MarkW

I taught for about ten years, and the highest student drop-out rate was from 1st Kyu to 1st Dan. It's a huge step! Everyone thinks black belt means you're an expert, but in truth it just means you've mastered the basics. Stick with it mate.

Ah-so, Mawsley-San. Old Shotokan man myself - I used to train with Terry O'Neill, Bob Poynton, Frank Brennan et el back in the day. Got to 2nd Dan before relocating to somewhere with no KUGB club for miles around and eventually drifted away from it. Still miss it, but not quite enough to actually get my arse in gear and train.

And there were only 70 people on a plane that can carry over 300, but still no flexibility with the baggage allowance. And the food was revolting. What kind of psycho sticks a sausage on blueberry pancakes? Americans - FFS...

...sitting on a plane from the US with a load of 20 stone Americans who paid the same for their seat as I did, and being charged an extra $200 because one of my hold bags was 4 lb overweight.

Thanks guys - I guess it looks as though they don't make them any more, which is a shame because they are way better than anything I've owned since. Makes you wonder what we knew about screwdriver design 30 years ago that we don't know today.

Morning all. Bit of an odd request, but does anyone know where I can find screwdrivers like this one? I've had it for well over 20 years and it is by far the most used in my toolbox - much more comfortable than any of the hideous modern rubberised ergo-grip abominations. There are some Draper ones in solid colours that look similar, but they're not as comfortable to use. No matter what I put into Google I can't find them anywhere, and all it says on the handle is 'Made in W Germany', which gives you some idea of how old it must be! I have one other with a flat blade that I remember my father buying in the late 1970s, so I am preparing for the fact that they may simply not exist any more. Any help much appreciated!

It's not a near death experience (sorry!) but I once had a weird 'out of body' experience in a car crash. I had only recently passed my test and wasn't wise to HGV drivers straightening out roundabouts instead of going round them. I was in the inside lane, and as his trailer did a nice can-opener job down the side of my car and ground me into the roundabout I could see the entire scene from above. I literally felt as though I was floating above the whole thing and looking down - it was that clear. Obviously my brain was taking the data it was receiving from my eyes and processing it to give me a view of the situation that I couldn't possibly have had, but it genuinely felt as though I'd floated off and was looking down. The brain is a remarkable thing!

That's what they opened with! Creedence are one of the very few bands that I can listen to a whole CD of in one go - usually I've had enough after the first three or four tracks.

This conference was in Monterey last year where Jeff bridges was doing a one night only gig that I went to. I'm keeping the whole Big Lebowski theme going with the Creedence!

I've been in Reno for a conference all week, and Creedence Clearwater were playing in the hotel tonight. Naturally I bought a ticket, and the combination of several hundred very drunk yanks and a blistering rendition of 'Fortunate Son' was truly something to experience! Top night!

So, I'm in Heathrow having a decidedly average breakfast at Heston's modestly titled 'Perfectionists Cafe'. When I asked the waiter for the wifi code he said "C'mon man, this is Heston's! Have a guess - what's the first thing you think of when you think of Heston?" He didn't look too chuffed when I said "norovirus". Apparently it's "nitrogen", if anyone's interested...

Great - another embarrassment from my home town, as if Robbie Williams and the captain of the Titanic weren't enough. Still, she may be on to something with the disabled parking spaces. Every supermarket I go to has ten times more disabled spaces than parent and child spaces. Is that really how they see their customer demographic?

Mainly dimethoate, carbendazim and sodium trichloroacetate through a custom-made spray tower onto glass plates on an analytical balance. They are horrifically toxic, so we need to vent them from the spray cabinet as quickly as possible, but as the spray deposition is weighed in real time we can't have the extractor running during application otherwise the balance goes haywire. I take it that none of those chemicals are flammable and likely to cause an explosion then in the presence of an electrical spark. No, they should all be fine. Incidentally, there was a story in the industry some years ago of a lab who were conducting pesticide residue analysis on glace cherries, the extraction procedure for which involved macerating the glycerine-soaked cherries in nitric acid. Apparently it dawned on them that they had inadvertently manufactured nitroglycerin when the fume hood exploded.

Mainly dimethoate, carbendazim and sodium trichloroacetate through a custom-made spray tower onto glass plates on an analytical balance. They are horrifically toxic, so we need to vent them from the spray cabinet as quickly as possible, but as the spray deposition is weighed in real time we can't have the extractor running during application otherwise the balance goes haywire.

Top man JRH - and it's cheaper than the one we're returning.

It's for surface mounting in a stainless steel glovebox to operate the extractor attached to a plate sprayer, so ideally it needs a degree of resistance to water ingress (the original we bought was rated for partial immersion IIRC).

Ah! That would explain why I couldn't find any info on how to connect it! No worries - I'll exchange it for the one you suggest. Thanks guys and gals!

Correct: the two black blocks are NO and the two red ones are NC... What do I do now?

Correct: the two black blocks are NO and the two red ones are NC...

It's an extractor on a bespoke piece of kit we built, fitted on the mains cable between the plug and the unit, so the insurance won't be an issue. We just need a way of turning the thing on and off without getting up and walking to the socket.

Evening all! I could do with a bit of help from any electrically-minded folks out there. I have a start/stop switch to fit to a basic 240v single phase extractor fan in our lab, but I can't figure out how to wire it up. I took a look on the manufacturers website (no joy) and did a Google search, but I'm still none the wiser! There appear to be four banks of twin contacts inside, making eight possible connection points. Hmm... Any help very much appreciated! Mark

People are always making fun of Kim Jong-un, but give him his due: he's got obesity in North Korea down to one in 25 million...

'Ere, I'll tell you something... that Thora Hird doesn't 'alf give me the horn...

Can you imagine eternity with Cliff Richard and Thora Hird? Plus all those evangelical door knockers who will be even more insufferable because they'll know they were right all along. Not for me...