Things you always wanted to know the answer to [Vol. 5]

[p1doc]

ahh thanks for clearing it up

[Nethybridge]

Rusty Old-Banger said:

Sway said:

They've a sensor so that they co-ordinate. One is the master.

It's so that you don't just get a weirdly discordant rhythm that might confuse.

This. (Highway worker)

Highway worker eh? , the very person to ask, does flashing your headlights like dribbling maniac persuade
a temporary roadworks traffic light to turn to green any quicker than it was planning to do ?

[Jordie Barretts sock]

Nethybridge said:

Rusty Old-Banger said:

Sway said:

They've a sensor so that they co-ordinate. One is the master.

It's so that you don't just get a weirdly discordant rhythm that might confuse.

This. (Highway worker)

Highway worker eh? , the very person to ask, does flashing your headlights like dribbling maniac persuade
a temporary roadworks traffic light to turn to green any quicker than it was planning to do ?

Obviously not. The little box on the top of the traffic light is radar.

How do you think it works in daylight?

[2xChevrons]

98elise said:

CivicDuties said:

hidetheelephants said:

CivicDuties said:

Truckosaurus said:

Alickadoo said:

If you couldn't read or write, wouldn't you get someone show you what your name looked like written down, and then practice copying that?

Yeah, why didn't the illiterate just learn to read and write? (I suspect there were many who could 'mask' and sign their name but not properly read what they were signing).

In the case of my great grandmother, it was the threat of violence from her husband if she dared learn anything useful, and the fact her parents never sent her to school as a child preferring her to work.

When was she born? Basic schooling was compulsory from 1880-ish, earlier in Scotland.

1901. In Malta. Great grandfather was from London, went to Malta with the Army. They met, married, stayed in Malta a few years, then moved to India for a long time (Army, Empire, that jazz), before coming to England for the rest of their lives. So she was, for her entire life, under the influence of either controlling parents or husband. During that time she was also banned, under threat of violence, from speaking her native language. Which she eventually forgot almost entirely. By her 80s she could only remember two words.

Those were the days, huh.

So if someone was trying to play a "didn't happen" card, or an "anyone is free to learn to read and write card, then they can foxtrot oscar. Yeah times are different now, thankfully, but this is lived memory to me. The poor old girl was so frightened of her parents and husband, even after their deaths, and also the fear of imaginary superstitions (the Catholic Maltese version of Jesus and God, and also the old pre-Christian Middle Eastern concept of the "Evil Eye" dominated pretty much her every decision) that she found it difficult to function.

So that's why, for some people, there are barriers to learning things. I expect this situation persists in some places in the world.

Edited by CivicDuties on Thursday 25th April 15:19

It's not that unknown in the UK. A few years back I was implementing a software system for managing in house tradesmen. One of the labourers attending training revealed he couldn’t read or write! Quote a problem when you're moving from verbal instructions to electronic messages.

Back in the 2000s I had a summer job working in a boatyard and while I was there it was discovered that the oldest of the 'old boys' was functionally illiterate. And he'd worked with/for the owner in factory, warehouse and boatwork jobs since the 1970s. This was a man, British as they come, born in the late 1940s, who had just entirely slipped through the Portsmouth education system without learning how to read and barely how to write.

I can't remember what the crux of the issue was that revealed it, but I think it may have been the introduction of some computer or computerised system. Before that he just got through daily life by routine. He'd sit in the break room and leaf through newspapers and magazines that were lying about but be looking at the pictures, not ingesting the words. In retrospect people realised that when announcements or notices were pinned to the board he'd either pay close attention to the resulting conversation or ask something like "so what do you make of all that, then?" or "so what does that mean for us, then?" and so get conversational run-down of the contents. He filled in his time sheets by copying the relevant parts from one already completed by someone who had worked the same hours that day. And his wife 'ran the household' in terms of bills and orders and things like that. He did have a signature, but whether it meant anything (to him or anyone else) who knows?

[Clockwork Cupcake]

Jordie Barretts sock said:

Obviously not. The little box on the top of the traffic light is radar.

How do you think it works in daylight?

Decades ago many were on a time-clock in the day and had a simple light sensor that could override the time-clock at night. The rationale being that traffic density was higher in the day.

But radar is so cheap these days that even base spec Polos and Golfs have it, so it doesn't surprise me that traffic lights do too.

