Things you always wanted to know the answer to [Vol. 3]

[austinsmirk]

Dyl said:

SpeckledJim said:

Shakermaker said:

FiF said:

Windy weather. If I think back to when I started driving, 105E Anglia, Mk1 & Mk2 Cortina, Mk 1 Escort, Mini, any really windy weather from cross winds and you got blown all over the place.

Modern cars not so much. Why?

Manufacturers are more savvy about aerodynamics, true, but would have thought that something designed to have least resistance in a straight line, which is 99.99% of the time, then wouldn't they be more affected by large crosswind gusts?

OK, cars are also a lot heavier, that would improve things, but they are also a lot larger so more area in side profile so that works the other way and increases susceptibility.

wider tyres, with better grip, will contribute a lot.

cross-ply tyres, live rear axles, wind-catching roof-rails.

The suspension in the S-Class (and I'm sure in other things too) detects cross-winds and compensates accordingly.

The Mrs has a new model Renault Twingo, and that is the worst car I've ever driven in crosswinds. It was so bad on one motorway journey that the sideways movement triggered the ESP! I've driven unladen LWB Transits with better stability

Try driving a 71 Vw bay window camper, with hi top roof, not lowered on cross plys with a gutless 1600 cc engine in the wind. I've steered sailing yachts with more accuracy.

[StevieBee]

Vipers said:

London today, thinking shooting new add for new mini, but not too up on minis, any ideas?

Possible but the positioning of the lighting and lack of camera suggests they were filming something inside. The colour of the mini will have been used to add some visual background depth to what was being shot.

[pits]

Here's one that bugs me, it's the wetness of roads.

It has rained and the road is wet, sun comes out and starts to dry however there are two types of drying to the road.
1. The centre of each lane dries out, but the area of road where your wheels are stays soaking wet for ages.
2. The wheel area of the road dries out, but the centre of the the road remains soaking wet.

So I have trawled the net to find picture of what I mean, so this picture you can see the centre of the road is drying out, but the wheel area is very wet


But here the wheel lanes are very wet and the centre has dried out



Why?

[P-Jay]

pits said:

Here's one that bugs me, it's the wetness of roads.

It has rained and the road is wet, sun comes out and starts to dry however there are two types of drying to the road.
1. The centre of each lane dries out, but the area of road where your wheels are stays soaking wet for ages.
2. The wheel area of the road dries out, but the centre of the the road remains soaking wet.

So I have trawled the net to find picture of what I mean, so this picture you can see the centre of the road is drying out, but the wheel area is very wet


But here the wheel lanes are very wet and the centre has dried out



Why?

I've always assumed it's the heat from the engines that slowly dries the centre a bit quicker, added to the flat roads aren't completely flat to aid drainage.

[Halmyre]

pits said:

Here's one that bugs me, it's the wetness of roads.

It has rained and the road is wet, sun comes out and starts to dry however there are two types of drying to the road.
1. The centre of each lane dries out, but the area of road where your wheels are stays soaking wet for ages.
2. The wheel area of the road dries out, but the centre of the the road remains soaking wet.

So I have trawled the net to find picture of what I mean, so this picture you can see the centre of the road is drying out, but the wheel area is very wet


But here the wheel lanes are very wet and the centre has dried out



Why?

Fresh tarmac has a rough surface to drain water away, but where wheels run on it the tarmac gets worn smooth and water will sit on it for longer. This is why the left hand lane on a busy dual-carriageway has so much spray when it's raining while the right hand lane is often drier.

[wiggy001]

pits said:

Here's one that bugs me, it's the wetness of roads.

It has rained and the road is wet, sun comes out and starts to dry however there are two types of drying to the road.
1. The centre of each lane dries out, but the area of road where your wheels are stays soaking wet for ages.
2. The wheel area of the road dries out, but the centre of the the road remains soaking wet.

So I have trawled the net to find picture of what I mean, so this picture you can see the centre of the road is drying out, but the wheel area is very wet


But here the wheel lanes are very wet and the centre has dried out



Why?

