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agurk

Re:Dear people who work at the airport on Friday August 14, 2026 @10:44AM (#49299395)
During the ongoing redevelopment of Belgrade airport I did find myself with a short connection there and unable to find a departure board. I checked the airport website, but it only had the flight names and not gates!

Beginning to get worried and with no-one to talk to in the construction site of an airport I discovered that I needed to rotate my phone and then the extra columns appeared on their website. Yes I had tried scrolling and zooming, but in portrait it wouldn't actually render outside of the visible width.

To continue in the same vein of pedanticism, it seems from your link that he did not actually die on stage, but some hours later.

Wikipedia has an article[0] of various people who died on stage and also some shortly afterwards, such as Molière.

I was going to suggest Sid James as a replacement for your anecdote, although he was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, so it's possible he died en route. The chap after him on the list, Aimo Leikas, seems like a good candidate as he shot himself during a very convincing Russian roulette act.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_entertainers_who_died_...

The Flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina has a triangle on it that is meant to represent the shape of the country (roughly).
Re:The Golden Age of British Ice Cream on Wednesday August 05, 2026 @04:05AM (#49179906)
The article refers to Magnum ice creams a lot, and makes it easy to infer that it is a British ice cream although it never actually says that. There's one clue in the article:

> The Magnum debuted in Germany in 1989, and hit the UK the year after.

Curiosity piqued, and one wikipedia article later [0], it turns out that it was originally a Danish invention developed in the late 1980s, first mass produced in Autumn 1988. It also mentions a Belgian needing to develop the needed chocolate in 1987.

Of all places I would not have guessed Aarhus was the home to Magnum, and today it's celebrated with a gym called Friskohus (Frisko is the Danish Unilever sub-brand) on the site today.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_(ice_cream)

Re:Why Jet Engines Aren't "Made in China" on Thursday July 02, 2026 @05:49AM (#48758897)
As with all design on aircraft, weight is a key part of the specification. A nacelle that could contain all possible failure modes would be too heavy to fly.

Losing a fan blade, as demonstrated in your two youtube links, is both a more likely event to occur and low enough energy to be able to contain with a reasonable structure.

However consider the situation in [0] where a turbine disk became detached from its shaft. The disk is still taking power from the exhaust gas, but rather using the energy to power the compressor or rotate the fan it is now just increasing its own kinetic energy. This continues until the incredibly strong turbine disk rotates itself apart. From the linked article:

> For engineering purposes, disk fragments are assumed to have infinite energy at the moment of release; they will cut through any reasonable material and cannot be contained

You can see from photographs of the aftermath, the nacelle is missing where this happened

[0] https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/a-matter-of-millimeters-...

Re:Britain's railway privatization was an abject failure on Thursday November 13, 2025 @09:39AM (#45915399)
There are some nuances to it. British Airways (not the original British Airways Ltd [0], who merged to form BOAC) was established to manage several existing airlines that had already been nationalised (BOAC, BEA) and two regional carriers (Cambrian Airways and Northeast Airlines).

Of course BOAC and BEA had been made my consolidations of many smaller airlines which gets messy quickly when tracing the lineage. Even Cambrian and Northeast had formed British Air Services prior to this which was 70% owned by BEA.

So it is technically true that is was started as a state owned airline, but one made from companies that were originally created as private with a mixed history of state ownership.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Ltd

You may be thinking of a different film, as all the cast members listed on wikipedia[0] are stated to have died after 1945.

The trivia section of the German wiki page of the same film says there's a disputed rumour that the film was prolonged to help the young extras avoid conscription.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Feuerzangenbowle_(1944_fil...

They probably mean Lynetteholmen, which is a giant artificial peninsula to be built on reclaimed land off Copenhagen.

Curiously there's no English wiki page for it, but machine translation is good these days:

https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynetteholmen

Re:A short post on short trains on Thursday July 31, 2025 @03:40AM (#44743340)
The second route is currently being built in Munich [0], with work started in 2017. I recently watched a youtube video by The B1M about rail projects in Germany that included a long section about the currently ongoing works in Munich [1] that gives a good visual overview.

[0] https://db-engineering-consulting.com/en/projects/munichs-se...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPDQdnT-RaY

On all the fuel injected engines I have owned there is a physical cable that controls the position of the throttle plate. There is an airflow mass sensor the other side of the plate to measure the amount of air and therefore how much fuel needs to be injected. So interestingly in these sort of engines you're really just controlling airflow to the engine rather than fuel/air mix like on one with a carburettor.

More modern engines have electronically controlled throttle plates, and this is definitely somewhere you could do something clever like you suggest - cutting fuel flow but also maximising airflow when there is zero throttle input.

I assume engine braking is generally considered a beneficial thing by manufacturers, but it could be fun to be able to customise the amount. Or do something like have the braking come on gently at first then harder. Maybe even try and have a linear or flat response curve vs. engine rpm.

If it takes energy to compress the air in the cylinder - doesn't it also release most of that energy when that compressed air is expanded on the subsequent stroke?

If you release the compressed air without pushing the cylinder down you would lose that energy, but you would need a extra device to do so (by lifting a valve at the right time). This option does exist for large vehicles like trucks as a compression release engine break [0], but this isn't something you'd have on a family car.

