headers
Giles A. Radford | 1 Feb 2003 04:35
Picon

Re: Technology and historical continuity...

> Narrow gauge track was used extensively in some areas (particularly places
> like Colorado, with it's extensive small-line railroads running up canyons
> to mining towns), due to being able to handle much tighter turns in the
> roadbed, though it provided less stability and generally was unsuited to
> high-speed trains.

One of the longest bits of Narrow-guage railway being, of course, the
Australian sugar cane railway, which stretches up from the northern
end of New South Wales up to the Daintree Rainforest, and covers the
whole of Australia's sugar crop. It's used to carry the sugar cane
from the fields to the sugar refineries, and is only really active for
about three to four months a year. And for some historical reason,
it's all three-foot guage.

Moof - a pom currently travelling around Australia, seeing the sights
Permalink | Reply | 1 comment |
headers
Blars Blarson | 1 Feb 2003 14:34

Re: Technology and historical continuity...

In article <20030201033547.GA1592 <at> pinky.notnet.co.uk> me <at> moohf.org.uk writes:
>One of the longest bits of Narrow-guage railway being, of course, the
>Australian sugar cane railway,

If what I've heard about the Russian railways is true, the
trans-siberia dwarfs anything in Australia.  Russia supposedly uses a
guage slightly narrower than standard, so their engines and stock can
run sloppily on standard guage, but an invading army's stock can't run
on the Russian rails without modification.  This hampered the Germans
in WWII, as they either had to move to captured equipment or widen
captured rails.

--

-- 
Blars Blarson			blarson <at> blars.org
				http://www.blars.org/blars.html
"Text is a way we cheat time." -- Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Permalink | Reply | 3 comments |
headers
bob parker | 1 Feb 2003 15:16
Picon

Re: Technology and historical continuity...

On Sat, 1 Feb 2003 14:35, Giles A. Radford wrote:
> > Narrow gauge track was used extensively in some areas (particularly
> > places like Colorado, with it's extensive small-line railroads running up
> > canyons to mining towns), due to being able to handle much tighter turns
> > in the roadbed, though it provided less stability and generally was
> > unsuited to high-speed trains.
>
> One of the longest bits of Narrow-guage railway being, of course, the
> Australian sugar cane railway, which stretches up from the northern
> end of New South Wales up to the Daintree Rainforest, and covers the
> whole of Australia's sugar crop. It's used to carry the sugar cane
> from the fields to the sugar refineries, and is only really active for
> about three to four months a year. And for some historical reason,
> it's all three-foot guage.
>
> Moof - a pom currently travelling around Australia, seeing the sights

Not to mention the state rail system which is 3'6" gauge I believe.

Bob
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Hilmar Preusse | 1 Feb 2003 15:01
Picon

Re: Technology and historical continuity...

On 01.02.03 Blars Blarson (blarson <at> blars.org) wrote:

Hi,

> If what I've heard about the Russian railways is true, the
> trans-siberia dwarfs anything in Australia. Russia supposedly uses
> a guage slightly narrower than standard,
> 
Correct me, if I'm wrong, but the russian railway is a little bit
wider, than in the rest of Europe. Today any train coming from Europe
or going to Europe has to change the wheels at the border of Russia.

Hilmar
--

-- 
I predict that today will be remembered until tomorrow!
  http://rudi.urz.tu-dresden.de/~hille/
Permalink | Reply | 2 comments |
headers
Aaron M. Ucko | 1 Feb 2003 18:13
Picon
Favicon

Re: Technology and historical continuity...

Hilmar Preusse <hille42 <at> web.de> writes:

> Correct me, if I'm wrong, but the russian railway is a little bit
> wider, than in the rest of Europe. Today any train coming from Europe
> or going to Europe has to change the wheels at the border of Russia.

Well, they'd also have to change wheels if Russian tracks were
narrower....  nevertheless, they do seem to be ~10cm wider, at least
according to <http://parovoz.com/spravka/gauges-e.html>.

