0bvious things you’ve only just realised (2019 edition)

[Ambient Sheep]

Every time I suggest leaving a tip in a restaurant, my dad tells me that the word is an acronym for To Insure Promptness, and should therefore only ever be given before anyone has even started to serve you.

That's not even the right "Ensure"!!

[studpuppet]

Are any of the acronym explanations ever true for this kind of thing?

Harry Hill: Well, a nice letter there from Bunty Hoven, postmarked Northwest Kensington. You did National Service Dad - what does that stand for?

Tony Hill: Well Norwich was "(k)Nickers Off Ready When I Come Home", so Northwest Kensington must be...

Harry: Yes...

Tony: Well, "Nickers Off" obviously...

Harry: Obviously...

Tony:

(k)Nickers
Off
Rachel
Tidy
House
When
Everybody
Says
To

Kittens
Enlarged
(k)Nickers
Stickers
In
(k)Nickers
Great
Tits
On
(k)Nickers

Harry: Must have been an enormous source of comfort for you and the boys, Dad.

Tony: It was all we had.

[touchingcloth]

That's not even the right "Ensure"!!

I didn't want to be the first to point it out! There's enough wrong even before you consider the grammar error.

[touchingcloth]

Real ones are often techy type words: laser, taser, radar, sonar, scuba.

There's also SPAM, and Tribeca in New York.

[Ambient Sheep]

laser, taser, radar, sonar, scuba.

maser

Although not many people talk about masers any more.

[touchingcloth]

maser

Razor.

[JesusAndYourBush]

The new Laser Razor from Gillette!

The new Gillette Laser Razor with three lasers.

The new Gillette Laser Razor now with seven precision laser-guided lasers to give you the closest shave ever!

[NJ Uncut]

Just realised that "Nonce" is an arbitrary number that can be used just once in a cryptographic communication!

[Sebastian Cobb]

Just realised that "Nonce" is an arbitrary number that can be used just once in a cryptographic communication!

Oh how we sniggered in computer science lectures.

[Gulftastic]

ADIDAS still means 'After dinner I did a shit' though, right?

[jamiefairlie]

Oh how we sniggered in computer science lectures.

Yeah but we were surrounded by other  CompSci students, so you had to get your laughs from somewhere.

[touchingcloth]

Oh how we sniggered in computer science lectures.

On my course we had an algorithms module, and the class using the Towers of Hanoi as an example of - I dunno, stacks or some shit - was taught by someone with a speech impediment who when saying "count the discs on tower one" sounded like they were telling us to cunt the dicks instead. Bare bants.

[touchingcloth]

Petrol pumps have got a clip on the lever so if you want to fill the tank you can go hands free and just wait for it to click to a stop. Oh the hours and finger power I've wasted over the years.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Petrol pumps have got a clip on the lever so if you want to fill the tank you can go hands free and just wait for it to click to a stop. Oh the hours and finger power I've wasted over the years.

Usually removed in British petrol stations.

[touchingcloth]

Usually removed in British petrol stations.

Are they? Why? I saw the person at the next pump to me today fiddling with their nozzle OOOEEERRRR before leaning back and letting their hose do its own thing MISSUS and what happened next blew my mind.

[Pseudopath]

Petrol pumps have got a clip on the lever so if you want to fill the tank you can go hands free and just wait for it to click to a stop. Oh the hours and finger power I've wasted over the years.

A lot of the petrol pumps round my way (especially the supermarket forecourts) appear to have this clip, but I've never actually succeeded in getting it to engage so I'm pretty sure they're purposely hobbled.

I was actually tempted to spunk £2.50 on one of these, but realised I would look like a colossal bellwhiff. Perhaps your hose-holding hero had invested in such tat?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Part of me thinks if you can't grip a petrol pump while leaning arse against your motor and staring dozily into space you shouldn't be driving a car, it's almost relaxing.

[Bobtoo]

They all still have the clip, but the pin they engage with is usually removed. You can sort of see it in this picture.



I believe some people make their own ones to use.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The bringing your own 'big plate' to the forecourts.

[touchingcloth]

A lot of the petrol pumps round my way (especially the supermarket forecourts) appear to have this clip, but I've never actually succeeded in getting it to engage so I'm pretty sure they're purposely hobbled.

I was actually tempted to spunk £2.50 on one of these, but realised I would look like a colossal bellwhiff. Perhaps your hose-holding hero had invested in such tat?

Nah, the pump itself had a clip - I used it for myself and it was a revelation.

Part of me thinks if you can't grip a petrol pump while leaning arse against your motor and staring dozily into space you shouldn't be driving a car, it's almost relaxing.

I can grip a petrol pump, but there are many things I can do that I choose not to if there's a marginally more convenient option. I could clip the lawn with scissors if I wanted to, but there's a better way. I do it with hair clippers these days.

