Member postings for pgk pgk

I thought books (and charts are just large flat reference books) were vat free UK. and not subject to any other customs charges from the EU.
Of course DHL may decide to make a charge for declaring they are free of tax.....

pgk

Just to play devil's advocate here. Milk depends on regular pregnancies and the progeny will either end up eaten or become a new milk and calf machine. As for minerals you can process some directly and you are highly dependant otherwise on getting them in your veggies. Salt is the most common mineral people take in unhealthy excess...

For those that need more details.. The bridge is part of a right of access (not a right of way) across my land to a field over the stream and I own a derelict property with access rights across that further field too. The woman has been made very aware that crossing the bridge is at her own risk (in writing) but she is one of those people you can't have a polite discussion with. Life has become more complicated because the deeds state that maintenance is in proportion to usage and her usage is multiple times mine since I only pop across to check the derelict 2-3 times a year on foot. There are other disputes as well but they have no bearing here. I have a need to do some fencing work around the derelict's land and essentially refuse to take stuff across the bridge until it is made safe. I don't fancy carrying all the equipment back and forth on foot.

Peter Cook... helpful. Using the first calculator and using the lower figure of 13mm for steel thickness comes out as cross section 14,508 sq inch so not much less. Your further calculation with a load of 2 tons centrally is on one of the beam pairs and strongly supports the concept that this bridge was indeed designed to take a motor car (back when they weighed less) with a good safety margin.

Further I had indeed offered the option of a structural engineer calculating things but the witch woman is pretty resistant to putting her hand in her pocket to the point where everything is being documented carefully by me and I’m insisting that once details have been agreed any repair will need her to put money in escrow before each stage: possible engineering calcs, materials, labour costs. And I repeatedly make her responsible for her own liabilities. I've even tried to make her understand that if I arrange it all then I cannot issue a vat invoice and she’d be better organising it to my satisfaction herself and paying bills directly - but you can't reason with some folk..

pgk

I'm not a climate denier and there is obviously a correlation with CO2 and recent increased rate of climate change. Apparently, we no longer call it warming While CO2 is easily blamed as the cause it might well be worth speculating about the other changes post industrialisation: Radio waves, mining, vehicular vibration, billions of people tramping about and passing wind. Even with pollution free power we must be putting energy into the planet's mantel in all these other ways...

I’d be grateful for help with this

I have a bridge crossing a stream gully. It consists of a pair of I-beams planked with timber. Apparently it was originally constructed to take a motor car somewhere circa '70's. The deck is covered in mud and has grass growing and a few planks at one end have been bodge-replaced by another user. She regularly crosses it with a side by side ATV sometimes towing a small box trailer with a few sheep. I have made the point that it is at her own risk and posted appropriate signage. It's time to redeck it but I'd like to know what it’s proper load carrying could be.

The gap it bridges is 7 meters. To the outer sides of the I-beams is 90" so likely constructed in part in imperial measures 7.5 feet. The deck timbers are 2.4 meter long, 150mm wide and 45 mm thick. Unknown timber type.

The I-beams top and bottom width is 20cm and height (difficult to measure accurately) circa 33.5 cm. Thickness of the upper arm is 16mm but one exposed area has a depression underneath that makes it 13mm for a short way in. Presumably some variation when rolled?. There isn't much evidence of more than surface rust. The lower arm is even harder to measure but comes out thicker at the accessible bit.. Perhaps as much as 20mm. I can't manage a meaningful measure of the thickness of the upright but these are likely to have been the types of steels used in barn construction (farming country)

I have in mind to re-deck the thing in 75mm (or thicker) larch 250mm wide and 3m long to give room at the sides to attach a handrail. The timbers would be loose-laid with a longitudinal each side underneath to stop them shimmying off and by joining them create enough mass to keep them there.

The question is whether it could the support a 4x4 motorcar plus light trailer with say a 500kg load safely..

Intuitively the timber thickness should be fine since weight of a vehicle would be split between 4 wheels and no wheel could be more than a 30cm approx from the steel (assuming average car 5.8 feet) so nowhere near the centre of the timbers.

Where I fall down in any idea how to work things out is with the distribution of weight of the timbers on the steels and the weight distribution of car and trailer and the load carrying capacity of these steels with a safety margin with allowance for things like suspension bounce.

pgk

I would ban bottled water. It should be freely available everywhere and you can carry your own canteen. Indeed I'd love to ban take out drinks altogether and takeaway disposable containers with a huge refundable deposit.

My larger AC unit is supposed to have 6kw equivalent heat output. When it was installed a clamp meter showed it pulling 3amps at full chat so running costs are going to depend on you leccy cost. The smaller bedroom version obviously cheaper. I only use it for heating in winter prior to getting into bed. These few hot nights I set it for 23C and I'd guess the running cost at less than 0.5KW per hour... well worth it for a good kip.

I do hate places that run ac at silly cold. Coming in from a hot outdoors doesn't need a blast of 18C air unless you're working out in a gym. A couple of degrees and dehumidified is fine.

I'm not sure if we're a hardy bunch or just cheapskates. I do have a/c but it’s not that common here (yet).

I can recall my dad building his own house back in the early 60’s and folk being amazed that he installed central heating but even he didn't put in double glazing back then - it just wasn't that available.

I didn't own a car with a/c until the late 80's and that was less common too but ubiquitous now. The take-up on automatic transmission was also slow over here. It wasn't until I was your side of the pond in the late 60's and early 70's that I was in a car with that and about mid 80’s before I could afford that over here. The first time I saw colour TV was the movie 'The Graduate' (1967) and the first one I owned was in 1975.

