The Engineer

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Everything posted by The Engineer

  1. Wasn't it LJBs? LJB Electrical Factors, first registered in Dec 1955. Registered office was in Peterborough.
  2. In the unlikely event that you were anywhere near a limit, you'd get a warning such as: "You have reached 90% of your free storage limit." or similar, with suggested options like empty your trash/deleted/spam folders and then delete any unnecessary mails. Some providers might suggest you subscribe to get more storage (though more applicable to storing stuff in the 'cloud' than to email). The notion of 're-validation' just doesn't make sense. As per all other respondents, I concur that it is definitely spam. If it happens again and your email system has provision, report it as spam, otherwi
  3. crankypig, I'm not after it but just inquisitive when it comes to electro-mechanical and electronics. What's it not doing? If it was working until moved I'd initially suspect internal plugs/sockets becoming loose/dislodged. Is it the ES160?
  4. From http://www.ournottinghamshire.org.uk/page_id__1023.aspx The six acres of land that is now the area known as Carrington was sold off for development in the early 1800s. Some time later it was bought by Ichabod Wright, the Nottingham banker, who named it Carrington after Lord Carrington of Carrington, near Ashby Folville in Leicestershire. A village was built on the land in 1825 and the area was soon transformed by the lace industry. In 1832, there were 34 bobbin net makers, but in just four years the number had risen to 143. Carrington is notable for: ​Shipstone’s Brewery. In 1835, the
  5. And of course Carrington had its own railway station, north end of the tunnel from Victoria Station. It even had a triangular market place, now occupied by Carrington Primary School grounds between Jenner Street and Wesley Street.
  6. Sounds interesting. There have previously been BBC programmes with some similarities: Turn Back Time - The Family (Edwardian era to 1970s). Turn Back Time - The High Street (Victorian era to 1970s). Electric Dreams - modern families coping with tech from 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
  7. As per topic title. Also, in "Areas of Nottingham", why is Mapperley missing? Does nothing happen there?
  8. Thanks for extra info. Hadn't heard of Ortofon - aside of Shure and Goldring my knowledge was limited. Another thing to consider is that old disks probably pre-date RIAA and don't know whether her amp has any preset or variable EQ. Also, if she found any really old bits, they would probably by ceramic/crystal cartridge (as opposed to magnetic) and her amp might not cope with that. I'll point her to Superfi, maybe they can explain such technicalities to her alongside the options (and costs).
  9. Thanks Enigma. I did find parts like that (though would also need a head shell to allow quick change) but as per original post, she likes to shop locally rather than online (even if it means paying more). As an alternative, I suggested she looks out for second-hand or free/recycled deck with suitable bits (though unlikely to pick up something ready-to-go with 1/2" tone arm fitting).
  10. The turntable is 33/45/78 with + or - 20% speed control of a direct-drive motor so no problem there, but it is supplied with a stock cartridge/stylus for 33/45 single/LP records.
  11. My sister wants to play some old 78s on her newly purchased deck but I've warned her that she'll need a different stylus (and probably cartridge) to do this as the supplied stylus would just scrape the bottom of the 78's groove (which is about three times the width of a groove on a single/LP). She doesn't like to buy online and so far is struggling to find any local shop (around Nottingham) that can offer advice and sell her the necessary parts (I'm thinking head shell + cartridge with stylus). Any ideas where she might enquire? I know that audiophiles will say that there's a whole range of
  12. TalkTalk were probably targeted due to their size and market share. The attack could have been against any of the key players in on-line services so let's not be surprised if another big name is headlined in the coming weeks/months. One of the ultimate goals of such hacking is to get your money from your bank account so why aren't the banks doing more? Surely they must be able to find out where the money went? If the answer is 'abroad' then why can't instruct our bank never to transfer any funds out of the country? If we can at least keep the fraud on-shore, the police might have a fighti
  13. Don, Can you remember how the theme tune goes? If so there are apps that you can hum/whistle\play it on an instrument and the app tries to identify it.
