Things you always wanted to know the answer to [Vol. 4]

[captain_cynic]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

CaptainSlow said:

Ayahuasca said:

How is one supposed to clean a bog brush?

Just rinse it under the tap?

I just flush the loo and hold the brush under the stream of water and then agitate it in the bowl. Rinse and repeat a couple of times. Job(bie)'s a good 'un.

I've always just replaced the bog brush when it develops it's own distinctive musk.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

captain_cynic said:

I've always just replaced the bog brush when it develops it's own distinctive musk.

I've been using those Toilet Duck disposable brush head things recently which seems to work very well, but I ran out of them the other day and needed to use the bog brush. But, yes, agreed.

[Fermit and Sexy Sarah]

Here's one. Really pissed off that a company has sold us 2 tonnes of burning logs, where most of them are approaching 40% moisture (needs to be 20 or less to burn well. When they've been inside for 24 hours this drops right down. If we bought a load in and stacked them around the log burner would this accelerate their drying out?

[Clockwork Cupcake]

Fermit and Sexy Sarah said:

If we bought a load in and stacked them around the log burner would this accelerate their drying out?

Well it's not going to make them damper is it.

[Hugo a Gogo]

I've tried using a bog brush, but I can't get along with it, too uncomfortable, I don't know how you lot do it.
I'm sticking with toilet roll from now on, much kinder on the balloon knot

[Rostfritt]

popeyewhite said:

Clockwork Cupcake said:

Unless it gets locked up in permanent ice, as that takes it out of the cycle

That's why sea levels are rising as the permanent ice caps melt, which releases water back into the cycle.

Sea levels also rise as glaciers are not 're-stocked' with snow that turns to ice so much now, and the sea level will rise anyway as the water gets warmer.

Glaciers are basically really slow rivers that hold a huge amount of water as ice for a very long time. That is why the heads of them receding is quite concerning.

There is also an effect of sea levels rising due to rising temperatures. Water is densest at about 4c, any hotter or colder and it will expand. This is quite minute, until you get to ice which is why it floats. A column of water several miles deep could expand by a few feet if it warms up a few degrees.

[DocJock]

Rostfritt said:

popeyewhite said:

Clockwork Cupcake said:

Unless it gets locked up in permanent ice, as that takes it out of the cycle

That's why sea levels are rising as the permanent ice caps melt, which releases water back into the cycle.

Sea levels also rise as glaciers are not 're-stocked' with snow that turns to ice so much now, and the sea level will rise anyway as the water gets warmer.

Glaciers are basically really slow rivers that hold a huge amount of water as ice for a very long time. That is why the heads of them receding is quite concerning.

There is also an effect of sea levels rising due to rising temperatures. Water is densest at about 4c, any hotter or colder and it will expand. This is quite minute, until you get to ice which is why it floats. A column of water several miles deep could expand by a few feet if it warms up a few degrees.

I hate to bear bad news, but there is no such thing.

[talksthetorque]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

Fermit and Sexy Sarah said:

If we bought a load in and stacked them around the log burner would this accelerate their drying out?

Well it's not going to make them damper is it.

the moisture has to go somewhere though.
a) when it evaporates it will go in to the room atmosphere. This may or may not smell pleasant*
b) evaporation takes energy, so it will reduce the total heat gained from the log burner.*
c) it might just be the logs that were on the top/bottom/outside of the pile when they were delivered in the rain?


* these effects will be minimal/unnoticeable. If your log burner is anything like ours we have to leave the door open in the room or it gets too hot, but it wouldn't be PH without a bit of pedantry. I usually load the burner up with the logs by the burner, then get enough logs from the "big pile" drying out for the next load.

[Exige77]

DocJock said:

Rostfritt said:

popeyewhite said:

Clockwork Cupcake said:

Unless it gets locked up in permanent ice, as that takes it out of the cycle

That's why sea levels are rising as the permanent ice caps melt, which releases water back into the cycle.

Sea levels also rise as glaciers are not 're-stocked' with snow that turns to ice so much now, and the sea level will rise anyway as the water gets warmer.

Glaciers are basically really slow rivers that hold a huge amount of water as ice for a very long time. That is why the heads of them receding is quite concerning.

There is also an effect of sea levels rising due to rising temperatures. Water is densest at about 4c, any hotter or colder and it will expand. This is quite minute, until you get to ice which is why it floats. A column of water several miles deep could expand by a few feet if it warms up a few degrees.