I've read your post several times now... aren't those 2 pics (or at least your descriptions) examples of the same thing?

[Morningside]

Shining a high powered torch through my finger and obviously it shone very red and you could see some veins. But I then thought could you have a light source so bright that it would make all your body bright red? And then on from that could it then make a cheap x-ray?

[grumbledoak]

Morningside said:

Shining a high powered torch through my finger and obviously it shone very red and you could see some veins. But I then thought could you have a light source so bright that it would make all your body bright red? And then on from that could it then make a cheap x-ray?

Or you could just set fire to people and sift through the ashes?

[Jonboy_t]

Why is there never any fking plug sockets anywhere near the bed in hotels?!?!

[R E S T E C P]

Morningside said:

Shining a high powered torch through my finger and obviously it shone very red and you could see some veins. But I then thought could you have a light source so bright that it would make all your body bright red? And then on from that could it then make a cheap x-ray?

Yes you could theoretically have a power source that bright. The doctor on the other side would get a lovely view for a second until the patient's internal organs melt and boil inside their bodies. After they fall in a burning heap on the ground the beam will hit the doctor who will be instantly blinded for life ("life" being half a second until he's also dead and on-fire on the ground).

[Nimby]

Morningside said:

Shining a high powered torch through my finger and obviously it shone very red and you could see some veins. But I then thought could you have a light source so bright that it would make all your body bright red? And then on from that could it then make a cheap x-ray?

No because visible light is the wrong wavelength. It' easily scattered and diffracted by translucent body tissues . X-rays are much shorter wavelength and aren't scattered, so you get a sharp image. I suppose you might be able to spot a broken bone in a finger just with light ...

[Dr Jekyll]

pits said:

Here's one that bugs me, it's the wetness of roads.

It has rained and the road is wet, sun comes out and starts to dry however there are two types of drying to the road.
1. The centre of each lane dries out, but the area of road where your wheels are stays soaking wet for ages.
2. The wheel area of the road dries out, but the centre of the the road remains soaking wet.

I've wondered about this. The centre of a busy road presumably can dry out faster because of engine heat. I also suspect tyres drain water from one place and deposit it in another. So you could get dryish tyre tracks on a wet road but damp tyre tracks on an initially dryer section of road. Possibly the type of road surface also affects whether tyres pick up more water or deposit more. On the bike after rain I often find myself covering a few miles where the tyre tracks are dry, then a few where the tyre tracks are wet, then it changes back again. The A40 by the Westway is sometimes like this. Either wet tyre tracks on the elevated section and dry at ground level or vice versa, I can't remember which.

[talksthetorque]

Jonboy_t said:

Why is there never any fking plug sockets anywhere near the bed in hotels?!?!

Because you stay in cheap/old hotels where they didn't want you nicking the electricity.

Many decent/modern hotels now provide usb charging points as well as 3 pin and Euro sockets near the bed.
Up your budget!

( or buy an extension lead)

[Jonboy_t]

talksthetorque said:

Jonboy_t said:

Why is there never any fking plug sockets anywhere near the bed in hotels?!?!

Because you stay in cheap/old hotels where they didn't want you nicking the electricity.

Many decent/modern hotels now provide usb charging points as well as 3 pin and Euro sockets near the bed.
Up your budget!

( or buy an extension lead)

Was in a Really nice 5* place last night (not on my own money, lucky find through work!!) and absolutely everything was in the room - 4K tv, sex pond in the bathroom etc - but no plug sockets near the bed! The usual is a premier inn, so that's kinda fair enough, but I've stayed in some decent ones and have never had power near the bed!

[FiF]

Jonboy_t said:

talksthetorque said:

Jonboy_t said:

Why is there never any fking plug sockets anywhere near the bed in hotels?!?!

Because you stay in cheap/old hotels where they didn't want you nicking the electricity.

