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

[kowalski655]

Silent1 said:

Dr Jekyll said:

When did it become correct to refer to railway stations as train stations?

Why do instructions for microwave dinners say things like 'full power for 5 minutes, stand for 1 minute, then full power for 4 minutes'? What is the purpose of the minute in the middle?

Because microwaves heat unevenly so the minute to stand is for the heat to equalise

Also in the middle bit,dont you almost always have to give it a bit of a stir,or take the lid off,so the temperature equalises.

[fomb]

StevieBee said:

I've seen a similar test where they fire frozen turkeys into the engine!

I'd also imagine that having a grill of some sort could lead to debris being sucked onto it - I would have thought a stray bin bag planted to the front might affect the performance a bit.

I would assume that they need to design the engine for worst case scenario, which is something coming through this grille, and if you're doing that you might as well just make it a bit stronger and do away with the grille altogether.

[48k]

When a new production line is set up in a factory how do they go about programming and testing the robots which clamp/turn/weld/cut/whatever the thing being manufactured?

[glazbagun]

Dr Jekyll said:

Silent1 said:

Dr Jekyll said:

When did it become correct to refer to railway stations as train stations?

Why do instructions for microwave dinners say things like 'full power for 5 minutes, stand for 1 minute, then full power for 4 minutes'? What is the purpose of the minute in the middle?

Because microwaves heat unevenly so the minute to stand is for the heat to equalise

Sure, but why part way through the process? Would the second heating session have a different effect if the temperature was uneven to start with?

Microwaves cook from just behind the surface inwards. So the rest period lets cooler areas deep within the food get hot and vice versa.

If you just stick it in for eight minutes, you can have an outside that is totally nuked and an inside that is merely hot- try it on cheapo microwave pizzas.

I'm not sure, but I think this might be why they don't warm blood in the microwave- some bits get too hot.

[talksthetorque]

48k said:

When a new production line is set up in a factory how do they go about programming and testing the robots which clamp/turn/weld/cut/whatever the thing being manufactured?

Three ways of doing this, to my knowledge.
1. Someone manually manoeuvres the arm and does the job, the robot learns it and repeats it.
I think they did this with spray booth robot arms.
2. Someone stands at the robot and guides it with a joystick or numerical programmer and teaches the 'points' through the procedure. The robot then goes the fastest way between these points. You add extra points in to avoid hitting things. Hopefully before full speed testing.
3. Like all Cnc machines, someone programs all the movements in CAD. This is usually followed by 2, because real life /=CAD.

[paolow]

popeyewhite said:

Someone with strong abs can lift quite a bit doing cable crunches, but they're not a terribly good abs exercise. Leg raises are far more beneficial, he could do them with a dumbbell between his feet. Extremely unlikely he'll run out of weights then. No dumbbells? Plenty of other abs exercises.

Christ - dont drop it!

[Kinkell]

60 million turds flushed daily so what becomes of them in the UK? Settlement ponds deal with the liquid by overflowing them into waterways but there must be solids to deal with surely or do they just dissolve. Question prompted as the disgusting odour from Stirling's sewage works assailed my nostrils this evening as I drove past the River Forth.

[Ayahuasca]

Kinkell said:

60 million turds flushed daily so what becomes of them in the UK? Settlement ponds deal with the liquid by overflowing them into waterways but there must be solids to deal with surely or do they just dissolve. Question prompted as the disgusting odour from Stirling's sewage works assailed my nostrils this evening as I drove past the River Forth.

They go to a large secret factory on Merseyside where they are treated, condensed and turned into Labour politicians, Scousers, Liverpool FC supporters, Scottish nationalists and and Remain voters.

[Halmyre]

Kinkell said:

60 million turds flushed daily so what becomes of them in the UK?

NP&E

[StevieBee]

Kinkell said:

60 million turds flushed daily so what becomes of them in the UK? Settlement ponds deal with the liquid by overflowing them into waterways but there must be solids to deal with surely or do they just dissolve. Question prompted as the disgusting odour from Stirling's sewage works assailed my nostrils this evening as I drove past the River Forth.

Most get treated so they breakdown into a cocktail of fertiliser used for agriculture (those piles of whitish powder you see on fields after harvest, ready to be ploughed in, will most likely be treated turd.

Some are used in energy from waste plants to produce electricity.

[Thankyou4calling]

ashleyman said:

What happens when you get to the point of being able to lift all the weights on the machines at the gym?

Do you just plateau or do you have to go to a new gym?

The vast majority of people in a gym have no idea how to do an exercise correctly.

