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

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

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Shakermaker

11,317 posts

101 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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popeyewhite said:
Cheap alloy wheel covers left propped at the side of the road by a helpful member of the public. Anyone stopped and picked one up/know anyone who has?
Yes. Wheel trim made an escape from an old Cavalier that I had years ago, driving to work the next morning and there it was, or at least, one that matched the other 3 that I still had. Duly collected it and kicked it back on and used stronger cable ties to retain it

popeyewhite

19,958 posts

121 months

Friday 14th February 2020
quotequote all
Shakermaker said:
popeyewhite said:
Cheap alloy wheel covers left propped at the side of the road by a helpful member of the public. Anyone stopped and picked one up/know anyone who has?
Yes. Wheel trim made an escape from an old Cavalier that I had years ago, driving to work the next morning and there it was, or at least, one that matched the other 3 that I still had. Duly collected it and kicked it back on and used stronger cable ties to retain it
Brilliant! Had the finder propped the shiny item against the bole of a tree to advertise it in all it's glory?
I wonder if the finder is also a driver and experienced a sort of vicarious thrill at the thought of you bimbling along only to notice.....Hey! That's mine! (Didn't even know I'd lost it) what a thoroughly decent chap the finder must be!

Einion Yrth

19,575 posts

245 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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Big-Bo-Beep said:
for what specific reason would a brass headed hammer be utilised ?

i remember them in the caseroom in the old days of hot metal printing, but cant think why brass, not iron or wood.
Harder wearing than wood, and unlike iron will not strike sparks. Often used in places where there is a significant fire risk.

21st Century Man

40,943 posts

249 months

Friday 14th February 2020
quotequote all
popeyewhite said:
Shakermaker said:
popeyewhite said:
Cheap alloy wheel covers left propped at the side of the road by a helpful member of the public. Anyone stopped and picked one up/know anyone who has?
Yes. Wheel trim made an escape from an old Cavalier that I had years ago, driving to work the next morning and there it was, or at least, one that matched the other 3 that I still had. Duly collected it and kicked it back on and used stronger cable ties to retain it
Brilliant! Had the finder propped the shiny item against the bole of a tree to advertise it in all it's glory?
I wonder if the finder is also a driver and experienced a sort of vicarious thrill at the thought of you bimbling along only to notice.....Hey! That's mine! (Didn't even know I'd lost it) what a thoroughly decent chap the finder must be!
When Daewoo Cars launched in the UK back in 1995, for the first year or two, if a Daewoo employee spotted a Daewoo missing a wheel trim, they'd put it on the system and a new one would be sent in the post.

talksthetorque

10,815 posts

136 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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Shakermaker said:
Yes. Wheel trim made an escape from an old Cavalier that I had years ago, driving to work the next morning and there it was, or at least, one that matched the other 3 that I still had. Duly collected it and kicked it back on and used stronger cable ties to retain it
The "council" bell is going to ring itself off the wall on this one.


psi310398

9,130 posts

204 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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21st Century Man said:
When Daewoo Cars launched in the UK back in 1995, for the first year or two, if a Daewoo employee spotted a Daewoo missing a wheel trim, they'd put it on the system and a new one would be sent in the post.
That so reminds me of the old Skoda joke - Q: How do you double the value of a Skoda? A: Fill the tank.

SpeckledJim

31,608 posts

254 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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psi310398 said:
21st Century Man said:
When Daewoo Cars launched in the UK back in 1995, for the first year or two, if a Daewoo employee spotted a Daewoo missing a wheel trim, they'd put it on the system and a new one would be sent in the post.
That so reminds me of the old Skoda joke - Q: How do you double the value of a Skoda? A: Fill the tank.
Daewoo had a great approach back in the day. They just didn't have the right cars.

popeyewhite

19,958 posts

121 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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SpeckledJim said:
psi310398 said:
21st Century Man said:
When Daewoo Cars launched in the UK back in 1995, for the first year or two, if a Daewoo employee spotted a Daewoo missing a wheel trim, they'd put it on the system and a new one would be sent in the post.
That so reminds me of the old Skoda joke - Q: How do you double the value of a Skoda? A: Fill the tank.
Daewoo had a great approach back in the day. They just didn't have the right cars.
It's a nice story. I wonder if other manufacturers have extended customer care quite so far. It's the kind of thing that earns loyalty.

Rostfritt

3,098 posts

152 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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Shakermaker said:
Maybe been asked before but..

Why are postcodes as specific as they are, to the point where the houses in my road have 2 postcodes, one for each side of the street? All the even numbers (2-48) are *DA but the odd numbers (1-57) are all *DB. And those on the little side street which has 20 houses on it are all *DC.

Feels like they haven't left any room for expansion of the system, because there isn't any room for more houses in the road, so surely just putting the postcode as one for the whole street ought to be good enough, and save *DB for the next road up?
The odd/even thing must be so it makes it logical for the postman to sort it. Separates the odds and evens into separate piles which can then be numerically sorted, with named houses giving a headache. I would make it a rule that all house names on a road would have to be in alphabetical order, to make things easier.

It is funny that a system designed to stop letters getting lost is used by pretty much everyone now. We use it in sat-nav, school catchments, gang wars, judging peoples social class, band names (East 17) etc. I've heard of some people being upset that their posh house falls under a less desirable postcode.

21st Century Man

40,943 posts

249 months

Friday 14th February 2020
quotequote all
SpeckledJim said:
psi310398 said:
21st Century Man said:
When Daewoo Cars launched in the UK back in 1995, for the first year or two, if a Daewoo employee spotted a Daewoo missing a wheel trim, they'd put it on the system and a new one would be sent in the post.
That so reminds me of the old Skoda joke - Q: How do you double the value of a Skoda? A: Fill the tank.
Daewoo had a great approach back in the day. They just didn't have the right cars.
The cars were just fine at the price, and it was 25 years ago, and just look at Korean cars now.

