"F**k my Hat, I didn't know that!" Amazing things you've only just found out

[petril]

Another alternative US pronunciation that's odd, the second sound sample here https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/duodenum

well they live in your body and they're lots of fun,
but they all need each other one for all and all for one

[Twonty Gostelow]

Another alternative US pronunciation that's odd, the second sound sample here https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/duodenum

well they live in your body and they're lots of fun,
but they all need each other one for all and all for one

No longer the most repulsive Derek on television.

[George White]

One of the founding producers of the Children's Film Foundation was Frank Wells, the son of HG Wells and his wife Amy Robbins.

In other words, the son of this couple.


If it weren't for Jack the Ripper stealing HG's time machine and murdering several women in 1979 San Francisco, we wouldn't have such cinema classics as Sammy's Super T-Shirt and the Glitterball.


Also, Sean Bean made his film debut in the CFF film Exploits at West Poley
(I knew about Phil Collins,Cheggers, Susan George, Robin Askwith, Olivia Hussey etc, but not Seen).

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

One of the founding producers of the Children's Film Foundation was Frank Wells, the son of HG Wells and his wife Amy Robbins.

In other words, the son of this couple.

I Didn't know that Captain Flasheart from " Blackadder Goes Forth" and Kate Bush were married to each other.

[Norton Canes]

A 'hobbit' is an old Welsh unit of volume or weight

[Norton Canes]

Equal to three gollums, or half an ent

[Norton Canes]

^ Not really

[touchingcloth]

It's that Brexit couple on twitter all over again.

[Prison Biscuits]

"Coolth" is a word meaning the opposite of "warmth". Came up on another forum and looked so stupid and made-up I had to Google it. Coolth.

Seems so obvious now.

[Fr.Bigley]

"Coolth" is a word meaning the opposite of "warmth". Came up on another forum and looked so stupid and made-up I had to Google it. Coolth.

Seems so obvious now.

If this isn't true, it's so uncoolth!

[holyzombiejesus]

Just seen on Twitter that a PO Box isn't an actual box where your mail gets stashed, it can be delivered directly to your door like a normal address. I always imagined a room a bit like those safe deposit boxes they have in films/ banks but a bit bigger with post sticking out.

Oh, apparently it is a box and the stupid woman going all 'MIND BLOWN' was wrong.

[touchingcloth]

Just seen on Twitter that a PO Box isn't an actual box where your mail gets stashed, it can be delivered directly to your door like a normal address. I always imagined a room a bit like those safe deposit boxes they have in films/ banks but a bit bigger with post sticking out.

Oh, apparently it is a box and the stupid woman going all 'MIND BLOWN' was wrong.

You can have a PO Box setup so that the mail is delivered on to a home or business address, so you get the advantage of not needing to give away your home address when providing people with a place they can mail things for you while not actually needing to visit the box to collect your mail. I can imagine if someone sets up a PO Box and forwarding all in one go no physical box is ever used with all mail just being redirected to another address. So the stupid woman might only be a little thick.

[Sebastian Cobb]

You can have a PO Box setup so that the mail is delivered on to a home or business address, so you get the advantage of not needing to give away your home address when providing people with a place they can mail things for you while not actually needing to visit the box to collect your mail. I can imagine if someone sets up a PO Box and forwarding all in one go no physical box is ever used with all mail just being redirected to another address. So the stupid woman might only be a little thick.

It doesn't even stop there. You can have full 'virtual business' services to make you seem more professional than you are. For instance if you created a company, let's say Garytech, not only could you have an address that reads like you've got a big office with employees, you can also have a phone line that goes to a receptionist, they'll be doing it for shitloads of companies, but it flash the company name up on their system so they can be all like 'Hello, Garytech?' and then route the call to the one employee, Gary,

[touchingcloth]

It doesn't even stop there. You can have full 'virtual business' services to make you seem more professional than you are. For instance if you created a company, let's say Garytech, not only could you have an address that reads like you've got a big office with employees, you can also have a phone line that goes to a receptionist, they'll be doing it for shitloads of companies, but it flash the company name up on their system so they can be all like 'Hello, Garytech?' and then route the call to the one employee, Gary,

I have some friends who work for Quay Tickets in Salford, which is a box office overspill thingy where you'll call up, say, the National Theatre and if they don't pick up the call will get routed through to Quay where they get a prompt to know which venue to answer the phone on behalf of.

I do like the sound of Garytech, though - are they hiring?

[Artie Fufkin]

I do like the sound of Garytech, though - are they hiring?

I worked there for a while. Gary was a right arsehole.

[Tony Tony Tony]

A friend of my mother in law set up a business doing this virtual secretary thing

She calls it Cybersecs which though memorable leads to her getting regularly called by perverts hoping for a digital hand shandy.

She is based in Northamptonshire should anyone wish to avail themselves of her services or make a quick call in the hope of some online gratification.

[NoSleep]

I wonder how many legal secretaries get the same problem?

I used to work with a label called Criminal Records which used to get unnecessary enquiries coming through to their number.

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

A few years back I was inspecting a company that supplied chicken to the catering trade. The owner was complaining about being undercut by another supplier that had set up in the area, saying their prices were so low they couldn't be legit. I said I'd make some enquiries back in the office if he had the details.