I hate to bear bad news, but there is no such thing.

Only the very top of a large deep body of water freezes so hardly any effect at all.

[P-Jay]

Stan the Bat said:

The various online/phone scams i.e.

Microsoft scam
BT scam
Amazon scam
Nigerian Prince scam
Etc.

Do any of these scammers ever get caught and prosecuted?

According to GCHQ (I've been to a load of IT Security conferences, they always wheel out someone who is introduced as being from GCHQ) very few. A few high profile ones have been caught over the years, but it's usually the naive and stupid.

They're surprisingly professional, they showed some hidden footage of one place in Eastern Europe somewhere, looked like any other office, they even had a Holiday chart on the wall!

The Crypolocker scammers from a few years ago didn't even consider themselves criminals, I don't know if they were trying to rationalise what they were doing or trying to avoid falling foul of outdated laws in their territory, but as far as they were concerned they were 'Security Consultants' exposing security flaws for their 'clients' in exchange for their 'fee'. I know someone who got caught and had little choice but to pay them, he asked "If I pay you, how do I know you'll unencrypt my data" they replied "I'm not a criminal!" and they did.

The popular scam at the moment is to hack into your e-mails via 365, they 'sit' on your domain for days, weeks even reading everyone's e-mails, working out who's the boss and who pays the invoices - then they send an e-mail from the Boss telling them to pay £xxx to xxx immediately "please note new banks details" not only is the English perfect, they copy the Boss's writing style, make it slightly threatening etc.

[Rostfritt]

P-Jay said:

The popular scam at the moment is to hack into your e-mails via 365, they 'sit' on your domain for days, weeks even reading everyone's e-mails, working out who's the boss and who pays the invoices - then they send an e-mail from the Boss telling them to pay £xxx to xxx immediately "please note new banks details" not only is the English perfect, they copy the Boss's writing style, make it slightly threatening etc.

There is a variation called the 'Friday afternoon scam', where they send a request for a bill to be paid that day to the right person on a Friday afternoon threatening all sorts of issues if it isn't paid up on time. The hope being that they do it because of the urgency and that anyone they could double check the invoice with has gone home for the weekend.

I got an email from someone in another company with a link to download an invoice a while back. I called them because that is in no way my job or probably theirs. Turns out they were hacked and it went to everyone they had ever emailed. I reported it to IT, who were pretty clueless and told me that I shouldn't be receiving invoices this way.

[S1KRR]

Was chatting to a mate. And we got on to the subject of a pair of local drug dealers near where he lives.

They are the typical "big man" types. Loads of cash, big watches, gaudy jewellery, dubiously acquired flash motors driven like cocks, make a huge song and dance about their lifestyles, about as discreet as a sofa thrown from a tower block. Everyone knows who they are. They have a couple of businesses that everyone knows are fronts for laundering. The very opposite of REAL criminal enterprise who don't draw much attention to themselves and presumably don't get nicked*

I cant imagine the Police would have to do too much to build a case against them and nick em. Wouldn't even need to get any of their associates to help out. Just a bit of surveillance, check out the hooky motors, some checking of their assets etc

Catch them with a few kilos. Easy decade away. Surely?

I'm not saying corruption, I appreciate resources are tight. But its got to be in the "easy win" column for them. So why doesn't it happen?



*Another friend knows vaguely of a couple of "interesting" Albanian chaps. Apparently they have nice cars, but they are generally subtle, 5-7 year old big Mercs or Audis. Chatting to them he says they are polite, don't drive like dheads. Dress well, but without being showy. 99% of the population wouldn't give them a second look. They aren't getting nicked because to all intents and purposes they are Mediterranean property landlords or whatever.

[kowalski655]

S1KRR said:

Was chatting to a mate. And we got on to the subject of a pair of local drug dealers near where he lives.

They are the typical "big man" types. Loads of cash, big watches, gaudy jewellery, dubiously acquired flash motors driven like cocks, make a huge song and dance about their lifestyles, about as discreet as a sofa thrown from a tower block. .......

Sounds like 50% of PH

[Roofless Toothless]

S1KRR said:

Was chatting to a mate. And we got on to the subject of a pair of local drug dealers near where he lives.

