Rant of the Day v2.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1321 Post by Hydromet » Mon Apr 22, 2019 10:15 pm

We used to use carbon tet. for cleaning everything - fabrics, instruments, machine parts etc. Unfortunately a colleague's friend died from liver failure after using his CT fire extinguisher on a boat that was on fire. Consumption of alcohol seriously exacerbated its effects.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1322 Post by k3k3 » Mon Apr 22, 2019 10:42 pm

MEK would clean everything.

When I was in MQ at Lyneham we had a plague of earwigs, they got everywhere, in the kitchen, bedroom, bread bin etc., I found they were hiding between the the overlapping vertical slats of the garden fence so I would go out at night with a torch and a spray bottle of MEK, after a few evenings the plague was gone.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1323 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Mon Apr 22, 2019 11:02 pm

I have just been using some stuff called Rust Cure Formula 3000 in place of WD40 to shift some well rusted outdoor bolts. If you can get it where you are, I recommend it. It's like WD40 but thicker, so it sticks around in the crevices and gets to work for longer. It also seems to have some protective effect on bolts that need undoing a couple of times a year, as is common with our changing seasons here. Good stuff, the Canadian Army uses it on their MBTs.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1324 Post by Rwy in Sight » Tue Apr 23, 2019 4:16 am

I am not sure I like to bring in contact a container for drinking water with such interesting yet powerful solutions. I would go for some alcohol soaked cotton and then use some acetone.
Catching a cold with cough at the end of the season is my rant for today.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1325 Post by Capetonian » Tue Apr 23, 2019 4:51 am

I seem to remember something called Beaucare which I suppose was carbon tetrachloride, not sure if it was in GB or ZA but it was banned as people used to sniff it to get high.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1326 Post by Pontius Navigator » Tue Apr 23, 2019 6:47 am

Fox, sounds like Supertrol. Had a can donkeys years ago. Then had a rust bucket of a Merc. Found I could still but it - like WD40, design and packaged unchanged.

Bought a can and gave it to my garage, father & son outfit. Never heard of it but tried it. He loved the way it crept into panel gaps and then dried to a clean tack. When I picked the car up he had used most of the can that would have lasted me 10-15 years.


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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1327 Post by OFSO » Tue Apr 23, 2019 11:37 am

Estate agents Stack and Bonner send me a Gmail with details of interesting property for sale. As I'm in the area I jump off the train at Kingston and go to their office. Arrive 12:20, office lit up but doors locked, nobody there. Useless gits.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1328 Post by Pontius Navigator » Tue Apr 23, 2019 12:43 pm

OFSO, OTOH many moons ago, I went in the an estate agents in Bawtry about 9am, office not lit up but doors unlocked, nobody there. Useless gits. 😀

But they had set the alarm. Across the road was a filling station with a police car being refuelled. The policeman paid no attention to the alarm and eventually someone let themselves in through the back.

Remember when your beat bobby would try all shop doors in the evening and call out the key holder of the door was I locked - prevention better than detection.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1329 Post by G-CPTN » Tue Apr 23, 2019 1:00 pm

One evening recently there was the penetrating sound of an alarm which was coming from the rear of 'high street' premises - a street which has seen premises broken into in recent months.
I could see no intrusion, but nobody (apart from me) was taking any notice.
I knew where people connected with the business lived so I was able to call and inform them.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1330 Post by Pontius Navigator » Tue Apr 23, 2019 9:15 pm

Do people generally react to an alarm?

Our last alarm would cut out after a few minutes. However our local doctor's didn't have a cut off. He had lots of false alarms. One time when he was on his annual month at Disney it sounded, and sounded, and sounded. Seven he got home there was a notice on his door. Next time it would be secured with a six inch nail.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1331 Post by Hydromet » Tue Apr 23, 2019 10:11 pm

Friends live next to a public car park. Back when quite a few of cars had alarms, she reckoned there wasn't a car around that she couldn't break into and disable the alarm within a couple of minutes.
Nowadays, there don't seem to be many cars with alarms, I guess because no one ever took any notice of them.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1332 Post by Slasher » Wed Apr 24, 2019 1:55 am

We certainly noticed them Hydro but hoped that some bastard would steal the offending car to stop the damn racket!

