What did you learn at the weekend?

[lollys mate]

Ere’s a good one.

I learnt this weekend that Belgium has the only completely lit motorway system in Europe.

Proud of that one.

Is lit wrong though?

[wit]

LM

If you picked that up off that Clarkson on Top Gear, you’ve been misled.

There are still  "missing links" in the motorway network, particularly motorway A8 near Ath and the E25/E40 link in Liège.

http://services-techniques.met.wallonie … _lighting/

<br>best regards

wit <br>

(Edited by wit at 11:43 pm on July 13, 2005)

[Artemis]

lm,

I carry around in my wallet an old cutting from a newspaper. The cutting contains the following quotation which could be an inspiration to anyone who had never felt your need to learn:

‘ The best thing for being sad…… is to learn something. This is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then – to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it.

This is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.’

Theodore H White (The Book of Beasts, Dover Publications,1984)

Such profound thoughts in these times, I think.

[wilsonl]

Quality

[Dungheap]

That grasshopper disagrees with the invasion of iraq. and the current price of milk is high because of it!:biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :cool: :o

[Kotkijet]

Would this count as learning something?

For as long as I can remember, everytime I’ve slept at someone elses house – I’ve always had a s**t
in their toilet.

I only actually noticed that a few minuites ago – when I was on the toilet – didn’t Pythagoras come up with his theory when he was sat on the toilet?

[lollys mate]

Artemis.

Yeah.  I like that.

<br> Wit.

Thanks for correcting me on that one.

BTW. How did you find that out?

[wit]

LM

earlier last weekend i’d seen an old Alastair McGowan show where he lampooned Clarkson by making various overblown statements, so when that one came up during his race to Oslo i thought in an idle moment to google it.

best regards

wit

[lollys mate]

Wit.

When you do this google thing, do you type into the little box thing, Does Belgium have a completely lit up motorway?

And if it answers, does it say "yeah, almost, but the bits that are missing are the A8 near Ath and the E25/E40 link in Liège.

I dont do Google. It winds me up.

Kind regards.

Lollys mate.<br>

[wit]

LM,

almost.

in the little box,  i just typed in some key words – Belgium motorway lighting – and scrolled down the first result , picking out any of those words (which it highlights in blue).   in this case it took about 10 seconds.

in other cases you can often filter the results by only looking at the more likely of the domain names.

or use a "search engine of search engines" like copernic agent  (http://www.copernic.com), the basic version of which is free.

there’s always rubbish thrown up in the results but with a bit of practice it can be worked around.    

and if i do get side-tracked, i just look on it as an opportunity to learn something that i wouldn’t have otherwise.    to me its a lot more fun than tv.

best regards

wit  

[lollys mate]

Nice one Wit.

Gimme a question, I is going to try it.

BTW. All Ive learnt so far this weekend is that an Adidas XXL t-shirt, is quoted as XXL in America.

Im as fat as a yank.:angry:

[wit]

LM

OK, how about  "why do we drive on the left-hand side of the road ?"

Or, "why does the tax year start on april 6 ? "

(with the second one, you can imagine that using key words could end up producing thousands of unhelpful hits from the Inland Revenue – so try asking the question within quote marks, which brings up only the exact phrase inside the quotes).

if you’re ever short of stuff to learn, two good sites are

http://www.newscientist.com  , then  the Last Word section

and  the US site

http://www.howstuffworks.com

best regards

wit  

[lollys mate]

In days of old logic dictated that when people passed each other on the road they should be in the best possible position to use their sword to protect themselves. As most people are right handed they therefore keep to their left. This practice was formalised in a Papal Edict by Pope Benefice around 1300AD who told all his pilgrims to keep to the left.

Nothing much changed until 1773 when an increase in horse traffic forced the UK Government to introduce the General Highways Act of 1773 which contained a keep left recommendation. This became a law as part of the Highways Bill in 1835.

Reasons to travel on the right are less clear but the generally accepted version of history is as follows: The French, being Catholics, followed Pope Boneface’s edict but in the build up to the French Revolution in 1790 the French Aristocracy drove their carriages at great speed on the left hand side of the road, forcing the peasantry over to the right side for their own safety. Come the Revolution, instincts of self preservation resulted in the remains of the Aristocracy joining the peasants on the right hand side of the road. The first official record of this was a keep right rule introduced in Paris in 1794

And the April 6th thingy;

I got lost.

I tried "start tax year april 6th" and other ways but got frustrated. :angry:

I will now try to "search" more, cos Davis has told me its his way of learning and spelling.

By the way, I learned something very good this weekend about the stars and planets, but have since forgotten it.

Watch this space.

[lollys mate]

Not working tonight Ian?

Three minutes was your reply.

That must be a record!

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