They are the typical "big man" types. Loads of cash, big watches, gaudy jewellery, dubiously acquired flash motors driven like cocks, make a huge song and dance about their lifestyles, about as discreet as a sofa thrown from a tower block. Everyone knows who they are. They have a couple of businesses that everyone knows are fronts for laundering. The very opposite of REAL criminal enterprise who don't draw much attention to themselves and presumably don't get nicked*

I cant imagine the Police would have to do too much to build a case against them and nick em. Wouldn't even need to get any of their associates to help out. Just a bit of surveillance, check out the hooky motors, some checking of their assets etc

Catch them with a few kilos. Easy decade away. Surely?

I'm not saying corruption, I appreciate resources are tight. But its got to be in the "easy win" column for them. So why doesn't it happen?



*Another friend knows vaguely of a couple of "interesting" Albanian chaps. Apparently they have nice cars, but they are generally subtle, 5-7 year old big Mercs or Audis. Chatting to them he says they are polite, don't drive like dheads. Dress well, but without being showy. 99% of the population wouldn't give them a second look. They aren't getting nicked because to all intents and purposes they are Mediterranean property landlords or whatever.

I would imagine the police indeed know all about them. They are probably after their suppliers, not a couple of clowns like you describe.

[Brother D]

Nimby said:

Brother D said:

What diameter circle do you have to walk around for a compass to point at the north/south pole with a hand held magnetic compass? I assume its not like 2/3ft away from the center of the north pole, and not as far as having to be 200miles away? But what is the distance where you can see the needle move around so that's it's always pointing to the center point of the north/south pole ?

A compass aligns with the earth's magnetic lines of force. Anywhere near the poles these are pretty much vertical so a hand-held compass wouldn't work at all; the needle would tilt too much and jam against the housing, and the bearing wouldn't work if you held it sideways.

A floating-ball type marine compass might work better but as you moved away from a pole it would still point down to a point well below the earth's surface near to the iron core. So I guess the answer is "as far away as your eyesight is good enough to tell that a free-floating magnet isn't quite vertical".

BTW good hand compasses are designed to allow for the "angle of dip" of the earth's field, which is only horizontal near the equator.
This is the underneath of my orienteering thumb-compass:




The pointer-bit you navigate by (white) is just a strip of light plastic. Glued to it is a tiny neodymium magnet (black). This reduces the angular momentum so it settles instantly and more accurately compared to a traditional magnetised iron needle,. Note that the magnet is slightly offset to the south-pointing side, and there's also a tiny counterweight. These help it balance horizontally in most northern-hemisphere countries. You can also get equatorial and southern-hemisphere versions.

If you are saying the compass points to a point at the core of the earth then it wouldn't matter where you stand.

My quesiton still stands. - A magnetic compass works at the equator, it works in Scotland, and it works near to the north pole, but up to what point?

[Nimby]

Well according to this the earth's field is too weak near the poles for compasses to work at all.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4CU3c81fQGc

[Brother D]

Nimby said:

Well according to this the earth's field is too weak near the poles for compasses to work at all.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4CU3c81fQGc

Cheers that's what I was looking for - about how far from the pole do you have to be for a hand held magnetic compass to work and that guy says stops working at the 88th parallel (Interestingly I couldn't find a link to the diameter of the 88th parallel, and my maths isn't up to it)!

[talksthetorque]

Brother D said:

Cheers that's what I was looking for - about how far from the pole do you have to be for a hand held magnetic compass to work and that guy says stops working at the 88th parallel (Interestingly I couldn't find a link to the diameter of the 88th parallel, and my maths isn't up to it)!

I don't think the magnetic north pole is that far up, although it's moving towards the north pole at a fair lick at the moment.

[Lily the Pink]

Brother D said:

Cheers that's what I was looking for - about how far from the pole do you have to be for a hand held magnetic compass to work and that guy says stops working at the 88th parallel (Interestingly I couldn't find a link to the diameter of the 88th parallel, and my maths isn't up to it)!

Just working it out in my head, and assuming the earth is a perfect sphere then the diameter at the 88th parallel would be 2 * R * sin(2 degrees), where R is the radius of the sphere.
Now waiting for someone to shoot that down.....

[Fermit and Sexy Sarah]

Why is rare and medium beef acceptable, even promoted, yet a rare (essentially uncooked) burger deemed so dangerous. It's the same meat surely?