Many decent/modern hotels now provide usb charging points as well as 3 pin and Euro sockets near the bed.
Up your budget!

( or buy an extension lead)

Was in a Really nice 5* place last night (not on my own money, lucky find through work!!) and absolutely everything was in the room - 4K tv, sex pond in the bathroom etc - but no plug sockets near the bed! The usual is a premier inn, so that's kinda fair enough, but I've stayed in some decent ones and have never had power near the bed!

It's a fair question to ask in my mind, for example folks who have sleep apnoea or have need of a vaporiser need a power source close to the bed or have to carry an extension.

[BigBen]

FiF said:

Jonboy_t said:

talksthetorque said:

Jonboy_t said:

Why is there never any fking plug sockets anywhere near the bed in hotels?!?!

Because you stay in cheap/old hotels where they didn't want you nicking the electricity.

Many decent/modern hotels now provide usb charging points as well as 3 pin and Euro sockets near the bed.
Up your budget!

( or buy an extension lead)

Was in a Really nice 5* place last night (not on my own money, lucky find through work!!) and absolutely everything was in the room - 4K tv, sex pond in the bathroom etc - but no plug sockets near the bed! The usual is a premier inn, so that's kinda fair enough, but I've stayed in some decent ones and have never had power near the bed!

It's a fair question to ask in my mind, for example folks who have sleep apnoea or have need of a vaporiser need a power source close to the bed or have to carry an extension.

On a similar subject why don't hotels have clocks in the room, I hate waking up in the night and not being able to see what the time is. Coupled with lack of bedside socket to set up a smartphone as a clock some stays can be a disaster.

[Shakermaker]

BigBen said:

FiF said:

Jonboy_t said:

talksthetorque said:

Jonboy_t said:

Why is there never any fking plug sockets anywhere near the bed in hotels?!?!

Because you stay in cheap/old hotels where they didn't want you nicking the electricity.

Many decent/modern hotels now provide usb charging points as well as 3 pin and Euro sockets near the bed.
Up your budget!

( or buy an extension lead)

Was in a Really nice 5* place last night (not on my own money, lucky find through work!!) and absolutely everything was in the room - 4K tv, sex pond in the bathroom etc - but no plug sockets near the bed! The usual is a premier inn, so that's kinda fair enough, but I've stayed in some decent ones and have never had power near the bed!

It's a fair question to ask in my mind, for example folks who have sleep apnoea or have need of a vaporiser need a power source close to the bed or have to carry an extension.

On a similar subject why don't hotels have clocks in the room, I hate waking up in the night and not being able to see what the time is. Coupled with lack of bedside socket to set up a smartphone as a clock some stays can be a disaster.

I stayed in a nice hotel at the weekend which had a clock in the room, but still no plug next to the bed.

[mrtwisty]

Why is there a 130 page thread about one film? (Prometheus)

[Speed addicted]

pits said:

Here's one that bugs me, it's the wetness of roads.

It has rained and the road is wet, sun comes out and starts to dry however there are two types of drying to the road.
1. The centre of each lane dries out, but the area of road where your wheels are stays soaking wet for ages.
2. The wheel area of the road dries out, but the centre of the the road remains soaking wet.

So I have trawled the net to find picture of what I mean, so this picture you can see the centre of the road is drying out, but the wheel area is very wet


But here the wheel lanes are very wet and the centre has dried out



Why?

1. Traffic density and weight has been enough to deform the top layer of the road so that the wheel tracks are slightly lower than the centre. You see this mainly on busy roads used by heavy lorries, or older roads that haven't been surfaced in a long time.

2 Tyres are designed to displace water, and the deformation in 1 hasn't happened, usually on newer tarmac or less traveled roads. The water gets pushed to the sides and centre like you would expect.

[Hugo a Gogo]

my theory:

while there is lots water still arriving water keeps filling the indentations where wheels go, so wheel tracks are wetter

once water stops falling from the sky, tyres displace it quickly, so wheel tracks are dryer