Today I Learned

[jtbell]

Today I learned about the borough (small municipality) of S.N.P.J., Pennsylvania. Population was 19 in the 2010 census. It's very close to the Ohio border, a few miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

(I saw it on a road sign or on my GPS, then found it on Google Maps, which led me to Wikipedia.)

The acronym stands for Slovenska Narodna Podporna Jednota, a fraternal society for Slovenian-Americans. They built a 500-acre recreation area which is apparently popular for wedding receptions and other events.

However, the borough that they were originally in forbade the sale of alcoholic beverages on Sundays. So they somehow managed to secede and form a separate borough with its own alcohol regulations!

 

[phinds]

Well good for them !

 

[Borg]

So they somehow managed to secede and form a separate borough with its own alcohol regulations!

Which reminded me of this for some reason.

 

[mfb]

Today I learned:
TWELVE PLUS ONE is an anagram of ELEVEN PLUS TWO. And both are 13.

 

[phinds]

Today I learned:
TWELVE PLUS ONE is an anagram of ELEVEN PLUS TWO. And both are 13.

Uh, dude ... you have WAY too much spare time on your hands.

 

[Borg]

There are lots of interesting ones.

Listen = Silent
Clint Eastwood = Old West Action
Madam Curie = Radium came
The eyes = They see

And, Stressed is Desserts backwards. Coincidence? I think not.

 

[Ibix]

A once-topical UK local one is that Virginia Bottomley is an anagram of I'm an evil Tory bigot.

 

[phinds]

A once-topical UK local one is that Virginia Bottomley is an anagram of I'm an evil Tory bigot.

Assuming she WAS an evil Tory bigot, that's hilarious. Was she?

 

[phinds]

I used to do look up anagrams but haven't in years. Just did Donald Trump for grins and among many other, got "Mad Lord Punt"

 

[Ibix]

Assuming she WAS an evil Tory bigot, that's hilarious. Was she?

She was certainly a Tory, a cabinet minister in John Major's government in the 90s. Your mileage may vary on the rest - Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, certainly found it amusing at the time. I'm probably pushing the boundaries of "no politics" though, so I'd better stop here.

 

[andrewkirk]

Today I learned what an indeterminate form is, from this thread. I suppose I already knew and understood the concepts involved, but didn't realize somebody had taken the trouble to categorise and label them to make it easier to talk about the behaviour of certain sorts of limits. I expect this will be useful to me in future discussions about limits.

 

[BillTre]

Friday I learned that Portland has at least its share of heroes.

 

[EnumaElish]

TIL about the Alice In Wonderland syndrome, which distorts one's body image. Often goes hand in hand with migraine. Lewis Carroll, a migraineur, is believed to have had it.

 

[Simon Peach]

TIL about the Alice In Wonderland syndrome, which distorts one's body image. Often goes hand in hand with migraine. Lewis Carroll, a migraineur, is believed to have had it.

Is that what anorexics have?

 

[OCR]

Is that what anorexics have?

I don't want to be accused of diagnosing medical conditions, so just have a look...

Alice in Wonderland syndrome ...
Anorexia nervosa ...

 

[OmCheeto]

TIL when and where I came up with my "Economist = Phrenologist" idea.

 

[1oldman2]

T.I.L, URL's that begin with hxxp are not particularly my favorite.

 

[phinds]

Today (yesterday actually) I learned that in Ithaca, NY's city schools, it is the policy in the elementary schools that unless a parent specifically asks that their child be left behind for a grade, all kids will always be promoted to the next grade regardless of their academic achievement. As a result there are 6th graders who basically can't read.

Just as an aside, this is where Cornell University professors send their kids to school (unless the send them to private schools).

 

[Drakkith]

Today I learned that most of the video recordings of World War 2 U.S. carrier landing mishaps exist because the Navy had crewmen assigned to watch nearly every landing and to start recording if it looked like anything was going wrong or about to go wrong.

 

[jim hardy]

Today i learned that plumbing ain't what it used to be.
It has root from Latin "Plumbum", lead(noun soft heavy metal , not verb go before) .
But lead is falling out of favor.

They have taken the lead out of brass plumbing fittings. Used to be typically 2 to 7 % but now it's 0.07 %
http://homepages.uc.edu/~maynarjb/Frontpage%20sites/Pipe%20Scales/Lead%20content%20of%20brass%20plumbing%20components.pdf

My neighbor is a retired foundryman who used to make water meters and brass plumbing fittings. He says taking the lead out of brass ruined its machinability.
My plumbing supply guy says brass pipe threads don't seal well anymore since they took the lead out. Not surprising if you can't machine smooth threads anymore.

Well now ! On with the boring anecdote......

A few days ago my water meter blew out an old plastic fitting and was filling up the lake by time water company guys got there.
They replaced the fitting with a bronze one.
I decided to revamp some questionable workmanship i found underground. Bought an expensive new brass pressure regulator and brass pipe nipples and added isolation valves for house and barn.

Wouldn't you know - though i used plenty of Teflon thread sealing tape i have a minuscule drip at inlet to new regulator..
Arrrgghhh that ditch is a yard deep and in rocky clay that makes the stickiest mud you ever saw.
It still hasn't drained from the broken fitting four days ago..

