Member postings for Michael Gilligan

This is the most informative video I have found … even though his presentation style is a little quaint :

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Thanks, Jason

MichaelG.

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Could you share a photo, and/or drawing, of that please, Jason

… stress-raisers are a subject of interest.

MichaelG.

The situation is still not entirely clear … even from the horse’s mouth:

**LINK**

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/card-surcharge-ban-means-no-more-nasty-surprises-for-shoppers

MichaelG.

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More: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/718812/payment-surcharges-guidance-update.pdf

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 25/09/2023 19:03:40

My brother visited this recently:**LINK**

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/rolling-bridge-ulverston-canal

… looks interesting, but it is disappointing to see that it’s now [predictably enough] static.

Does anyone have more detailed info. about it ?

MichaelG.

You might find this of interest, Neil:

After reading your comments, I looked at the microbehunter forum:

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We have two ‘Bot’ visitors registered users  watching

MichaeG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 25/09/2023 10:55:19

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Clearly you are more than a match for it, Robin … but my ‘take-away’ from this is that the thing is already capable of teaching someone how to think !

MichaelG.

For a bit of ‘light reading’ … it’s worth finding a copy of Huxley’s book: **LINK**

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Seeing

Published long before the internet was available … but full of the sort of misinformation that thrives !

MichaelG.

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Sorry … I expressed that rather badly

What’s important is that the useable surface area to volume ratio is enormous

Drawing air through the mass, using a small fan requires the porosity to be optimised.

[ The sand has the higher surface area, but would require much more energy to draw air through it. ]

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 25/09/2023 08:10:07

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I think the ‘Strawbridge’ design used crushed glass for two reasons:

1. He was making a clever TV series, to get people inspired
2. The glass, being crushed bottles normally destined for re-processing was much coarser than your average sand

The design used a small fan to draw air through the ‘heat-reservoir’, thus making better use of the mass.

Surface area to volume ratio would be enormous compared with a pit full of sand … and therefore it should work [at least sufficiently well for demonstration purposes] in a greenhouse.

It’s all fairly well documented in the link I provided 22/09/2023 21:54:50 but I don’t think enough emphasis was ever put on the fact that the ‘packing density’ of the glass product is very significant.

MichaelG.

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This is worth a look:

https://gaskellswaste.co.uk/recycling/glass-reprocessor/#:~:text=Glass%20recycling%2C%20or%20glass%20reprocessing,quality%20to%20the%20end%20product.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 25/09/2023 06:55:36

That is delightful, Steve

MichaelG.

Just to elaborate a little, Peter [but first, thank you for your courtesy] … My short-sightedness started at school, and I wore ‘negative’ lenses from about age 13

I’m not sure how valid this is, but it was thought to be caused by classroom behaviour: repeatedly looking from blackboard to book puts a strain on the eye muscles, which is counteracted by the eyes becoming gradually more short-sighted.

Whatever the truth of that, my eyes progressively worsened, to the point where I needed about -3 dioptres

[ plenty of people are considerably worse than that ] … at which point, I could easily see to work on small items, simply by removing my glasses.

As the years passed, of course, my accommodation started to deteriorate and I lost most of that ability.

Fast forward a few years and at age 55, my optician gave me the news that he could see signs of ‘early onset cataract’ … believed to be triggered by the use of inhaled steroids for hay-fever

More recently [a long story but I will skip the detail] I started ‘iris pigment shedding’ and this, in conjunction with the worsening cataracts was causing quadruple vision [double vision in each eye] which is decidedly inconvenient.

The cataract surgery, one way and another, fixed all, of that; and I found myself able to drive without glasses for the first time ever. My eyes are now 40/20 but the numbers on the dashboard instruments are noticeably fuzzy, and looking at anything closer requires an optical aid of some sort.

On balance, it’s all worked-out very well, but I do miss that ability to just take off my glasses for close work.

MichaelG.

The App seems to be doing its job nicely … indicating a good wi-fi signal and ‘no connection’ on the cell : the needle hasn’t moved off the -141dB stop yet.

The proof of the pudding will come when I take it out for a walk tomorrow.

Good luck with the conspiracy nutters.

MichaelG.

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Thanks, Bill … that looks very promising … I will download it forthwith !

The problem with the glasses is quite infuriating : For most of my life I was short-sighted, and needed to take my glasses off to do close work. But since I had the cataract surgery I am a little long-sighted [and fixed-focus], so I need to put glasses on to do anything closer than arm’s length away.

Very, very, pleased with the cataract job, but the performance with glasses and various magnifiers still doesn’t come instinctively.

MichaelG.

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Edit: __ having just read the recent reviews, I may ditch it after completing my local survey 

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 24/09/2023 18:55:16

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Thanks for posting that link, Bill

… I can feel my sanity slowly creeping back.

MichaelG.

At my property, the signal level is -100dB or worse

I know where the local tower is, and I know that there are dead-spots in the coverage

What I want to do is a quick check of signal level at any convenient point that I happen to find on my travels.

The ‘phone is difficult to use with my arthritic hands, and difficult to read without glasses … so I was just hoping for a slightly easier life.

MichaelG.

I’m even more lost now than I thought I was

MichaelG.

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Edited By Michael Gilligan on 24/09/2023 15:25:04

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Well someone, somewhere, must be being ‘economical with the truth’

9/16” is 14.2875mm so that conversion is obviously ‘ish”

You do really need to measure these things

MichaelG.

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Edit: __ as Jason says, the 9/16” would be a nice clearance hole for an M14 thread.

P.S. __ M14 x 1.5 is a very coarse pitch of thread compare with the other two you have mentioned.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 24/09/2023 15:24:08

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As recently stated:

There are loads of 9/16 UNF nuts on ebay.co.uk

With or without flanges, and a few interesting ‘specials’

list them with cheapest with p&p first …and take your pick

[ some are ‘stiff-nuts’ … which may, or may not, be useful ]

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Do you need a link to an ebay search ?

… I think this might do it:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=9%2F16+unf+nut&_sacat=0&_sop=15

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 24/09/2023 14:23:20