lb1lf

This.

I became a licensed ship's electrician a decade and change after doing my MSc in RF design - turned out that in the line of work I stumbled into, doing control systems for heavy offshore equipment, it was a massive benefit to be able to work hands-on on the systems during commissioning, rather than pointing at the stuff which needed doing and trying to agree with some poor guy I more often than not did not share a language with as to what I meant.

The supervisor at the local trades office had a laugh at that when I called and asked if I could get to take the test(s) based on relevant work experience rather than by having served a conventional apprenticeship.

Most often, the ones asking to take that path had started working as cable pullers and helping hands at fifteen; having an MSc ask was... ...uncommon.

It was quite the experience learning HOW to do all the stuff I knew needed doing.

Anyway - I can now do all sorts of rather competent work on a ship.

I'd be utterly useless (as well as in violation of the law) if I ever attempted to do anything in a house.

The latter has been very helpful - seeing as I've been asked often whether I can help out friends and relatives with electrical installations at home, seeing as I'm an electrician and all.

Sorry. Against the law. Phew.

September 1st! Eeek!

(Do note I try to go to Berlin once or twice a year to visit friends - so the news of the (more impending than I realized!) closure of the Hoyerswerda museum simply made me get this fall's visit booked...)

I haven't been to the Deutsches Technikmuseum since October 2024, so I'll probably make another visit there.

Funny you should mention it, I was aware of the Zuse museum and figured I'd jump on a train next time I was in Berlin to go check it out. (In fairness, I've been thinking this the past four or five times I've gone to Berlin, on the assumption the museum would only get better while I procrastinated...)

Anyway, three minutes ago, after reading about the museum's likely fate (sigh!) on HN, I've booked tickets to Berlin in October.

Hoyerswerda or bust!

This. When in Japan for work, I always buy a couple of boxes of Hi-Unis (mostly 2H for me, HB for the kids)

I started using them a couple of decades ago, but things escalated once my kids started school, seeing as I just sent them off with a couple of Hi-Unis.

Teacher noted she hardly ever had to help my kids sharpen their pencils, wondered why, asked me if I could get her those for the entire class...

Next thing I knew, I peddle in the pencil business - currently bringing in ~240 pencils a year...

(The lead is nigh on unbreakable, and it holds its point very well.)

Haha, we need to talk. (Current garage: Land Cruisers BJ42 and HZJ78, SI 80" Land Rover (full grille, thank you very much), 1972 RRC, a 1966 MGB V8 (retrofit, not original).)

Oh, and a Passat for the missus. The kids call the Passat 'The muggle car'.

I really could do with a couple cars less (mostly to make room for a Toyota Century, I have wanted one for years), but I love all of them for different reasons, so...

close04 pretty much nailed it with his comment below. There is nothing wrong with the Submariner - quite the contrary, it is an iconic design and exceedingly well made.

The 'problem' is that as it migrated (much like, say, Leica cameras and optics) from being tools for professionals into status symbols, a lot of its owners went from basically banging it about, relishing each and every battle scar obtained to (sigh) worrying about resale value.

...and don't even get me started on people who buy a Rolex Submariner - the quintessential tool watch (and luxury symbol, by all means - but it wasn't always so) and then ask whether they should take any special precautions after accidentally showering with it...

Sigh.

Oh yes. I used to have a VW van (a T4) which had had a V6 transplant and an aftermarket turbo retrofitted (not by me - I am a quite capable mechanic, but not THAT capable.)

It was still a VW van, but it gave a few unsuspecting BMW drivers a surprise. Some 370bhp tends to get others' attention when unleashed.

Secret-ish.

One of the links terminated in a seeming boathouse at Andøya in Norway.

It was a landmark. As in, if you were going fishing with a colleague and asked him which boathouse we'd embark from, he was as likely as not to say 'Three boathouses down from the hush one!'

To stress how prolific tunnels are - if I drive from my home near Aalesund on the northwestern coast to the family seat at Voss (a bit inland from Bergen), some 360km/220mi or so, more than 1/4 of that distance is in tunnels. Can't remember how many, but dozens.

Not relevant at all, but would you happen to be a descendant of Heinz/Henry Ries, the photographer?

(Reading Joseph Pearson's book on the Berlin airlift, in which he features prominently, do your last name stood out...)

Of course, they do serve a purpose, in that there's more often than not airbags in them, plus they provide structural integrity often lacking in older cars - so making the car safer for its occupants at the cost of anyone outside the car.

Say, I have a Range Rover Classic (1972, 3.5l V8) I mostly use for fun and games during weekends in the summer months. Its A-pillars look like strands of spaghetti, making for excellent situational awareness from the driver's seat. It is effectively like driving around in a moving greenhouse. (Doubly so in summer, seeing as the A/C is of dubious efficacy, to put it mildly.)

If I ever roll the thing, I'll be done for, though.

It never ceases to amaze me how many drivers appear to not register blindingly obvious objects in their path.

Ranging from the understandable, but unacceptable (Say, CBDR/Constant bearing, decreasing range, which makes a lot of drivers misidentify an object as stationary even as it is moving towards them on a collision course) to the flat out unbelievable - I've been almost run over in a lit pedestrian crossing. While wearing hi-vis clothing. Pushing a baby stroller, also hi-vis. AFTER having made eye contact with the driver and even gotten a nod from her. After the car slowed down. Sigh.

In the latter case, it turned out she had assumed that us making eye contact meant that I had seen the car and would wait until it had safely passed the crossing. At least that was what she claimed when I asked why, oh why she'd approached the crossing, slowed down, made eye contact with the pedestrian - and yet proceeded to drive through...

Oh, and don't even get me started on the proliferation of touch screens forcing the driver to take his or her attention off the road to interact with the car. This was a solved problem, using physical buttons you soon learned the exact location of so you could reach for them while still keeping your attention on what was in front of you.

It's called living, which has become insanely safe compared to what it used to be only a generation or two ago.

Looking at the statistics here in my native Norway, children killed in traffic is down a couple of orders of magnitude since the sixties - while traffic, at the same time, has increased by a couple of orders of magnitude.

Same goes for drowning - drastically reduced rates compared to the sixties.

Of course, I guess one can argue that maybe it has become too safe - in the sense that kids aren't exposed to enough risk to learn how to evaluate it, leading to major crashes with reality later on.

Then again, as a parent, I kind of like the idea that there's never been a safer time to be a child.

That doesn't stop me from urging them to ditch the screen time in favour of heading out into the boonies to find something to do, though.