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

[schmunk]

48k said:

Everyone knows the "rule of thumb" - that if you can stick your thumb in the dimple in the bottom of the bottle, its a good wine. I thought everyone chose their wine that way?

Winemakers know about this too...

[LivingTheDream]

When will we run out of old railway sleepers?

Been bugging me for ages - you can still buy used railway sleepers despite all the railways having concrete sleepers for as long as can remember.

Surely we must run out of used ones at some point?

[V8mate]

Roofless Toothless said:

48k said:

JustinF said:

Roofless Toothless said:

Why do wine bottles often have a big concave dimple in the bottom? Why does it tend to be larger in some types of wines than others?

Originally to allow the sediment to settle in an area where it'd not be distrurbed whilst pouring, nowadays with the majority of wine being filtered it's just a more expensive bottle that may or may not indicate the quality of the wine within, amazing how an extra few pennies in glassware can allow you to bump up the percieved value.

Everyone knows the "rule of thumb" - that if you can stick your thumb in the dimple in the bottom of the bottle, its a good wine. I thought everyone chose their wine that way?

I thought that was girlfriends.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

LivingTheDream said:

When will we run out of old railway sleepers?

A lot of them are new "old railway sleepers"

[LivingTheDream]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

LivingTheDream said:

When will we run out of old railway sleepers?

A lot of them are new "old railway sleepers"

I know you can get new ones but I mean the clearly old creosote covered proper ones. Surely they don't make new ones, cover them in creosote and leave them out for a few years before selling them?

like this...

https://www.uksleepers.co.uk/product/Reclaimed_Oak...



(edited to add link)

[captain_cynic]

LivingTheDream said:

Clockwork Cupcake said:

LivingTheDream said:

When will we run out of old railway sleepers?

A lot of them are new "old railway sleepers"

I know you can get new ones but I mean the clearly old creosote covered proper ones. Surely they don't make new ones, cover them in creosote and leave them out for a few years before selling them?

Maybe, depends on how much hipsters are paying for them.

From an old Tele article from 2009, Network Rail were still replacing 200,000 wooden sleepers a year with concrete ones. Its possible there are still some lines that haven't been done.

I cant imagine there is much demand for used sleepers either.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

LivingTheDream said:

like this...

https://www.uksleepers.co.uk/product/Reclaimed_Oak...

Interesting wording on the text on that page. I'm reading that as "sleepers made from reclaimed oak" rather than "reclaimed railway sleepers".

[Nom de ploom]

why do so many sports revere the number 50 or 100?

Cricket, Snooker, football - appearances, goals milestones that is.... Darts....50 for bullseye, 100 is a base score....

and also 100 mph was an achievement....

is it purely because of our decimal numbering system or is there some other significance?

why for example isn't 77 a target in cricket....? or 84?

[Brother D]

48k said:

JustinF said:

Roofless Toothless said:

Why do wine bottles often have a big concave dimple in the bottom? Why does it tend to be larger in some types of wines than others?

Originally to allow the sediment to settle in an area where it'd not be distrurbed whilst pouring, nowadays with the majority of wine being filtered it's just a more expensive bottle that may or may not indicate the quality of the wine within, amazing how an extra few pennies in glassware can allow you to bump up the percieved value.

Everyone knows the "rule of thumb" - that if you can stick your thumb in the dimple in the bottom of the bottle, its a good wine. I thought everyone chose their wine that way?

I think its also to do with strength and the 'reverse dome' helps

[Shakermaker]

Nom de ploom said:

why do so many sports revere the number 50 or 100?

Cricket, Snooker, football - appearances, goals milestones that is.... Darts....50 for bullseye, 100 is a base score....

and also 100 mph was an achievement....

is it purely because of our decimal numbering system or is there some other significance?

why for example isn't 77 a target in cricket....? or 84?

Darts is targeting 501 though

But yes, 100 is the first three digit number so is a milestone based on that, and the decimal system too I guess!

[SpeckledJim]

Shakermaker said:

Nom de ploom said:

why do so many sports revere the number 50 or 100?

Cricket, Snooker, football - appearances, goals milestones that is.... Darts....50 for bullseye, 100 is a base score....

and also 100 mph was an achievement....

is it purely because of our decimal numbering system or is there some other significance?

why for example isn't 77 a target in cricket....? or 84?