In a petrol engine you always want the same ratio of petrol to air in the mix that is taken into a cylinder. As you want to vary the amount of fuel, and therefore power developed, you have to be able to therefore limit the amount of air that is sucked in. Otherwise the engine would always run at full power.

There is a mechanical restrictor called a throttle plate that lives inside the throttle body that restricts how much air the cylinder can pull in (and therefore how much fuel is injected to get the same fuel/air mix). This is controlled by the throttle. When you are coasting, this plate is in its most closed position. This creates significant resistance on the intake stroke, and is where the majority of energy is lost during engine breaking. This is also known as a pumping loss.

Diesels always intake the same amount of air, so they can compress it enough to autoignite the fuel. They vary the amount of fuel injected to the same volume of air. This means no throttle body or plate, so unless an extra exhaust restrictor has been added there is minimal engine braking on a diesel engine.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_release_engine_bra...

Curiously I have the opposite problem with Too Good To Go - they never give me notifications of available things I might be interested in, even though I've set that I want them.

This is on Android though, so perhaps an ecosystem difference?

Re:America's Prison Population Is in Serious Decline on Thursday June 26, 2025 @05:12AM (#44385587)
> More people are alive today than have ever lived.

Assuming you meant died instead of lived to avoid a potentially nonsensical reading, this is not true.

It seems this factoid[0] has been around since the 1970s, and at least in 2007 it was estimated to be 6% of people who'd ever lived being currently alive [1]

[0] In the original sense of factoid - being fact-like, but not a fact (i.e. not true). C.f. android, like a man

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-l...

You are absolutely correct about autorotation and helicopters not falling out of the sky. There is one nuance that the rotor blades still need to be able to rotate for this, and a failed gearbox can prevent that. Anecdotally that feels like the most common cause when I read about another crash in the North Sea.
Not all boots are made the same though. I had some bad luck with a pair of veldtschoen welted boots from the English firm Crockett and Jones in a custom leather. The commando sole split twice at the toe, which they repaired, but after less than five years of wear the lining at the heel had worn through.

I took them in to be rebuilt, but after inspection they said the stiffener had come loose, and nothing could be done. Here have your expensive and now broken boots back.

I'd assumed when I got them I'd be wearing them for decades, and at least a few rebuilds. Maybe there was something wrong with that specific pair, but I did have a goodyear welted sole randomly detach from a pair of six month old city shoes from the same firm. And yes I had been looking after my shoes (frequent cleaning and polishing, always using shoe trees, skipping days between wears, etc).

When I had a pair of Church's fall apart I put that down to them no-longer being a quality brand, but now I don't think you can guarantee a long life just as the shoe was expensive and from a reputable brand. I have many shoes that have lasted better (and now since covid I don't wear polished shoes daily), but that does sometimes feel like luck of the draw.

Re:Air Traffic Control on Tuesday May 13, 2025 @06:31AM (#43971463)
Some SLBMs (Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles) use star sighting to correct their trajectory mid-flight. ICBMs launched from silos know exactly where they're starting from, whereas a submarine is both moving, at different depths and has some error to knowing exactly where it is. Missiles use inertial guidance, so knowing your starting your point is crucial.

How accurate a missile needs to be is a whole other dimension though. If the value of a missile is as retaliation to destroy a city (countervalue) then it can be a large warhead and "miss" by quite a margin but needs some form of credible survivability of an enemy first strike. If the missile is to be used to destroy enemy military installations (counterforce) then it needs to be a lot more accurate but usually the implication is as a first strike so less survivability is required.

When you have nuclear weapons that you can drop from manned aircraft, ICBMs from silos and SLBMs controlled by different military branches there is going to be a lot of politics over what the missile is for, which will determine its required accuracy, which will be a factor on if it needs star sighting.

Re:'I found your dad': The mystery of a missing climber on Saturday May 03, 2025 @06:20PM (#43882835)
An engine failing on an aircraft, especially a light aircraft, is not a guaranteed crash landing. It is a serious situation, however aircraft usually glide well. This means you have opportunities to find somewhere that is adequate for landing. Many aircraft with engine failures have landed safely on airstrips. Interestingly this is also the case with helicopters due to their ability to autorotate.
When you go around a tight corner and are thrown to one side, what term would you use for the tram's change in motion then?

Deceleration is a useful but non-technical term, like vegetable. A tomato is a fruit which is a tightly defined concept, but it is in this loose category of things called vegetables. It's still useful to be able to call it a vegetable.

From a physics perspective all changes in motion (direction and magnitude) are acceleration, and it's correct to say the designers had to consider acceleration in most (all?) directions when designing the tram. This is including gravity's, as they tend to give you seats to sit on, rather than velcro panels and straps like on space ships.

It is useful to say to your friend in the pub that you got thrown out of your seat due to the tram's heavy deceleration, rather than give a precise vector.

Trolling is a fishing technique [0] of slowly dragging a lure or baited hook from a moving boat, and is likely the meaning that online trolling takes it from rather than a creature from Scandinavian folklore [1].