--

-- 
Aaron M. Ucko, KB1CJC (amu at alum.mit.edu, ucko at debian.org)
Finger amu <at> monk.mit.edu (NOT a valid e-mail address) for more info.
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Alexander Hvostov | 1 Feb 2003 22:39
Picon

Re: survival skills for teenage geeks

On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 15:28, Vikki Roemer wrote:
> > > my parents' monitor, OTOH, is a 17", but
> > > they would kill me if I turned up the resolution and I wouldn't be
> > > able to see properly anyway if I did-- the monitor is 3-4 ft. away, so
> > > that's probably part of it.  Otherwise... *shrug* maybe it's a Windows
> > > thing.
> > 
> > I don't have any trouble at 3-4 feet away with 1280x1024 on a 17"
> > monitor. Ok, a little bit, but not enough to bother me. Windows is
> > involved, though; while you can configure the display resolution (in
> > dpi), doing so causes all sorts of horrible graphics glitches. X, on the
> > other hand, deals with the rather odd setting of 106x100 dpi without a
> > hitch, and so do all the applications. Go figure. Fonts are scaled up to
> 
> Ah, the beauty of Linux! :)

The beauty of X, actually. You'll find this on any X system, provided
all of the X clients are capable of dealing with odd resolutions
properly. Fortunately, they do seem to.

> BTW, is the refresh rate what causes the flicker if I run certain
> screensavers, do you think?  I've often wondered that.

Usually, it's a software problem; the screensaver should be using double
buffering, but isn't.

<long-winded-description of="double buffering">

Double buffering (in this case) is where an application (such as a
screensaver) draws not onto the screen directly, but onto an offscreen
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 2 comments |
headers
Alexander Hvostov | 1 Feb 2003 23:00
Picon

Re: Technology and historical continuity...

On Thu, 2003-01-30 at 10:29, Jordan Bettis wrote:
> Also, I don't think this is debian related.

cd your-ass;rm -f telephone-pole

Alex.

--

-- 
PGP Public Key: http://aoi.dyndns.org/~alex/pgp-public-key

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCS d- s:++ a18 C++(++++)>$ UL+++(++++) P--- L+++>++++ E---- W+(+++) N-
o-- K+ w--- !O M(+) V-- PS+++ PE-- Y+ PGP+(+++) t* 5-- X-- R tv b- DI
D+++ G e h! !r y
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Permalink | Reply | 2 comments |
headers
Alexander Hvostov | 1 Feb 2003 23:01
Picon

Re: Technology and historical continuity...

On Fri, 2003-01-31 at 15:41, Sam Couter wrote:
> What are you, a dressmaker? It's 1435mm or sometimes 1.435m. Dressmakers
> use centimetres, engineers use millimetres or metres. :P

Male genitals on humans are also typically measured in centimeters.

Alex.

--

-- 
PGP Public Key: http://aoi.dyndns.org/~alex/pgp-public-key

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCS d- s:++ a18 C++(++++)>$ UL+++(++++) P--- L+++>++++ E---- W+(+++) N-
o-- K+ w--- !O M(+) V-- PS+++ PE-- Y+ PGP+(+++) t* 5-- X-- R tv b- DI
D+++ G e h! !r y
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Permalink | Reply | 2 comments |
headers
Alexander Hvostov | 1 Feb 2003 23:04
Picon

Re: survival skills for teenage geeks

On Thu, 2003-01-30 at 10:55, Jordan Bettis wrote:
> Alexander Hvostov said:
> > Actually, this is one of the best places to have such a discussion, due
> > to the unusually high intelligence density.
> 
> Are we on the same list?

You must be jaded. Severely.

Alex.

--

-- 
PGP Public Key: http://aoi.dyndns.org/~alex/pgp-public-key

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCS d- s:++ a18 C++(++++)>$ UL+++(++++) P--- L+++>++++ E---- W+(+++) N-
o-- K+ w--- !O M(+) V-- PS+++ PE-- Y+ PGP+(+++) t* 5-- X-- R tv b- DI
D+++ G e h! !r y
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Vikki Roemer | 2 Feb 2003 00:51

Re: Technology and historical continuity...

On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 02:00:38PM -0800, Alexander Hvostov wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-01-30 at 10:29, Jordan Bettis wrote:
> > Also, I don't think this is debian related.
> 
> cd your-ass;rm -f telephone-pole

LOL
You tell 'im!  *grin*

--

-- 
Vikki Roemer        Homepage: http://www.2khiway.net/users/vroemer
Registered Linux user #2880021   http://counter.li.org/
"Just because you're not paranoid, that doesn't mean they're not out
to get you." (ripped from someone's slashdot .sig)
PGP fingerprint: 0A3E 0AE4 CCD9 FF31 B4BB  C859 2DE1 B1D8 5CE0 1578
Keyserver: http://pgp.mit.edu/

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GAT d-(?) s: a--- C++++(++) UL++++ P+ L+++>++++ E W++ N+ o? 
K- w--() O? M? V?(-) PS+(+++) PE(++) Y+ PGP++ t+ <at>  5 X-() 
R*(?) tv-- b+++(++) DI+ D--(?) G e-(*)>+++++ h! r-- x?
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |

Gmane