Robert Forester Mushet

del.icio.us Tags: railway, train, steel, engineering, metal, hardware, tools, drills, hss, derby

Just reading about Mushet and his work on what eventually became high speed steel (HSS), used in most drill bits these days.

According to the wikipedia article:

"In 1857 Mushet was the first to make durable rails of steel rather than cast iron, providing the basis for the development of rail transportation throughout the world in the late Nineteenth century. The first of Mushet's steel rails was delivered to Derby Midland Station, where it was laid down early in 1857 at a heavily trafficked part of the line where the iron rails had to be renewed every six months, and occasionally every three." Six years later, in 1863, the rail seemed as perfect as ever, although some 700 trains had passed over it daily."

Impressive!

Skype login problems

According the the Skype heartbeat blog there are ongoing problems with Skype login.  Appears to have been going on for 24hrs now.

Not good!

del.icio.us Tags: skype, broken, login, voip

Other users of Live Writer

"Woody" has written here about the new(-ish) Windows Live Writer for offline blogging.  I have to say it is excellent.  The UI is a little bizarre - nothing like any email or Usenet program I've used before; most of these conquered the UI problems 20 years ago.

Far better than Qumana: more reliable and it seems to make sense of the proxy configurations I am forced to use.  If only it was open source!

del.icio.us Tags: live, writer, microsoft, blog, proxy, qumana, blogger

UK house market overpriced

The BBC reports

del.icio.us Tags: london, houses, property, prices, value, interest, economy

(correctly, I believe) that house prices in the UK ie London are overpriced by 20%.  They give several examples of other countries in a similar situation.

There are dire warnings of what will befall... but... have any countries had such a fall yet???

Adjusting a Spong coffee grinder

I recently bought a Spong coffee grinder from Ebay.  They follow a design from the 1840s and changed little over the years.  I believe they were last manufactured in the 1970s.

The grinder is of the burr type- this is the best to ensure consistent coffee.

Some grinders come without the adjustment screw on the back.  This presses against a flexible metal flap which adjusts the grind size.  While I have not yet found what thread size is used (it could be Whitworth, BSF or many others!), the other bolts on the grinder are all the same size and can be used in its stead.

del.icio.us Tags: coffee, grinder, grind, burr, conical, bolt, spong

Nothing on telly?

Standing on the tube this morning, I couldn't help but overhear two women discussing the lack of good content on the television at the moment.  They were so distraught they had resorted to asking one's boyfriend to spend his time downloading "Lost" episodes from the internet.

Have they really nothing better to do than watch endless television??

del.icio.us Tags: television, tv, lost, tube, underground