There's definitely a metaphor to be made for trolling for data, that GP could have been intentionally making. I've certainly seen that idiom used before, although it could have been an eggcorn [2] for trawling.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolling_(fishing)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(slang)#Origin_and_etymo...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn

Boots (a large UK pharmacy chain) sells it, but it's "behind the counter" so you have to ask for it. They will also only sell you one pack of 12 per visit

It's the same for codeine-mixed products. Recently I got denied a simultaneous purchase of pseudoephedrine and ibuprofen/codeine - I was I was only allowed one.

I'm not sure if it's policy, law or I just looked suspicious.

Re:Passport Photos on Thursday November 07, 2024 @04:16AM (#42075040)
Two 'weird' places I have visited this year that required an IDP were Japan and Taiwan.
Re:Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @07:38AM (#41982831)
Before the Ballmer/Zune use of the term I remember my father talking about data being squirted to A2A missiles (he was military) prior to launch, so perhaps that is one of the niches.
Interestingly helicopters don't fall out of the sky when they lose power. Air moving over the rotorblades causes lift, as they are after all wings. During normal flight the blades are turned by the engine generating lift in the expected way. If you are already above the ground and start descending, the airflow over the blades as you descend will cause them to rotate and generate lift. This is known as autorotation[0], and allows control over the unpowered descending craft.

It is a normal procedure to be able to safely land this way when power has been lost, and in some ways is safer than a gliding fixed wing aircraft as you don't need a runway to land on.

Of course catastrophic failure is possible in a helicopter where the rotorblades can't turn, and then autorotation won't work. But then if a wing falls off a fixed-wing aircraft, they generally can't be controlled (interesting exceptions do exist like with the Israeli F15[1]).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Negev_mid-air_collision

Re:We're excited about our new roundabout on Monday October 07, 2024 @02:47AM (#41763393)
> With a roundabout, you only have to look in one direction

When being taught how to ride a motorcycle, one of the lessons is a series of extra checks that you're not taught when learning to drive a car. These are known as lifesaver checks.

Entering a roundabout is a left turn in Ireland (right turn in right hand drive countries) so you would check over your left shoulder to make sure nothing was on your left. This is performed after doing a normal right and ahead check for traffic already on the roundabout.

I have never caught anything with a roundabout lifesaver (I have in other situations) but I can see how it's useful on roundabouts with multiple entry lanes, or if something like a bicycle had appeared on your right.

Re:Can solar costs keep shrinking? on Friday August 30, 2024 @05:28AM (#41399063)
I'm somewhat confused with the analysis of his predictions of the price of PV panels.

Is it saying Smil said (is that meant to be countered with?) PV would cost 0.05 USD/W in 2020? Or was that meant to be Al Gore claiming that price? It seems it can't be his predicted reduction as he said 25% less, so did he want to say that is would be 3.38 USD/W in 2020 (75% of the 2009 price)?

And the current cost - 0.2W/USD is 5 USD a Watt - are the units reversed there? A quick google shows a variety of prices, with nothing being 20 cents a Watt [0] - $0.5-1.50 for the less efficient thin film types quoted here. All seem quite a bit cheaper than $4.5 a watt though.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/solar/cost-of-solar-...

One detail here is that 1981 dollars aren't 2023 dollars, so to compare they need to be adjusted.

Using [0] $3.5 bn in 1981 would have been worth $11.7 bn in 2023.

Another comment [1] noted (but unfortunately didn't cite) that two years later the damage was assessed at $36 bn, or $110 bn in 2023 dollars.

[0] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41295116

> Normal glasses are recyclable

Is this the case in reality? Everywhere I've lived drinking glasses were not accepted as part of domestic glass recycling due to their composition [0]

Perhaps there is a commercial recycling route for pubs though? A quick google didn't turn anything up.

[0] https://www.friendsofglass.com/ecology/what-glass-can-you-re...

I don't have an opinion on the health effects of sweeteners, but as I noted in a longer comment on this page, multiple sweeteners are commonly used together and aspartame is far from universal in the mix.
> Virtually all artificially sweetened soft drinks in the Uk are sweetened with aspartame

A quick look at a few soft drinks I could think of, and their UK sweeteners:

  Fanta: Aspartame, Acesulfame 
  Coke Zero: Aspartame, Acesulfame-K, Enzymatically Produced Steviol Glycosides
  Pepsi: Acesulfame K, Sucralose
  Irn Bru: Aspartame, Acesulfame K
  Tizer: Acesulfame K, Sucralose
  Old Jamaica Ginger Beer: Sucralose
  Lipton Iced Tea: Steviol Glycosides from Stevia
  Ribena: acesulfame K, Sucralose
There seem to be no clear winners, with the most noticeable finding that multiple ones are usually used.
I'm not aware of a B-52 being crashed in a barrel roll, but this did make me think of the 1994 Fairchild crash[0] that was caused by a pilot who was known as dangerous due to excessive self confidence. In this case he banked too tightly at low level causing a stall into the ground. The whole crash was caught on camera[1], which is indelibly burnt into my memory.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Fairchild_Air_Force_Base_...

[1] - https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-story-of-bud-holland-the...

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