While these alarms were a bright idea initially, the cry of wolf was done way too many times for the use it was intended.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1333 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:10 am

I was deputy i/c the car parking at the Coningsby airshow one year - over a hundred thousand visitors, huge car park near the runway. Problem was the car alarms would go off every time a jet took off = several hundred flat batteries at the end of the day and chaos, especially with AA men trying to go against the flow. We had warned people at the gate not to set them, and reassured them verbally in previous years that the Base was guarded by 8 armed guards, and we implied car thieves would be shot*, but many still set them. I decided to put one of the guards next to the car park entrance gate, got them issued with a sten gun** for bonus points, and told the guard to look mean. The visual reassurance worked, and I think there were only 3 dead batteries that year.


* Those who know the Fens will know this can sound quite believable. Not only can the dykes hide a lot of bodies, but they probably do ;)))

** Standard for WAAFs at the time, IIRC.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1334 Post by Hydromet » Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:27 am

On the Bass Strait ferry, there are large signs and loud announcements telling drivers to switch off their alarms. Nevertheless, on every trip, there seem to be idiots who fear their car will be stolen and driven off the ferry during the crossing.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1335 Post by Rwy in Sight » Wed Apr 24, 2019 4:24 am

Some times it is a habit to set the alarm or you can't lock the car without arming the alarm.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1336 Post by OFSO » Wed Apr 24, 2019 6:44 am

Last week sent an e-mail to estate agents Martin & Co in Walton on Thames about a property advertised for sale on their website. Yesterday a snooty reply saying " we did have that property for sale some years ago but it has not been on the market since then." My reply.....
..

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1337 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Apr 24, 2019 7:56 am

Fox, was the car alarm incident in '86? I did the first be show. Any way it was Sterling SMG by then. Loved it, far better than an SLP. They even let Mrs PN fire one one year, and Miss PN2 the following year before she joined the RAF.

Miss PN1 got to fire a GPMG and the US even let her drive a Bradley when she joined the Reserves.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1338 Post by ian16th » Thu Apr 25, 2019 9:02 am

My ISP, Telkom South Africa is in a mess.

Their Mail Server is down, has been since early yesterday. No e-mail in or out.

Also cannot access the Daily Fail from my Windows PC's, but the Android App works from my phone.
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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1339 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Thu Apr 25, 2019 10:05 am

Sorry, SMG, you're quite right.
Do people generally react to an alarm?
Interesting experiment done on some pretend interviewees in a basement waiting room. The participants did not know it was a human psychology test. The fire alarm was set off in the corridor outside. Took two minutes before one of the group offered to go find out what was going on. The researchers asked the person not to go back. Took another 5 minutes before anyone else left (they didn't go back either), then after a total of 11 minutes the rest left. They all tried to leave via the entrance stairs they came in through, ignoring the lit fire exit sign right outside the door pointing in the opposite direction.
Then, on a different group, they tried a fire alarm with a recorded verbal announcement stating there was a fire and asking them to leave by the nearest fire exit. They all did so within 40 seconds.
It seems to be the combination of alarm and announcement which is required. Neither on its own works well.

However, there is an important point not well researched, which is that people become habituised to ignoring any stimuli which have proven to be associated with no real threat or interest. It is one of the huge problems associated with inefficient bureaucracy, especially excessive Health & Safety regulations. One of the reasons it is not well researched is that a lot of useless wasters in Government would be out of a job were it conclusively proven, so there's no funding made available to research it. The RAF Flight Safety system is aware of it, which is why things like posters and briefings were to be minimised, and changed before they became 'stale'. It often wasn't done well or consistently as it takes a lot of effort - you try writing a new flight safety message, especially for a common, recurrent problem.

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Re: Rant of the Day v2.

#1340 Post by Hydromet » Thu Apr 25, 2019 10:58 am

Interesting thoughts on what it takes to stimulate people into action. Remember reading 50+ years ago about an incident where passengers ignored cabin crew instructions to evacuate until a steward put his cap on. The cap gave him the cachet of authority.

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