willyt

9 ms·

61.
by willyt 2y ago
The tank commander, (edit2) David Render, in this podcast has a pretty amazing description of joining at age 18, landing on the beaches and not long afterwards finding himself commanding a squadron of tanks in Normandy. Absolute humility an
62.
by willyt 2y ago
I can't find the details now bit in the early 19th century an MP introduced a bill to parliament to make it illegal for trains to go over 30mph because in his opinion it would be impossible to breath at that speed.
63.
by willyt 2y ago
Any parent knows that toddlers are constantly bashing thier heads off things because they’re top heavy and learning to walk they constantly fall over and tumble off things. One of my daughters used to constantly have a lump on her head from
64.
by willyt 2y ago
You forgot the H5N1 with 50% mortality rate raw milk thing. There is an article on Ars about raw milk drinkers actively seeking infected milk in the belief it will immunise them against H5N1. I’m not a biologist but this feels like it could
65.
by willyt 2y ago
You go to the beach at Coney Island, New York and there’s NYPD notices listing about 50 things you’re not allowed to do on the beach. It’s a while since I was there so I might be misremembering some but in amongst things like BBQs, ball gam
66.
by willyt 2y ago
Depends which jurisdiction. It’s legal in the UK if you have a license and I think it has to be professionally butchered and labelled at a registered slaughterhouse.
67.
by willyt 2y ago
Depends, if you are unemployed in the UK you get some income in social security benefits but only if you are actively seeking work or disabled and unfit to work. So if amazon opens a warehouse in your area and advertises for jobs you basica
68.
by willyt 2y ago
You don't have to be a member of a union to work in particular trade in the UK, apart from maybe Doctors who have to be members of the British Medical Association which I think is a regulatory body and a union combined although I might
69.
by willyt 2y ago
That's the whole point of joining a union it turns a unilateral contract negotiation, where one party has no leverage, into a bi-lateral contract negotiation. The worker's leverage in the negotiation is to withdraw all labour halt
70.
by willyt 2y ago
No you’ve got it the wrong way round the Intercity 125 was an impressive feat of engineering designed very quickly as a temporary stopgap while lines were electrified and still holds the record for world’s fastest diesel train. It was a sid
71.
by willyt 2y ago
Britain is max 200kph (125mph) currently although there is infrastructure designed for 225kph (140mph) on conventional lines though this is not permitted any more. It’s not correct to say that trains circulate at close to top speed a lot of
72.
by willyt 3y ago
Just needs a pronunciation guide now. British place names are impossible to pronounce even for native British English speakers because they are often not said how they are written and only people within a 15 mile radius will know the right
73.
by willyt 3y ago
What, like paslode charges you for gas every time you hammer a nail. Joiners are not competitive if they don’t have a nail gun so they have to buy them and everyone knows paslode is the best. The compressed air ones are unweildy and the ele
74.
by willyt 3y ago
In Britain they are paid as well. They get a yearly retainer of ~£6k for being on 5 min standby and are also paid per call out.
75.
by willyt 3y ago
I agree, though others are saying that BTRFS and ZFS can also get into this state.
76.
by willyt 3y ago
They mentioned that the problem occurred while steam was downloading, I wonder if because steam is ultra cross platform with bare minimum OS specific UI it is using something quite low level to write data to disk? Maybe NSFile does some che
77.
by willyt 3y ago
It's pretty shallow[0], looks like about 10m deep around the abutment that was hit; I would think that a big pile of rocks around the abutments that supported the piers on each side of the channel would do it. I just found out you call
78.
by willyt 3y ago
Speaking as someone in an industry that receives a lot of unwanted and seemingly un-unsubscribable marketing emails. I have never ever bought anything from a company that has sent me an email cold. I have my inbox set to show the first two
79.
by willyt 3y ago
Likewise I have 6 Rpi doing various things all with minimum of 64gb sd cards and official Rpi power supply. Oldest running continuously since ~2014. Never had an issue. I just spend £18 on a 128gb sandisk card from a trusted seller instead
80.
by willyt 3y ago
Notwithstanding battles, a napoleonic era British Royal Navy Man-o-war with ~750 sailors would expect to lose something like 1 man a fortnight to accidents and disease for the duration of the voyage. To make up the numbers they would press-
81.
by willyt 3y ago
2 months would be an ultra fast completion in the UK. I think when I bought my house it took 3 months, when I bought some land, cash purchase, it took more like 6 months.
82.
by willyt 3y ago
Britain did bad stuff around the world and our GDP productivity / hr figures are dog shit compared to France. So if you want that productivity directed towards saving the world, it would still make sense to look to France or Germany fo
83.
by willyt 3y ago
Yes American trains are great, I've only used regional trains from New York but they were spacious and comfortable. Your Miami - Jacksonville pairing is interesting, I was thinking about it and I think the big difference between the US
84.
by willyt 3y ago
London-Glasgow takes about 4h45m typically with about 7 stops. There's a train every hour between from 5am until about 6pm. Today the 5:30pm train is full, the 6:30 is £119 (€140) for a single ticket 2nd class. If you are more than 6&#
85.
by willyt 3y ago
Also in the UK the way the railway system is set up is incredibly inefficient and bureaucratic so it costs us a lot more to run our system and build improvements than comparable EU countries. The railways were privatised for ideological rea
86.
by willyt 3y ago
Yes technically true. HMCG are recognised in international law as responsible for maritime search and rescue operations in UK territorial waters. Practically speaking in most cases if you have a problem in UK (and Irish) waters the RNLI is
87.
by willyt 3y ago
The river police and the transport police have a pretty traumatic job in London. But the RNLI, also mentioned in the article, is the maritime search and rescue service for the UK. It’s completely funded by charitable donations and most of t
88.
by willyt 3y ago
I used to use tesco delivery for my big food shop in London. They were hopeless though always late, leaving other peoples shopping and they did mad substituting like tinned spaghetti instead of spaghetti where pasta shells would make more s
89.
by willyt 3y ago
I meant instil ...
90.
by willyt 3y ago
Reminded me of a question from my A-level maths exam at high school; it also managed to install the same sense of panic!

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