I'm a Health club owner and a member said to me last Friday he could use the entire weight stack on a machine (he was about 12 stone and not very muscled)

After laughingly watch his one rep max I made a few adjustments to his technique and he couldn't use 50% of the weights.

Generally, using a gym, the best results are from using the equipment at the light weight but with a very good technique and as i said, most don't.

[rohrl]

Thankyou4calling said:

ashleyman said:

What happens when you get to the point of being able to lift all the weights on the machines at the gym?

Do you just plateau or do you have to go to a new gym?

The vast majority of people in a gym have no idea how to do an exercise correctly.

I'm a Health club owner and a member said to me last Friday he could use the entire weight stack on a machine (he was about 12 stone and not very muscled)

After laughingly watch his one rep max I made a few adjustments to his technique and he couldn't use 50% of the weights.

Generally, using a gym, the best results are from using the equipment at the light weight but with a very good technique and as i said, most don't.

[ashleyman]

Thankyou4calling said:

The vast majority of people in a gym have no idea how to do an exercise correctly.

I'm a Health club owner and a member said to me last Friday he could use the entire weight stack on a machine (he was about 12 stone and not very muscled)

After laughingly watch his one rep max I made a few adjustments to his technique and he couldn't use 50% of the weights.

Generally, using a gym, the best results are from using the equipment at the light weight but with a very good technique and as i said, most don't.

Thanks for the reply - your comments do make lots of sense... I saw a guy yesterday on the chest press? machine doing the whole stack with just one arm. Genuinely stunned - he was a very big guy though, he then put the weights down to half and did the same exercise real slow. Looked like he was in pain so must be working for him.

Then I saw another guy who was probably smaller than I am (and I'm quite small) - he was lifting 42KG dumbbells but his arms were like twigs...

I like perfecting my form with low weights and going slow so seeing these guys lifting it ALL is just real weird. Never ever happened in my old gym...

[Thankyou4calling]

ashleyman said:

Thanks for the reply - your comments do make lots of sense... I saw a guy yesterday on the chest press? machine doing the whole stack with just one arm. Genuinely stunned - he was a very big guy though, he then put the weights down to half and did the same exercise real slow. Looked like he was in pain so must be working for him.

Then I saw another guy who was probably smaller than I am (and I'm quite small) - he was lifting 42KG dumbbells but his arms were like twigs...

I like perfecting my form with low weights and going slow so seeing these guys lifting it ALL is just real weird. Never ever happened in my old gym...

I don't know what the guy was doing with the 42KG dumbells but as an example, say he was doing incline presses.

To do a set (8-10 reps) PROPERLY with that weight takes a seriously strong person.

Now I know plenty will say they use that and more, I've seen it soooooooooo many times. They can't even get them in a start position without a spotter, then the first rep is shaky and far from giving a decent stretch to the pecs which is the whole point of using a dumbell.

Then the spotter steps in to cradle the persons elbows getting a full on pump himself before the dumbells are dropped and the person looks in the mirror and sizes themselves up.

Not a clue and would do better with half the weight lifted properly. .

[P-Jay]

Is it possible to make a smartphone work so hard that even whilst connected to the mains the battery drains?

Mine will actually do that now, but it's kind of broken. I used to use my old iPhone4 as a sat-nav device and it would drain the battery even if connected to the lighter port (1 amp socket I think rather than 5 amp).

[George29]

Why are salt and vinegar Walkers squares in a blue packet when every other Walkers salt and vinegar crisps are in green packets?

[talksthetorque]

George29 said:

Why are salt and vinegar Walkers squares in a blue packet when every other Walkers salt and vinegar crisps are in green packets?

It's walkers standard crisps that are plain wrong. Always said this.
Blue for S&V
Green is surely the cheese/onion end of the spectrum

[popeyewhite]

Thankyou4calling said:

They can't even get them in a start position without a spotter, then the first rep is shaky and far from giving a decent stretch to the pecs which is the whole point of using a dumbell.

I thought the whole point of dumbbells was to introduce more instability to the press over a machine or barbell press? Not sure you should stretch any lower with dumbbells than a barbell though.

[glazbagun]

P-Jay said:

Is it possible to make a smartphone work so hard that even whilst connected to the mains the battery drains?

Mine will actually do that now, but it's kind of broken. I used to use my old iPhone4 as a sat-nav device and it would drain the battery even if connected to the lighter port (1 amp socket I think rather than 5 amp).

I think you've answered your own question. I've had similar using Satnav and also while playing some games with good 3d graphics.

[walm]

talksthetorque said:

It's walkers standard crisps that are plain wrong. Always said this.
Blue for S&V

100% right.
Walkers should have a word with themselves.