of cycling between the tram rails - with the attendant risk of getting a wheel caught - and with no easy means of escape to the side.) AIUI an FPN isn't a 'prosecution' anyway: it doesn't result in a criminal record, although if you either refuse to pay, or opt to go to court, lose and don't pay up then you do run the risk of eventually ending up in chokey.

The Birmingham Superprix ran from 1986 to 1990: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Superprix

It's right there in the OP - he (or she, it's not clear) considers them a form of torture. It was a joke (although I do understand what they're getting at). And they did post on the thread again, it's #17 on the first page. And yet it's sparked a thread of nine pages and counting full of people discussing for the umpteenth time on RMWeb their preferred coupling methods (ooh, er), including posts from what looked dangerously like a founder member of the Tension Lock Liberation Front, getting terribly upset about people dissing his favourite couplings. As Il Grifone says, it comes down to a matter of personal choice (though anyone who argues that TLCs are preferable to Kadees because the latter aren't prototypical for UK stock needs to take a long hard look at their logic, IMO).

...and there was me thinking that this was going to be one of those seriously misguided threads like this one on Twitter.

To stop the two cords on the same coach end from attracting each other they'd need to be the same polarity. Opposite poles attract, like poles repel. It might make the two cords dangle in a rather unexpected way, though. (I've always tried to avoid dangling in an unexpected way. It never ends happily.)

You didn't. And I didn't say that you did. I asked you where you had seen them since they weren't on theguardian.com. You chose to nit-pick at my question rather than answer it. Hey ho.

Hmm, not sure how that happened. Thanks for fixing it. Harsh maybe, but rules is rules. Or maybe there's a dispensation, akin to that which allows them to pick up marbles as you mentioned, which makes allowance for bits of the car that inadvertently get left on the track!

I think there's a fair few who have already been assimilated into the RMWeb collective.

Which comments were you reading? AFAICS neither of the Guardian articles linked from this thread were opened for reader comments. RMWeb gets its fair share of ill-informed ranting sometimes. I'd cite the Tornado thread as one which appears to have prompted some rather forthright assertions that haven't stood up too well to scrutiny.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleycat_race Note that the section about legality, specifically the paragraph about the UK, is flawed. A better summary is provided here, from which the fundamental regulation is that Road Racing is permitted on the Highway provided notice is given to the local police, who have the power to impose such conditions as they think fit (source). However, the closing statement of the preceding paragraph in the Wiki article is pertinent: "As a result of the potentially dangerous nature of the sport as well as widely varying local laws an alleycat is almost never a fully legal endeavor." Stop press: people who choose to break the law often do so recklessly and with scant regard for their own safety or that of other people. Who knew? Or in other words: nothing to see here, move along please.

Now that I know who "Fred" is, I can post this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/43973625. Aerodynamics? Who needs aerodynamics??! Surprised that the car met the minimum legal weight after the race, though, if it had lost some of its ballast. Although I suppose they could have replaced it during his inadvertent pit stop. Otherwise, reduced weight - and/or perhaps a reduction in drag from the missing aero bits - could have helped gain some speed on the straights and explain why his lap times weren't quite as bad as they'd expected.

Discussed at some length on "another forum". NR chose to take no action in the end, though why is unclear: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/no-action-taken-against-residents-1335532. Perhaps they decided that there could be perceived to be a degree of fault on their part - maybe a lack of clarity in the communications with the residents? I'm struggling to think of any other reason why what looked like blatant trespass creating a significant safety risk should be let ride.

I hope that something will arise to take Maplin's place. It probably won't look much like Maplin but so long as it can sell you the stuff you need at short notice, allow touchy-feely browsing and provide advice then the end result would be the same. In the mean time there are still a few independents out there eg https://www.facebook.com/RFPottsDerby/ (who helped me through my early model railway and electric guitar years). There was one in Cambridge, too, which nurtured me through my undergraduate years, but I cannot for the life of me remember its name. So maybe that one is gone by now. (I don't think it was H Gee on Mill Lane - that's more electricals than electronics, I believe.) Edited to add: Great news that StevieD71 has found a new position so quickly. Good luck Steve, and hear's hoping your ex-colleagues across the UK all find similar happy endings.