  14. Don't wish to appear to lack compassion but both Hugh Scully and Gordon Honeycombe were among those whom I thought were already dead. I suppose it's indicative of the effect where a 'celebrity' who is not seen or heard from for years is simply forgotten and if they were 'of an age' when last seen, it's easy to assume they must have passed away.
  15. Some of them don't age well. Take for instance 'Love Thy Neighbour', 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum' and 'Mind your Language'. Whilst not particularly offensive, there are others that I simply don't find funny nowadays (can't remember what I thought first time around): 'On the Buses' (let's all shout) and 'Last of the Summer Wine' (let's say the same word over and over). Then there was the abysmal attempt to revive 'Open all Hours' (another of Roy Clarke's). I still enjoy Fool and Horses, Father Ted, Blackadder, Red Dwarf and Porridge among others. An old favourite is Ripping Yarns.
  16. Punishment for no test certificate is £100 fixed penalty or a Level A fine (half a week's income) if it goes to court, subject to a maximum of £1000 (Level 3). They'll generally knock a third off if you plead guilty. Road Traffic Act 1988 Sect.47. Trouble with going to court though is that there are a few other costs that will add around £250 to any fine. Best to pay the fixed penalty whenever you get one, whatever the offence. You need to be able to drive home after failure as some places say "we only MOT" (unless of course it's dangerous, like the brakes don't work).
  17. I don't get the assertion that VW think they can fix this with software. The design of the engines is such that despite best engineering efforts, they couldn't get the emissions low enough to market the vehicles as fitting a certain emissions band (which in the UK affects the road fund licence fee) so they fiddled the engine software to burn fuel more efficiently when test conditions were detected. When they 'fix' the software, it will just put the engine back to 'normal'. Under test, the emissions will be 'real', most likely putting the vehicles into a higher tax band. So aside of any ind
  18. Breaking news - 1.2 million vehicles in UK affected, including VW, Audi, Seat and Skoda cars together with VW vans. The specific number of vehicles affected under each brand are: Volkswagen cars 508,276 Audi 393,450 Seat 76,773 Skoda 131,569 VW commercial vehicles 79,838 Total 1,189,906
  19. Another use for computers was to learn computer programming skills. In the early '70s, we used to make a weekly trip from school to Trent Polytechnic Newton Building. They had a computer in the basement but I never saw it. We'd create our programmes on punch cards (they had the machines to do that) then leave the stack of cards for their technicians to feed into the computer. We'd go back the following week to see what the results were. The usual case for a few weeks was to receive a printout saying something like "run time error" and little else. Frustrating, but it concentrated the min
  20. The earliest 'computers' were people - it was a job that involved crunching numbers and writing it out with ink on paper. Arguably the earliest 'computer programmer' was Ada Lovelace (daughter of Lord Byron). Ada worked with Charles Babbage but never really got any credit because she was a woman. In more recent times her contributions have been acknowledged. In fact there's a computer language called Ada in her honour, notably used in air traffic control. Ironically, as a girl, Ada had been fascinated by the concept of flying.
  21. Apparently it will be legal for a seventeen year old to smoke if in the car on their own (assuming they have a full licence of course) and it's also OK in a rag-top if the top is fully down.
  22. All this means that VW/Audi are unlikely to have enough money left to get into Formula 1 as has been mooted over the past couple of weeks. The knock-on effect is that Red Bull will probably pull out of F1.
  23. I agree with FLY2 that they shouldn't be oiling the butterflies. Each butterfly has a stainless steel shaft, sitting in a pair of brass blocks which are attached to the cobweb wheel. The blocks were new this year. Some slight misalignment of the mounts coupled with the shafts not being true meant that the butterflies didn't all swivel freely (small ones seemed worse - maybe due to less mass). I did drill out the blocks slightly to counter some of the error but some butterflies still wouldn't swivel freely. It was (and still is) on my snagging list to align the mounts nearer to true (i.e.