And that's why I had to explain to my line manager why I was at my desk that afternoon googling "EuroChicks".

[Paul Calf]

Back in 2004 when a new Irvine Welsh novel was still something I anticipated with excitement, I got caught googling 'Irvine Welsh Porno' trying to find info about his next release.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Bought some cheap as fuck powerbank enclosures off alixpress for a wee project.

Playing around with it before I butcher them I found the 18650 cells I have didn't fit. Turns out the protected ones are slightly longer.

[buzby]

Bought some cheap as fuck powerbank enclosures off alixpress for a wee project.

Playing around with it before I butcher them I found the 18650 cells I have didn't fit. Turns out the protected ones are slightly longer.

Yes, the protection PCB adds a couple of mm to one end. Big Clive noted this in an LED torch teardown he did, where unprotected 18650s were too short to fit into the battery holder (which meant the torch manufacturer didn't have to bother putting any protection circuitry in).

[touchingcloth]

Protected batteries? Wot

[sirhenry]

Protected batteries? Wot

Mostly in the States, folks are trying to go 'off-grid' and end up 'on-fire'.

[touchingcloth]

What's annoying about rechargeable batteries is that Li Ion ones like in my phone and camera are the best (keep their charge for months of non-use at a time), but the only AA or AAA ones I've ever been able to find are Ni-MH ones which are little pussies which lose their charge pretty much the instant they're put away in a drawer.

[famethrowa]

Protected? Fuck that. Power is power. Pull em apart

[buzby]

Protected batteries? Wot

Lithium-based rechargable batteries need protection for both charging and discharge. If you charge them with too much current they can overheat and catch fire, if you short the terminals or draw too much current they can also catch fire. If you over-discharge them so that the cell drops below it's threshold voltage then when you come to recharge it it can also go into thermal runaway and catch fire (and lithium batteries provide their own oxidiser when on fire, so it's pretty difficult to put out, as Boeing found out with the 787 Dreamliner when the cell protection system they specified didn't work).

The protection PCB on a lithium rechargable battery cuts off it's output if it detects a short circuit/overcurrent condition and once the cell voltage drops to a set threshold to prevent the cell getting damaged and when it is recharged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zavSoXgzhxg

What's annoying about rechargeable batteries is that Li Ion ones like in my phone and camera are the best (keep their charge for months of non-use at a time), but the only AA or AAA ones I've ever been able to find are Ni-MH ones which are little pussies which lose their charge pretty much the instant they're put away in a drawer.

That's because NiCd and NiMH cells have a high internal resistance, so they self-discharge even when not in use (the internal resistance also limits how much current can be drawn from them). Lithium-based cells have a low internal resistance, so self-discharge at a much lower rate.

The standard cell voltage for a Li-ion battery chemisty is 3.6V, so they aren't suitable for replacing 1.5V standard dry cell or alkaline batteries (NiCd and NiMH cell voltage is 1.2V). However, there is variant of the NiMH cell invented by Sanyo called Eneloop (now owned by Panasonic) that has a low internal resistance and retains it's charge for much longer. They need a specific charger and don't last for as many charge/discharge cycles as a standard NiMH but for gear that doesn't get used that often they are a great substitute for standard NiMH AA or AAA cells.

You can get Li-ion AA-sized batteries now that use an internal buck converter and regulator to drop the output voltage down to 1.5V, but they are more expensive than Eneloop and also require a specific charger.

[Ambient Sheep]

I just learnt, courtesy of a post by JaDanketies and Wikipedia, that the country name "Pakistan" doesn't just mean "Land of the Pure", which I knew...

...but it's also an acronym for Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, and Baluchistan, which I didn't.

Sounds like an urban myth or a backronym, doesn't it?  Nope, Wikipedia sources it to 1933 where the activist Choudhry Rahmat Ali published it in a pamphlet.

I realise this may well be common knowledge to some people here, but it didn't half fuck my hat!

[Sebastian Cobb]

You can get Li-ion AA-sized batteries now that use an internal buck converter and regulator to drop the output voltage down to 1.5V, but they are more expensive than Eneloop and also require a specific charger.

I got one of these with a little usb port on the side for charging a battery in my wireless mouse. It wasn't cheap but it seems to be doing the job.

I didn't know eneloops required a different charger, what's the terminology for that? I've been thinking of getting some AAA's as I'm fed up of buying alkalines for my electric pepper mill (which, annoyingly, takes 6).

[buzby]

I got one of these with a little usb port on the side for charging a battery in my wireless mouse. It wasn't cheap but it seems to be doing the job.

I didn't know eneloops required a different charger, what's the terminology for that? I've been thinking of getting some AAA's as I'm fed up of buying alkalines for my electric pepper mill (which, annoyingly, takes 6).

You need a controlled delta-peak charger that ideally monitors each individual cell. They really don't like heat so fast-charging them will shorten their lifespan.

[touchingcloth]

Thanks for the tip about AA lithiums - I'll check them out for my camera flashes which I use just often enough for the batteries to have run themselves dead in the bag, so it'd be nice to not have to charge them every single time I use them.

Are delta peak chargers different to Ni-MH ones? I can picture delta symbols on one of my chargers and I think they all have separate monitors for each cell (well, one charger seems to only charge and monitor in pairs).