Things you always wanted to know the answer to [Vol. 2]

[Kiltie]

When there's a fleck or something in your tea and you try to get it out with your finger, why does it always go away from the finger?

[goldblum]

Mini bow-wave?

[P-Jay]

StevieBee said:

ambuletz said:

Are there any consequences when people swear on live TV during the day? Watching sunday brunch and a guy just said st.

Yes. OfCom monitor all broadcast media. Depending upon the severity, they can issue a warning, a fine or in exceptional circumstances, remove a show altogether.

I seem to remember TFI Friday got very close to being cancelled by them (maybe a predecessor) for continued infractions - Shaun Ryder caused the biggest fuss so TFI banned him from coming on, the relented a few years later and he did it again.

OF course, being Welsh I wondered what all the fuss was about, after all TFI came on at 11pm in Wales....

[anonymous-user]

Kiltie said:

When there's a fleck or something in your tea and you try to get it out with your finger, why does it always go away from the finger?

Don't swipe it, drop your finger on it from directly vertical. It'll stick

[scarble]

Yup. Though I've found it helps to be quick about it, maybe there's something surface tensiony at play?

[walm]

TheEnd said:

That's one of the things I have pondered on, it certain music sounds right and certain nusic sounds wrong, we have to be picking up patterns in it.
If there's a pattern, it should be possible for it to be computerised and artificially created.
So, the next part is do we really understand a pattern in music, or is it just just conditioning, where we recognise styles and elements we have been exposed to.

Some of the patterns are just a simple matter of physics.
(And indeed because of that the study of the theory is music is fairly mathematical.)

For example, the frequency difference between octaves is double.
That's why two notes an octave apart sound good together.
And this applies pretty much all the way up an down the range of so-called "harmonic series" (and indeed all notes really).
Their frequencies are related to each other in fundamental ways.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_series_%28mu...

[Dr Jekyll]

Suppose I were to strike oil in my back garden and decided to discreetly refine it into petrol. How would I go about it and is there a lower limit to the scale of the operation?

[SpeckledJim]

Dr Jekyll said:

Suppose I were to strike oil in my back garden and decided to discreetly refine it into petrol. How would I go about it and is there a lower limit to the scale of the operation?

I think you need something not unlike a whisky still.

I dare say in a smaller way you could do some in the kitchen, but it's not going to stack-up.

[Jacobyte]

TheEnd said:

That's one of the things I have pondered on, it certain music sounds right and certain nusic sounds wrong, we have to be picking up patterns in it.
If there's a pattern, it should be possible for it to be computerised and artificially created.
So, the next part is do we really understand a pattern in music, or is it just just conditioning, where we recognise styles and elements we have been exposed to.

"The melody" describes a number of musical notes that are played in a certain order with a beginning and an end, as the core theme of a musical piece as set by the composer.

It does not have to fit within a certain key, number of bars, time, etc. The melody excludes its variations or the chorus. Even nutty modern Jazz has a melody, which in many cases is implied rather than actually played explicitly.

Furthermore, there are many examples of atonal music that are key-agnostic, which have their melody, but not in traditional sense of a “tune that you can whistle to”. This is the kind of music that you may feel sounds "wrong", as it isn't always easy to listen to.

[P-Jay]

Dr Jekyll said:

Suppose I were to strike oil in my back garden and decided to discreetly refine it into petrol. How would I go about it and is there a lower limit to the scale of the operation?

If I remember high school correctly a refinery in it's simplest form is basically a big vertical tube with valves in it - you'd pour in your filtered crude, carefully heat it so the constituent parts separated and hey presto your petrol would be the middle bit from memory. You'd need to add a few other things to match what comes out of the pump at your local Shell though. Also you'd need to find a way of getting ride of the 50-55% of the crude that's left over - maybe a home plastics factory.

Being that you're trying to make production of something that costs £1.30 a litre with machinery the lowest profitable scale would still be huge - way, way more than personal consumption.