I wouldn't suggest winding back to "negligible" downforce. I doubt anyway whether current downforce is actually the most that could be technically achieved within the rules. Downforce always comes with a drag penalty - hence DRS - so the cars are designed and adjusted to deliver an optimum balance between the two. Martin Brundle was saying years ago that at top speed you could drive an F1 car across the ceiling because they generate more than their own weight in downforce. (I think that would have been not long after he started commentating for ITV in 1997, so they've had 20 years of technical development since then.) I'm not quite sure what point you're making about tyre formulations but I was thinking earlier today that one way to get more overtaking would be to get rid of tactical pit stops. If you could do that then tyres would have to last the full race distance and thus be harder and less grippy. That would make braking distances longer and give more margin for the overtaking driver to get past using skill, rather than a button in the cockpit. That would take F1 back closer to its roots as the premier 'sprint' formula: start, drive like the clappers until the chequered flag comes out, then stop. It was never intended to be an 'endurance' formula, which is what it feels more like sometimes these days. But how could you get rid of tactical pit stops, I hear you ask? Well, just off the top of my head: you could make it mandatory to spend at least 60 seconds stationary in the pits to eliminate any tactical advantage from pitting (and, as a worthwhile side benefit, reduce the risk of pitlane accidents). Bad luck perhaps if you get a puncture, but it wouldn't actually stop you from whacking a set of super soft tyres on and setting out on a Mansell-at-Silverstone-in-1987 style chase. Indeed, given that they have tyre pressure telemetry these days, you could even reduce the pitlane time penalty in the case of a genuine puncture. But if you wear the tyres down to the canvas by taking too soft a compound and working them too hard, well that would be your decision and you'd have to live with it. Wheel balance weight falls off, wheel nut comes loose, any other kind of mechanical failure? Poor car preparation: again, your fault, no grace given. I'm sure there could be other ways of achieving the same end result ie removing any advantage from tactical pit stops. Knowing F1, though, even if they could be persuaded to go down that route they'd find the most convoluted and loophole-ridden way to do it! Or maybe things really could be different now that Bernie's bolted...

Financial services is a matter reserved to Westminster. That answers that question. Nothing in what I have written suggests that the RBS or Clydesdale would have had to "underwrite" the activities of BOS. You seem to be fabricating increasingly bizarre scenarios in order to conjure up some nebulous image of murky goings on that never could have happened. I have nothing to say on here about the relative merits, or otherwise, of Brown and Salmond - if nothing else, to avoid falling foul of the forum's 'no politics' rule. I believe they are held at the BoE, as are the gold deposits. That would at least make sense: the guarantor of the currency issued by the Scottish banks is the BoE, so they hold the surety.

New rules to be introduced 'to make overtaking easier' - coming your way in 2019, apparently. Hmm, wider but less complex front wings, less aerodynamics around the brake ducts, and a bigger rear wing. Perhaps less disruption to the air flow coming off the rear of the car? Bigger rear wing less influenced by air flow disruption close to the ground? Larger but simpler wings -> downforce should be roughly the same, though perhaps with some impact on top speeds which also aids overtaking especially if a following car can slipstream more effectively? (Might even be able to get rid of DRS???) Or not. Edit: Maybe not, then. This report in The Guardian says that the larger rear wing will allow a bigger DRS flap I'm not a fan of DRS. In terms of "making racing more exciting" I reckon it ranks just above the Formula E fanboost idea for rubbishness. DRS is basically an admission that your formula is broken. AFAIK no other motor sports formulae have, or feel that they need, anything like it.