Darts is targeting 501 though

But yes, 100 is the first three digit number so is a milestone based on that, and the decimal system too I guess!

Simply because of decimal. 50 isn’t a big deal in darts though, it gets ignored. Treble 20 is much easier to hit, and has better scores when you miss.

[SpeckledJim]

why do we say ‘treble 20’ instead of triple 20?

I don’t order a ‘treble’ quarter pounder.

I’ve said too much.

[SpeckledJim]

Nanook said:

SpeckledJim said:

Simply because of decimal. 50 isn’t a big deal in darts though, it gets ignored. Treble 20 is much easier to hit, and has better scores when you miss.

Does it?

Cos I've hit plenty of treble 1s in my time, and if you're aiming at bull, there's only 2 things you can hit that are worst than a treble 1!

I'm pish at darts.

With darts though, 100 is a treble 20 and 2 singles. You're really hoping for a least one treble, so it's not that 100 is the important number, it's that the board is split into 20 segements, and you want to score at least 5 of those 20s each time around.

Once you’re pretty good, your typical miss from treble 20 is 20.

So even three misses gets you 60. Three misses of the bull is almost certainly a lot less than that. And makes the maths tougher!

[alorotom]

SpeckledJim said:

why do we say ‘treble 20’ instead of triple 20?

I don’t order a ‘treble’ quarter pounder.

I’ve said too much.

But in drinks it’s single, double, treble ...

[SpeckledJim]

alorotom said:

SpeckledJim said:

why do we say ‘treble 20’ instead of triple 20?

I don’t order a ‘treble’ quarter pounder.

I’ve said too much.

But in drinks it’s single, double, treble ...

Maybe correctly, but colloquially I’d say ‘triple vodka’ isn’t at all unusual?

Is there any actual difference in correct usage? Is one French and one Latin or something?

[SpeckledJim]

Nanook said:

SpeckledJim said:

Once you’re pretty good, your typical miss from treble 20 is 20.

So even three misses gets you 60. Three misses of the bull is almost certainly a lot less than that. And makes the maths tougher!

If you're decent enough to be banging in treble 20s regularly, you should be hitting outer bulls if you miss the bullseye.

But yeah, I take your point. Need to hang my board back up, although it's not really darts weather!

The typical miss is either high or low rather than left or right. And the size of the bull and outer occupies a much smaller space than the 20 and treble, which is helpfully vertical in orientation.

[Jonnny]

What temperature does water evaporate? I understand 100'c is boiling, and if you boiled it for long enough it would be gone.. But say you poured water on the floor in your house, it'll evaporate(?) within a few hours or so.. Or on holiday a puddle will be gone much quicker, so I assume its heat related.. But it's obviously not 100'c?

[SpeckledJim]

Jonnny said:

What temperature does water evaporate? I understand 100'c is boiling, and if you boiled it for long enough it would be gone.. But say you poured water on the floor in your house, it'll evaporate(?) within a few hours or so.. Or on holiday a puddle will be gone much quicker, so I assume its heat related.. But it's obviously not 100'c?

It evaporates at any temperature above zero, I think? The hotter, the faster, obviously.

[Exige77]

Nom de ploom said:

why do so many sports revere the number 50 or 100?

Cricket, Snooker, football - appearances, goals milestones that is.... Darts....50 for bullseye, 100 is a base score....

and also 100 mph was an achievement....

is it purely because of our decimal numbering system or is there some other significance?

why for example isn't 77 a target in cricket....? or 84?

Hey, lay off 77

[Shakermaker]

I wouldn't say I always wanted to know the answer to this, but its been bugging me this last week or so

I'm doing some work which involves some large amounts of data in MS Excel. I've got the newer version of Excel with 1 million+ rows Hundreds of thousands of data points included in my sheet for what I'm working on.

And yet, regularly I get a message saying that "the changes you are making will take too long to complete" but yet, the computer has supposedly 16gb of RAM, and the file size is only about 12mb. Trying to make said changes results in the system spitting its dummy out and won't work.

Why? Surely the computing power on a 12mb file can't be that big?