lb1lf

76 ms·

811.
by lb1lf 8y ago
I was puzzled for an instant as to why on earth would they be RHD, until I realised that this enables the driver to deliver mail without having to get out in the street and walk around the vehicle, thus being both safer and more efficient.
812.
by lb1lf 8y ago
Speaking of low voltage, high power systems - we refine alumina around here; the ovens run on 4,7V/200kA. That makes for some quite impressive feeders!
813.
by lb1lf 8y ago
Don't get me wrong, I didn't try to say you were wrong, just to elaborate a bit on your observation. Anecdotally, once we had a couple of Chinese auditors in the workshop (Scandinavia) to assess the quality of a delivery we were a
814.
by lb1lf 8y ago
Just about any nation which has undergone large-scale industrialisation started off copying someone else. Swiss watches? Developed by British and French watchmakers escaping religious persecution in their home countries. Japanese cameras a
815.
by lb1lf 8y ago
+1 on the Pentel Energels. They are incredibly smooth to write with, cheap and available in just about any conceivable colour.
816.
by lb1lf 8y ago
As for being left-handed, so am I - and I have found it to be not much of an issue, as (some!) modern inks dry almost instantly. (de Atramentis Fog Grey being a favourite - dries instantly and is highly water resistant to boot.)
817.
by lb1lf 8y ago
-I've flown with fountain pens several times without incident (though I will admit to being slightly nervous!) I put the success (thus far) down to always filling the pen all the way before flying, and also making sure the nib is point
818.
by lb1lf 8y ago
I work on medium-sized power electric systems (mostly in the few hundred kW-range), and have a strong aversion to being anywhere near our systems during first power-up. Hence, I always carry a couple of pushbuttons and some 15m of cable in
819.
by lb1lf 8y ago
That depends on where it is cut from, but overall whale meat is very dark - almost black - and pretty lean, marbling being rare. If you don’t overcook it, it is extremely tender, but quickly -very quickly- turns rubber-y if it spends too lo
820.
by lb1lf 8y ago
In my experience, the tradition argument doesn’t carry too much weight in Norway - local sentiment (I live within spitting distance of three whaling vessels’ home port) is more that whale meat is tasty (and, historically, much more accessib
821.
by lb1lf 8y ago
Extinction is a bit too strong of a word here - the combined minke whale population (AFAIK, minkes in the northern and southern hemisphere are considered separate species) is numbered in the hundreds of thousands; Japan kills a few hundred
822.
by lb1lf 8y ago
I don't know whether the original story was -ahem- embellished a bit or not, but I do know that after forwarding this to a sysadmin friend of mine running a host of Sun boxes at the Norwegian University of Science & Technology, he
823.
by lb1lf 8y ago
Here's the few that stood out from this year's reading pile, IMHO: Derek Howse - Greenwich Time. On why there was (is!) a need for GMT, how it evolved, how it was utilized - and how it was kept. Brilliant engineering porn for thos
824.
by lb1lf 8y ago
-Norwegian here - the Scandinavian countries in general have _very_ strong laws protecting the privacy of all citizens. A consequence of this is that defendants in criminal cases are very rarely named by the media until convicted, if even t
825.
by lb1lf 8y ago
-Not the OP, but I believe his point was that someone(tm) had failed to take into account that blisteringly fast wireless data requires significant chunks of bandwidth - and that bandwidth is a scarce resource.
826.
by lb1lf 8y ago
...or Chester, as his aunt (I believe) insisted on calling him - probably the only person to use his given name! In retrospect (I read 75-80 Hardy Boys books as a kid, many of them over and over), it is amazing how formula-based the story t
827.
by lb1lf 8y ago
Barbara Cartland was one of the most prolific authors ever, with more than 700 novels to her name. According to Wikipedia, in total they sold in the ballpark of a billion copies. Then again, I guess it could be argued she basically wrote th
828.
by lb1lf 8y ago
-And that problem is difficult to solve even in a well-functioning democracy. When visiting Sweden recently, I was surprised to find a number of bars, coffee shops and the like only accepting digital payments - no cash. While this makes lot
829.
by lb1lf 8y ago
In a related vein, Ars Technica writer Sean Gallagher did a fantastic story on the US Navy's analog fire guidance computers a few years ago: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/gears...
830.
by lb1lf 8y ago
Oh, if I were them I'd just say something along the lines of 'We've been working with an East African university (I believe their preferred candidate had spent some time in Dar es Salaam), and have found a working knowledge o
831.
by lb1lf 8y ago
-In this case, Norway. The public sector are required to publish all available positions and adhere quite strictly to the listed qualification requirements when determining who to hire. It is a nice idea, but in practice it basically means
832.
by lb1lf 8y ago
-Nope, they didn't - and I don't think they would have (could have?) anyway. (In fairness, they never got the chance - I did break the ice by observing that after walking past that office door down the hall, I realised why Swahili
833.
by lb1lf 8y ago
Also, in some jurisdictions, you are required to hire whoever has the best qualifications for the job (makes sense), but maybe you as an employer already have your sights on someone particular and wants to ensure the chosen candidate is the
834.
by lb1lf 8y ago
-I had the unexpected pleasure of sitting next to a geologist on a domestic flight a few years ago; he explained about an unstable mountainous area he’d surveyed, stressing that it would come crashing down at some point. I inquired as to &#
835.
by lb1lf 8y ago
Also the tertiary ones? (I was -poorly- trying to indicate I was after a secondary /national/ standard - the ones calibrated against the national reference which is in turn calibrated against the Paris one. Fingers crossed. :)
836.
by lb1lf 8y ago
I have already sent an email to the Norwegian bureau of standards to inquire about buying one of their secondary kilogram standards - presumably they'll want a couple for displays and museums, but it would make for a great letter weigh
837.
by lb1lf 8y ago
The kilogram was the last unit tied to a physical object. Finally!!! As you stroll Paris, you can still find various meter secondary standards - bolted onto public buildings to aid in commerce back in the day.
838.
by lb1lf 8y ago
Fun (?) anecdote - metric apparently has been used in US engineering for quite a while; a petrolhead buddy of mine was puzzled as to all the fractions used on the drawings of his (I think) Chrysler Hemi V8 from the fifties - on a hunch, we
839.
by lb1lf 8y ago
I may be naïve, but the idea was that the first paragraph would probably tell you whether reading the rest made any sense; my reasoning was that if you pay a flat fee which the content providers fight over based on what is being viewed, you
840.
by lb1lf 8y ago
It is either this or a system for micropayments, IMHO, which would probably be less click bait-inviting (as you pay per item, rather than having already paid for admission to an all-you-can-eat-buffet.) Let's say you have a subscriptio

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