Where do you get that information from? Aspartame is synthesised from aspartic acid and phenylalanine. There's no bacterial agent involved in the production of aspartic acid. Phenylaline is an essential amino acid, ie one that cannot be synthesized by the human body and thus must be supplied from the diet. The adult RDA for phenylalinine is 33mg/kg body weight per day. Good sources of phenylalanine are eggs, chicken, liver, beef, milk, and soybeans. It's true that commercial production of phenylalinine is based on its production as a metabolic byproduct of E coli (nowadays, genetically modified E coli) but to call that "excrement" ('Waste matter discharged from the bowels' - OED) is a reckless misuse of language. E coli itself is a bacterium, or 'bug', as you noted. It is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms, but then so is a lot of other stuff, mostly bodily waste products and indigestible components of the diet (like fibre - which is good for you, right?) E coli is not a bodily waste product: it's an organism that lives inside you feeding on your bodily waste products. Given that it lives in the human gut, it makes more sense to say that you (and all of us) are full of it (ie E coli) then it does to say that E coli "is" excrement. As Joseph_Pestell pointed out, metabolic byproducts of micro-organisms are present in other human foodstuffs. Yeast is a single-celled member of the fungus kingdom (anyone want to volunteer to be King of the Fungi?) which produces alcohol and carbon dioxide as metabolic byproducts, which we use in the production of intoxicating beverages, and for biogenic aeration of beverages (such as ginger beer) and baked goods (eg bread). Much cheese production uses bacteria at the start of the cheese-making process, to convert sugars in milk in to lactic acid to curdle the milk. The bacteria (and the enzymes they produce) remain in the cheese and play a large role in the eventual flavor of aged cheeses (starter cultures for Emmenthal also include Propionibacter shermani, which produces carbon dioxide gas bubbles during aging, giving the cheese its holes). And we'll all have seen the adverts for yoghurts that contain "good bacteria" - all yoghurt is made using bacterial cultures to produce lactic acid, in a similar way to cheese starter cultures. Bacteria are essential for the creation of any fermented foods: sourdough bread, saurkraut, natto...the list is a long one. And most if not all are recommended by some more-or-less genuine authority or another as being "good for you". To try to imply that aspartame is 'bad' simply because a bacterial metabolic byproduct is used in its production is ridiculous, emotive scaremongering. And, as jonny777 pointed out, there is no evidence that aspartame at current levels of consumption as a non-nutritive sweetener is harmful. Which is why it is approved for that use by more than ninety national food standards agencies across the world. I don't consume much if any aspartame myself, but I thoroughly dislike pseudo-science and nonsensical conspiracy theories which seem to be designed to create irrational fear in credulous people.

The OS would seem to support that belief:

Pardon my ignorance, but who is "Fred"?

TSB said internet banking wasn't available just now, but the "bank door" found by CLARENCE did work. Until I tried to look at my transactions, at which point it said the server was overloaded. I closed the tab, then re-opened it from my browser history and there were my transactions laid out in front of me. Still not good IMO, although at least the expected transactions for the first of the month had gone through.

Why? Cash and gold don't disappear. That's why they have to be used as the guarantee for the issuance of banknotes. If BOS had failed then I strongly suspect that those deposits would have been ringfenced from their creditors. And the banknotes would still have been recognised as legal currency by the UK parliament until the relevant act was amended. I believe that the transition, had it had to happen, would have been fairly orderly. The government would have reassured people that their cash was still valid, but that they could swap BOS notes for RBS, Clydesdale or BoE at any bank should they so wish. Push comes to shove, the BoE could step in to guarantee BOS notes, using the issuance deposits to back that up. The BOS notes would then be withdrawn from circulation over time and replaced by BoE notes. Scottish banks have been issuing notes for over three hundred years, during which time a number of pieces of legislation have been passed to regulate the practice. Pretty much the fundamental reason for regulating banks is to protect the public in the event that the bank fails, and that would include the status of the notes issued by such a bank.