What did for Daewoo in the UK was that GM took control again in Korea and promptly closed the entire direct sale UK factory shop network and franchised it back to the traditional motor trade, then rebranded as Chevrolet in Europe, then didn't keep up with Hyundai/Kia.

glazbagun

14,281 posts

198 months

Friday 14th February 2020
quotequote all
Did freeze dried tea granules not catch on in the uk because of some inherently disgusting quality of the process or is it because the teas chosen (tetley & PG) taste so weak anyway?

The Mad Monk

10,474 posts

118 months

Friday 14th February 2020
quotequote all
Shakermaker said:
Why are postcodes as specific as they are, to the point where the houses in my road have 2 postcodes, one for each side of the street? All the even numbers (2-48) are *DA but the odd numbers (1-57) are all *DB. And those on the little side street which has 20 houses on it are all *DC.
I don't think the houses have 2 postcodes. It's the street that has 2 postcodes.

ambuletz

10,754 posts

182 months

Saturday 15th February 2020
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hypothetical situation..

lets say someone on a night out loses their phone, wallet and keys. how do they go about getting back into their home? what stuff do locksmiths check to ensure you're legitimately locked out and not someone wanted to get access to someone elses home to nick stuff?

in this situation what does someone do?

borcy

2,920 posts

57 months

Saturday 15th February 2020
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ambuletz said:
hypothetical situation..

lets say someone on a night out loses their phone, wallet and keys. how do they go about getting back into their home? what stuff do locksmiths check to ensure you're legitimately locked out and not someone wanted to get access to someone elses home to nick stuff?

in this situation what does someone do?
Usually want some sort of photo id.

Dr Jekyll

23,820 posts

262 months

Saturday 15th February 2020
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Purely hypothetical and out of morbid curiosity

Suppose a body has been frozen by a relatively competent and conscientious cryogenics firm.

Would it be possible from a medical/biological point of view to use one of their kidneys as an organ donation for transplant?

captain_cynic

12,066 posts

96 months

Saturday 15th February 2020
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Dr Jekyll said:
Purely hypothetical and out of morbid curiosity

Suppose a body has been frozen by a relatively competent and conscientious cryogenics firm.

Would it be possible from a medical/biological point of view to use one of their kidneys as an organ donation for transplant?
Probably not.

The problem with Cryonics (Capt. Pedantic alert, Cryonics is the freezing of people, cryogenics is just low temp freezing in general) is that we haven't developed a method of thawing cryonicly frozen tissue that isn't extremely damaging to the tissue.

IIRC the issue is with different densities thawing at different rates, cell walls contracting or expanding at slower or greater rates than the cells contents.... But I am not a cryonist (or cryogenist).

popeyewhite

19,958 posts

121 months

Saturday 15th February 2020
quotequote all
Dr Jekyll said:
Purely hypothetical and out of morbid curiosity

Suppose a body has been frozen by a relatively competent and conscientious cryogenics firm.

Would it be possible from a medical/biological point of view to use one of their kidneys as an organ donation for transplant?
Kidneys can only be kept for around 24 hours. Current research is looking at freezing organs for transplant but cell damage can result from both the freeze and thaw process. I guess the focus has mostly been on the big killer, cancer, in recent years.

Clockwork Cupcake

74,615 posts

273 months

Saturday 15th February 2020
quotequote all
Dr Jekyll said:
Purely hypothetical and out of morbid curiosity

Suppose a body has been frozen by a relatively competent and conscientious cryogenics firm.

Would it be possible from a medical/biological point of view to use one of their kidneys as an organ donation for transplant?
Funnily enough, this was explored in detail in several books and short stories in Larry Niven's "Known Space" universe.

At one period of time, there was a wave of kids who decided they didn't much like the current state of the world and elected to be cryogenically frozen, betting that things would be better in the future. Unfortunately for them, as the years passed here was a major shortage in the Organ Banks and a law was passed declaring that these "drop-out kids" would not be able to fit into current society, and had no relevant skills or ability to contribute, and no legal status as people any more, so were summarily harvested for organs.

Of course, in those books, technology had advanced to the point where it was viable to defrost the organs. They had developed freezing and thawing techniques that didn't result in cell damage from ice crystals forming.

Back in the real world, with current technology, that's not the case and I doubt a defrosted kidney would still work as it would have been irreparably damaged in the freezing process and thawing process (as already mentioned by others).


Exige77

6,518 posts

192 months

Saturday 15th February 2020
quotequote all
21st Century Man said:
SpeckledJim said:
psi310398 said:
21st Century Man said:
When Daewoo Cars launched in the UK back in 1995, for the first year or two, if a Daewoo employee spotted a Daewoo missing a wheel trim, they'd put it on the system and a new one would be sent in the post.
That so reminds me of the old Skoda joke - Q: How do you double the value of a Skoda? A: Fill the tank.
Daewoo had a great approach back in the day. They just didn't have the right cars.
The cars were just fine at the price, and it was 25 years ago, and just look at Korean cars now.

What did for Daewoo in the UK was that GM took control again in Korea and promptly closed the entire direct sale UK factory shop network and franchised it back to the traditional motor trade, then rebranded as Chevrolet in Europe, then didn't keep up with Hyundai/Kia.
Would that be the Daewoo that went spectacularly bankrupt ?

captain_cynic

12,066 posts

96 months

Saturday 15th February 2020
quotequote all
Clockwork Cupcake said:
Funnily enough, this was explored in detail in several books and short stories in Larry Niven's "Known Space" universe.
The idea of using organs from people frozen on the brink of death was also the plot of an episode of Farscape.
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