Diesel is more viable, if only your back garden yielded gallons of used chip fat instead:

http://www.biodiesel-kits-online.com/biodiesel-kit... Biodiesel Processor (2 Tank System)

[markmullen]

P-Jay said:

If I remember high school correctly a refinery in it's simplest form is basically a big vertical tube with valves in it - you'd pour in your filtered crude, carefully heat it so the constituent parts separated and hey presto your petrol would be the middle bit from memory. You'd need to add a few other things to match what comes out of the pump at your local Shell though. Also you'd need to find a way of getting ride of the 50-55% of the crude that's left over - maybe a home plastics factory.

Fractional distillation

[scarble]

and you'd still have to pay tax on it

[Silent1]

scarble said:

and you'd still have to pay tax on it

and the queen/government own anything that comes out of the ground unless you purchase the mineral (iirc) rights, no texas style millionaires here.

[Shaolin]

markmullen said:

P-Jay said:

If I remember high school correctly a refinery in it's simplest form is basically a big vertical tube with valves in it - you'd pour in your filtered crude, carefully heat it so the constituent parts separated and hey presto your petrol would be the middle bit from memory. You'd need to add a few other things to match what comes out of the pump at your local Shell though. Also you'd need to find a way of getting ride of the 50-55% of the crude that's left over - maybe a home plastics factory.

Fractional distillation

Probably a lot of blowy-upness too heating all those volatile hydrocarbons and trying to collect the petrol bit in a pyrex jug.

[P-Jay]

Shaolin said:

markmullen said:

P-Jay said:

If I remember high school correctly a refinery in it's simplest form is basically a big vertical tube with valves in it - you'd pour in your filtered crude, carefully heat it so the constituent parts separated and hey presto your petrol would be the middle bit from memory. You'd need to add a few other things to match what comes out of the pump at your local Shell though. Also you'd need to find a way of getting ride of the 50-55% of the crude that's left over - maybe a home plastics factory.

Fractional distillation

Probably a lot of blowy-upness too heating all those volatile hydrocarbons and trying to collect the petrol bit in a pyrex jug.

I was sure the use the word "carefully" after-all a home brew petrol refinery is second only to an upturned plug in a dark room on the lethal scale.

[StevieBee]

P-Jay said:

StevieBee said:

ambuletz said:

Are there any consequences when people swear on live TV during the day? Watching sunday brunch and a guy just said st.

Yes. OfCom monitor all broadcast media. Depending upon the severity, they can issue a warning, a fine or in exceptional circumstances, remove a show altogether.

I seem to remember TFI Friday got very close to being cancelled by them (maybe a predecessor) for continued infractions - Shaun Ryder caused the biggest fuss so TFI banned him from coming on, the relented a few years later and he did it again.

OF course, being Welsh I wondered what all the fuss was about, after all TFI came on at 11pm in Wales....

Yep - remember that. Why they got into trouble was that they put on a guest that they knew would not be suitable for an early evening slot (willful negligence) designed to create controversy to gain audience numbers.

[All that jazz]

Just discovered on Ebay there's a new 'Click & Collect' option now where you can collect your item from places such as Argos, Euro Car Parts, GSF etc. No cost to the buyer, no extra cost to the seller. So as Argos, ECP, GSF etc are not charities, what do they get out of this as I can't see them providing this service free of charge, yet that's exactly what it appears. I can't see Ebay bunging them anything as they would be passing that cost onto the seller, which they're not doing.

[Silent1]

All that jazz said:

Just discovered on Ebay there's a new 'Click & Collect' option now where you can collect your item from places such as Argos, Euro Car Parts, GSF etc. No cost to the buyer, no extra cost to the seller. So as Argos, ECP, GSF etc are not charities, what do they get out of this as I can't see them providing this service free of charge, yet that's exactly what it appears. I can't see Ebay bunging them anything as they would be passing that cost onto the seller, which they're not doing.

getting you in the shop?
I guess ebay must be paying for it out of the sellers fees?

[All that jazz]

Silent1 said:

getting you in the shop?
I guess ebay must be paying for it out of the sellers fees?

1. yes that did cross my mind, but it's a bit of a gamble for Argos. And ECP and GSF?!
2. seems like the only plausible answer but this is ebay we're talking about and they always take any opportunity/excuse they can to hike up seller fees.

[Dr Jekyll]

Suppose there was once a smart species of Dinosaur. I don't mean in terms of advanced technology but in terms of flint tools, cave paintings and generally banging the rocks together. Would we ever be able to tell?