Also, why are they arsed to remove them? It was bad enough when I thought that they'd never thought to introduce them in Cameron's Britain, but deliberately removing them is the epitome of cutting your nose off to spite your face, so I suppose it must satisfy 52 percent of people RIGHT. It's a bit like if you choose to glue your own TV remote to a table like in a hotel.

[Bobtoo]

Because this can happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6VKxmUPb3g

[touchingcloth]

Because this can happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6VKxmUPb3g

Some good points, until I read this in the description:

Cell phone use during refueling is also a fire risk, as radio waves emitted from your phone can also ignite the dangerous gas fumes.

Nah mate, clearly bollocks. They'll have to come up with a better "video" than that to stop me wanting the ability to burn myself to death.

[imitationleather]

I think making the nozzle an elegant gooseneck could really help.

[touchingcloth]

I think making the nozzle an elegant gooseneck could really help.

I'm glad you think that; I've filled your kettle with petrol.

[Ferris]

I once left the fuel cap of my old car balanced on top of a pump in a small independent garage in Oxfordshire and drove about 50 miles before realizing, panicking, and driving (very slowly) back (albeit when I was about 19 so still an idiot)

Nothing to do with anything, but I've just remembered it so there you go.

[Ambient Sheep]

As some of you might remember, I used to write software for petrol station equipment from 85 to 93.  Years, not octane.


Yeah, the latch-on thingies are removed, UK regulations forbids them for safety reasons, in case the nozzle falls out and starts spewing petrol all over the forecourt.

So either that's changed (because not enough people are burning themselves to death due to pesky 'ealth 'n' safety regulations), or you managed to find a pump where they'd forgotten to take them off.

Oh wait, are you (touchingcloth) in Ireland?  If so then maybe they don't take them off there, that's why.


As for the mobile phone spark thing, yeah it's largely bollocks.  There is a small theoretical risk but the real reason they banned it is that in the days before EMC regulations, some manufacturers' equipment (not ours) would freeze or reset when a mobile was used near the pump, thus letting you get free petrol.  Prior to that, people used to do the same thing by keying the mic on old CB radios that had illegal "burner" amps on the back end.

None of that really applies now but I guess they have to keep up the pretence plus eliminating the one in a million chance or whatever it is.

[Ferris]

Because this can happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6VKxmUPb3g

I worked briefly in a place (in the middle of a large city) that dealt with high explosives.

Shoes off (can cause sparks on the ground), cell phone in the next room, no digital watches, and the walls were about 4ft thick but the roof was 2 sheets of corrugated steel because if the worst happens and the guy you're working with left his hearing aid on and you are blasted to atoms, the blast direction is funnelled up so you don't destroy any nearby pubs or whatever. This provided much comfort.

The risk was due to powdered cordite in the air, which was a genuine explosive hazard (and would ignite anything else lying around...). I doubt this is a real risk on a garage forecourt, but I'm no expert.

[Ambient Sheep]

The risk was due to powdered cordite in the air, which was a genuine explosive hazard...

Yeah, that's a VERY different proposition.  Even finely powdered grain in the air can be a real hazard as I'm sure you know.

The main risk with petrol is the vapour.  I'm told you can even toss lighted matches into puddles of unleaded petrol and, providing the area's well-ventilated, they'll just go out.

(In fact only a day or two ago I read something on a PPRuNe thread, where a pilot was having kittens watching the bloke refill his plane whilst having a cigarette on the go.  The bloke clocked that he was watching him, grinned at him toothlessly, then put his fag out by dipping it in the by-now overflowing fuel!  https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/625676-smoking-next-aircraft-being-refuelled.html )


As for sparks being induced between the nozzle and the car, I think static discharges (such as those caused by the lovely nylon pullover in that video above) are far more likely a cause than any spark that might be induced by the meagre wattage put out by most mobile phones.  Apart from anything else, any phone on the back seat of a car checking into its base station will be transmitting no further from the filler cap than someone holding it to their ear.

Talking of base stations, I'm reminded that right next to my nearest petrol station there's a big mast that's not only a mobile phone base-station but also a dirty great big Tetra/Airwave transmitter for half the county.  They don't seem worried about that...

[Ferris]

As a youth, I've inadvertently dropped a lit match into a pool of kerosene with a kind of horrified slo-mo "noooo!" only to watch the match fizzle out.

I don't know the chemistry of it all, but it scared the shit out of me to the point of not being in a similar position again.

[touchingcloth]

Oh wait, are you (touchingcloth) in Ireland?  If so then maybe they don't take them off there, that's why.

I'm in Portugal. I never noticed the clips in the UK, presumably because they serve no function even if they exist, but having witnessed someone use one and then trying it out myself I assumed British pumps must have them as well due to being otherwise identical in design.