Edited by Clockwork Cupcake on Friday 26th April 20:49

[StevieBee]

Why are there no aeroplanes at Heathrow airport on Google maps Satellite View? Not one:



And at the car parks are all as near as damn it, empty.

I did think this was Covid but the image was captured in 2024.

Same at Gatwick - not one at a stand though a few parked up:



Whereas there's plenty at Luton:

[popeyewhite]

Eery.

Very eery.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

StevieBee said:

Why are there no aeroplanes at Heathrow airport on Google maps Satellite View? Not one:

Didn't we do this quite recently? I have a definite feeling of Deja Vu

[StevieBee]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

StevieBee said:

Why are there no aeroplanes at Heathrow airport on Google maps Satellite View? Not one:

Didn't we do this quite recently? I have a definite feeling of Deja Vu

Missed it if we did.

I know they used stacked images to get rid of clouds so some movable things may disappear in the final image but seems to me that to show the entirety of Heathrow as close to being entirely empty would require deliberate selection from a great many images to create that impression.

[stemll]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

StevieBee said:

Why are there no aeroplanes at Heathrow airport on Google maps Satellite View? Not one:

Didn't we do this quite recently? I have a definite feeling of Deja Vu

And yes, we did have this quite recently and the response to "was it during covid?" was that if it was, everything would have been parked up as almost nothing was flying

[Clockwork Cupcake]

stemll said:

And yes, we did have this quite recently and the response to "was it during covid?" was that if it was, everything would have been parked up as almost nothing was flying

My recollection was that we postulated that it was indeed during Covid but then someone in the industry came along and said that during Covid it was like a plane parking lot and they couldn't move for them.

I don't actually remember what we concluded though.

[stemll]

So kinda (mostly) what I said then

Google supposedly does have some algorithms running on maps to remove transient stuff and just leave what is the same from image to image. Wouldn't explain why Luton shows aircraft as do most US airports

[Abbott]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

stemll said:

And yes, we did have this quite recently and the response to "was it during covid?" was that if it was, everything would have been parked up as almost nothing was flying

My recollection was that we postulated that it was indeed during Covid but then someone in the industry came along and said that during Covid it was like a plane parking lot and they couldn't move for them.

I don't actually remember what we concluded though.

There is one plane visible

[Abbott]

Similar thing at Gatwick with nothing at any of the gates but there are planes parked in various places away from the gates

[droopsnoot]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

StevieBee said:

Why are there no aeroplanes at Heathrow airport on Google maps Satellite View? Not one:

Didn't we do this quite recently? I have a definite feeling of Deja Vu

And on that subject, isn't there an entire thread somewhere where someone argues about the presence of headlight sensors in temporary traffic lights, where even the input from someone who designs such lights for a living wasn't enough to persuade them?

[Clockwork Cupcake]

stemll said:

So kinda (mostly) what I said then

Oh yes. Sorry. I misread your post.

[StevieBee]

droopsnoot said:

And on that subject, isn't there an entire thread somewhere where someone argues about the presence of headlight sensors in temporary traffic lights, where even the input from someone who designs such lights for a living wasn't enough to persuade them?

A phenomenon not exclusive to temporary traffic lights, sadly.

[hidetheelephants]

Abbott said:

Clockwork Cupcake said:

stemll said:

And yes, we did have this quite recently and the response to "was it during covid?" was that if it was, everything would have been parked up as almost nothing was flying

My recollection was that we postulated that it was indeed during Covid but then someone in the industry came along and said that during Covid it was like a plane parking lot and they couldn't move for them.

I don't actually remember what we concluded though.

There is one plane visible

IIRC someone who worked in Heathrow maintenance on the date the image states it's from said it's bks, they couldn't have fitted any more parked aircraft in there without stacking them with a forklift. Presumably someone at Google was testing some whizzo delete algorithm.

[P-Jay]

Bastos

Prolific sponsors of Touring and Rally cars in the 80s and 90. Who were they? I can’t recall ever seeing a product carrying their logo.

[hidetheelephants]

P-Jay said:

Bastos

Prolific sponsors of Touring and Rally cars in the 80s and 90. Who were they? I can’t recall ever seeing a product carrying their logo.

Google says it's a spanish fag brand, so like Silkcut and JPS.