I was privileged with job and salary - most folk would have to wait another decade for prices to come down. A/C is relatively cheap here now and since air source heat pumps have green credentials they will become commonplace - assuming one can afford to run them.

I came across a wonderful autocorrect blunder recently "it was so hot I lurked in the child section of the food store"

Edited By pgk pgk on 20/07/2022 07:39:32

60 million deaths per year. I wonder whether burning or burying is more polluting? That little altercation in Ukraine with Tanks managing 2 miles per gallon let alone all the ordnance? Indian subcontinent now overtaking the population of China and we're near 8 billion souls with western countries worried about their slow population growth. Any saving or contributions I make must be like trying to bale the Atlantic with a teaspoon.

Scripting basic HTML was always the easiest part and simpler still if one used a scripting program and then just made minor edits to create the finished item....

Until one gets beyond just delivering a simple single script page and adds other goodies. Then the questions arise how well it is rendered in Edge or Safari or Firefox or Opera and again how well it will be viewed and handled on small screen mobile devices. The script gets larger as you identify the rendering programs and deliver adjusted variants as necessary which means you have to view your own work in them in turn.

Unless the site is just a special interest thing folk are invited to or so unique that it will be found on searches then another issue is developing methods to push yourself up search lists.

I got caught in the early days when some hosting packages weren't unlimited bandwidth or automatically switched off when bandwidth was reached. Get caught by some bad actors throwing DOS type attacks at you and the monthly bill is frightening as was some wag breaching the passwords and uploading gigabytes of rubbish adverts into comment areas. Be aware.

pgk

Some report stated that women's workplaces are best at 24C (21C for men). So she's only 3degs over at the mo'....

The trouble with lizard people is that when the temp goes up they just bask... which explains British historic shovel leaning.

In 1976 where I was working, the temp peaked at 112F one day. I could manage about 20 mins working at a time before leaving the room, sluicing my head and downing more fluids. That was when I promised myself that when I had my own shop it'd have aircon.
When I first went solo money was too tight and the best I could manage was to fill a plastic bag in a cat basket with water and make myself a huge ice-cube to hug between consultations but as business expanded the whole place got fitted with air-source heat pumps. So nice to work like that that I installed one at home.
Retired and moved here and one of the first things we did was install a/c in the living room and main bedroom. It often saves firing up central heating when it’s just a short chill period and on days like today it's luxury..
They aren't that expensive and less so if one is able to self-install (I didn't). Split systems come pre-gassed and essentially mount a unit indoors, place the outside unit, drill a hole for the hose and plug in plus a power supply assuming house shape permits simplicity.
I did have some errands to run yesterday but left my car in 'dog mode' for the short time it was parked which keeps the a/c running.

pgk

I do enjoy a good typo (most of mine are just gobbledygook)
2 shits per day reminds me of a story about 2 physiologists failing to understand each other because one defeacated twice a day and other twice a week.

It's no longer "You get what you pay for" It's "you get what you get conned for". Car insurance is a prime example - no physical object and they should all be working from similar actuarial figures but prices quoted may vary by many multiples from offer to offer

pgk

I'm not clear on exactly what you want. If it’s just your own 'name' and some email addresses, then that is simple enough . But if you want to actually have a website, then much depends on that website's purpose - a simple blog of your hobby builds has different needs compared to a small sales area. And i you are going to allow users to upload data or comments then a whole new layer of security concerns comes in.
Back when I was into this stuff, I used 'heart Internet' which offer a variety of options .

pgk

Duplicate

Edited By pgk pgk on 09/07/2022 09:28:03

Local agri engineering has a compressor in a small shed some 20 to 30 metres from the workshop, No idea what piping comes from there but within the workshops it's 15mm copper at least another 20m with takeoff points.

A quick attempt with android google translate on a phone was odd in that it gave me the transation overlaid on the original and hard to read when a it was a book page. But it should be a lot better from scanned docs on a PC.

I'm in process of translating a short book my dad wrote during ww2 of his memories of flying with 311 squadron. I do speak czech but within the limited vocabulary of a boy in a family and I never bothered to learn to read or write formal czech (doing a course now). I have been using google translate for part of the project and it is remarkably accurate.

I doubt younger folk would fully appreciate the cramped conditions in a Wellington during battle conditions and panic.

pgk

I had a dig-about in some of my old stuff...best i could find (unhelpfully) was windows 95, frontapge 98 and office 2000 and a shed load of obsolete motherboard etc config disks. I think it's time to clear some drawers. Also got some stuff on 3.5in floppies...
...also a drawer full of old cables which might be of use to someone..kettle plugs, 3-way phone spurs etc but likely cheaper to buy new on ebay from china than british post

Edited By pgk pgk on 05/07/2022 11:07:44

Out of interest: If one were to mix pieces of lead with copper chips while heating the lead to it’s melt point and giving it a stir before pouring into a mould...
Would the copper be coated enough with lead to stick properly together as it floats to the top and effectively be a copper topped lead insert? Flux needed?

pgk

back in my uni days physiology recordings were made using a smoked drum - a messy process of running the recording paper through a smoky incomplete combustion source. Presumably the stylus friction was minimised. Recordings could be stored after spray varnish. Presumably a modern answer would be laser or point light source and photo responsive paper (or just a digital record). My ECG machine used a heated stylus and sensitive paper.

pgk