Things I Hate - A Comedic Rantesse

[Adrian]

Its worse than that - the width of a wagon was determined by the ruts worn in the roads so there was a need for a more or less standard gauge for road wagons. That was determined by the spacing of the wheels of Roman chariots...

Because ruts never widen and move in mud and Roman metalled roads would be somewhat more resistant... Maybe the Romans carved ruts into their pavements... Table VII of the Roman Twelve Tables (a sort of bill of rights and responsibilities) laid down a standard width of 8 feet (Roman size) for the straight and double that on bends. I recall something along the lines of carts not interfering with pedestrian traffic, so carts passing would have to have wider roads which would need more maintenance - the responsibility of those who lived nearby. https://historycooperative.org/the-twelve-tables/ and others.

[nigel hewitt]

All IT is shit. Mostly as it is outsourced to some crappy company that does software engineering in the lowest cost place possible.

ROTFL

When I took over the Combro Chronoscope sales website, basically because we are reducing the business and the bill was silly,
I rewrote the entire site in one tenth the size and with all the suggestions for improvement we had saved up and it took about
two days. That is less time than the original WordPress people took to do a spelling correction.
It now just runs by itself and it's a good thing I commented the PHP/JavaScript in the ELI5 style as I can barely remember what I
did now as it was all done and dusted too fast for things to stick.

The object of IT is to make money for IT companies. They are not in the business of admitting it is easy but they've actually
been doing it so long that they think it's hard too.

[Energy58]

Salt lake city was designed around roads wide enough to turn around a bullock cart apparently.

So was Bulawayo

[Noggin the Nog]

Outboard motors or, more specifically, the lower gearbox.
I've tinkered with lots of engines, gearboxes and transmissions, but this the first time for me where you fill the gearbox from the drain plug, rather than from the level plug. You need an adapter for the drain plug hole and a small hand pump to inject the oil until it comes out of the level plug.
Then you have to "quickly" unscrew the pump adapter and replace the drain plug. There will, of course, be some oil on the floor under the leg afterwards.

[Energy58]

Outboard motors or, more specifically, the lower gearbox.
I've tinkered with lots of engines, gearboxes and transmissions, but this the first time for me where you fill the gearbox from the drain plug, rather than from the level plug. You need an adapter for the drain plug hole and a small hand pump to inject the oil until it comes out of the level plug.
Then you have to "quickly" unscrew the pump adapter and replace the drain plug. There will, of course, be some oil on the floor under the leg afterwards.

For some reason outboards are always full of comedy engineering - I suspect it may be because most of them used to be engines for a crappy car or motorbike about 50 years ago which they turned through 90 degrees and added lots of salt water. Don't get me started on out drives or inboards - even the good ones have fun features like "oh no you can't actually drain the oil, you poke a tiny pipe through the dipstick and pump it out that way while hanging upside down with your hair in the bilge water, and if anything actually goes wrong with it because you never actually got the old oil out you need to rebuild the entire boat to get it out to access the bottom end".

[Noggin the Nog]

For some reason outboards are always full of comedy engineering - I suspect it may be because most of them used to be engines for a crappy car or motorbike about 50 years ago which they turned through 90 degrees and added lots of salt water. Don't get me started on out drives or inboards - even the good ones have fun features like "oh no you can't actually drain the oil, you poke a tiny pipe through the dipstick and pump it out that way while hanging upside down with your hair in the bilge water, and if anything actually goes wrong with it because you never actually got the old oil out you need to rebuild the entire boat to get it out to access the bottom end".

I have that joy to come. The outboard is for the tender. The boat proper has a Betamarine 30 diesel for me to play with. Fortunately the access is better than on a lot of yachts where the only way in is through the deck.

[Jay_Benson]

Fortunately the access is better than on a lot of yachts where the only way in is through the deck.

Or hull - people often overlook that option. Hope that helps

[steelemonkey]

Or hull - people often overlook that option. Hope that helps

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_upon_Hull

That's a long way to go.

[Noggin the Nog]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_upon_Hull

That's a long way to go.

The engine is also accessible by removing a big panel forming the wall of a 'companionway' that connects the main cabin to the rear cabin.
This 'companionway' was designed for hobbits to walk through so I'm nearly bent double.

Going to K o H to change the oil brings new meaning to
'An Unexpected Journey'

[steelemonkey]

The engine is also accessible by removing a big panel forming the wall of a 'companionway' that connects the main cabin to the rear cabin.
This 'companionway' was designed for hobbits to walk through so I'm nearly bent double.

Going to K o H to change the oil brings new meaning to
'An Unexpected Journey'

"One does not just simply walk into the engine bay."