Mark at my plumbing supply store had casually mentioned i should use Teflon thread sealing paste instead of the tape . .
Wish i'd asked him why. But now i know.

Oh well.
I'll wait until Monday when he's open in case i break something else.

old jim

 

[mfb]

He says taking the lead out of brass ruined its machinability.

It also "ruined" (reduced) its toxicity. If you plan to drink the water, it is a good idea to replace old lead pipes.

 

[jim hardy]

If you plan to drink the water, it is a good idea to replace old lead pipes.

Did you see the NOVA show on Flint's water supply?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/poisoned-water.html
You really need that layer of scale on the inside of lead pipes. Until they're replaced keep the water chemistry such that it won't dissolve the scale.

Program Description
Water. Turn on the faucet and it’s always there. Without it we perish. But how safe is our tap water? In this special report narrated by Joe Morton, NOVA investigates what happened in Flint, Michigan, when local officials changed the city’s water source to save money, but overlooked a critical treatment process. As the water pipes corroded, lead leached into the system, exposing the community—including thousands of children—to dangerous levels of poison. NOVA uncovers the science behind this manmade disaster— from the intricacies of water chemistry to the biology of lead poisoning to the misuse of science itself. NOVA follows ordinary citizens and independent scientists who exposed the danger lurking in Flint’s water and confronted those who turned a blind eye. And discover the disturbing truth that reaches far beyond Flint—water systems across the country are similarly vulnerable. How can we protect ourselves from poisoned water?

They're all steel pipes on this rural system. Mine had a healthy limestone lining. . I buried a new PVC line for when my fifty+ year old steel one corrodes away. It's tied into the white one in my picture.

old jim

 

[BillTre]

Interesting to know that about the brass fittings @jim hardy.
I like pipe paste.

 

[mfb]

You really need that layer of scale on the inside of lead pipes. Until they're replaced keep the water chemistry such that it won't dissolve the scale.

That is better than nothing, but not better than lead-free pipes.
Germany for example stopped installing leaded pipes 50-100 years ago, but there are still some old pipes around. The limit is 10µg/l in the water, these old pipes typically lead to water exceeding that limit.

 

[jim hardy]

That is better than nothing, but not better than lead-free pipes.

What made the Flint problem acute was their new water supply chemistry dissolved the scale that had lined the old lead pipes .

One can't defend pure lead pipes this day an age .
But one can blast Flint water officials for first refusing to acknowledge then trying to hide their problem. NOVA did a good job IMHO of presenting the facts about lead and scale in pipes, and bureaucracy .

When one changes something that causes another problem does he not own the new trouble too?

Looks like i too will become a fan of Teflon thread paste.

 

[OmCheeto]

What made the Flint problem acute was their new water supply chemistry dissolved the scale that had lined the old lead pipes .

One can't defend pure lead pipes this day an age .
But one can blast Flint water officials for first refusing to acknowledge then trying to hide their problem. NOVA did a good job IMHO of presenting the facts about lead and scale in pipes, and bureaucracy .

When one changes something that causes another problem does he not own the new trouble too?

jedishrfu posted a thread about that on Friday. Beings that I don't watch TV anymore, I really appreciate notices of excellent programs.
I did some further research about it, and discovered that the chemicals they decided not to add would have cost them $200 a day.

“For $200 a day, had the leadership put phosphate in the water as an anti-corrosive, this wouldn’t have happened,” Schuette says. [ref: Time]​

The highest estimate I've seen so far to fix the problem is $1.5 BILLION.

Many residents have called for state money to replace the city’s old pipe infrastructure — which the mayor has said could cost up to $1.5 billion — and a fund to address any developmental impact on children. [ref NY Times]​

hmmm... $200/day * 365.25 days/year = $73,000/year
$1,500,000,000 / ($73,000/year) = 21,000 years.
hmmm...
I'm guessing they probably would have replaced all the old broken pipes by then. I wonder how long lead water pipes last.

Looks like i too will become a fan of Teflon thread paste.

When I bought my house 28 years ago, I didn't know there was a problem with the plumbing.
It took me a month to replace all of the broken fittings and pipes and fixtures.
The house had sat vacant through two winters, and although a note on the water heater said everything had been "winterized", it was obvious that it hadn't. Or, perhaps the meant a "Southern California" winter.
In any event, even though I had no training as a plumber, it still hasn't leaked..
(knocks on wood)

 

[jim hardy]

That is better than nothing, but not better than lead-free pipes.

Hmm looks like there's science to back getting the lead out of our brass.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4808929/
so far as i can tell that journal doesn't charge much to publish, about a hundred Swiss Francs
so i hope they're reputable
surely they won't mind this pointer to their interesting paper
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4808929/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4808929/figure/ijerph-13-00266-f003/

Though it's way less drastic than real lead pipes.

Still,
if i go away for a week or more i'll run enough water to flush the lines .

Okay - today i learned that, too !

old jim

 

[jim hardy]

I wonder how long lead water pipes last.

Somebody must've found some left from the Roman days...Another interesting paper on the mechanism...

http://homepages.uc.edu/~maynarjb/Frontpage%20sites/603/GeochemWater/Brass_corrosion.html

 

[1oldman2]

Today I learned, well that about sums it up.

 

[mfb]

Today I learned: Abstract nonsense is actual mathematics.

And who bothers studying pointless topology?