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There has just been some economic 'good news' released that inflation has fallen to 2.3%. If there is a risk of bad news later, it's best to go after some good news. For example the infected blood scandal has just been somewhat dealt with by a mea cupla and announcment of large interim compensation payments, and the Rwanda migrant scheme is technically operating.

There was also concern from Conservative activists about campaigning in cold and wet November weather - these people are mostly retired.


Yes and no. I used to have a regional accent that was a soft mix of Lancashire and Yorkshire accents. I now work in south Worcestershire, and the local accent is pretty much modern RP. In adulthood, I softened my accent further towards RP to such an extent that people think I’m local.

What you are probably referring to is the ‘educated European twang’ that often remains when people are targeting the RP accent from 50 years ago.


My parents' Casio calculator is 40 years old, and still on its original battery. It does not have solar power.

It is still used weekly or so!


Fair point about the gums. But my Huel Unflavoured and Unsweetened powder does not have any artificial sweetener in it. It’s not very palatable on its own, but half a banana and a little peanut butter and it’s great.

I don’t pretend huel is perfect, but it’s definitely a meal. I feel good after eating it. Also, I alway have time at work to eat it, even if it’s only 7 minutes (which is quite often), and time to make it in the morning.

For me, huel is definitely better than the meals it replaced, and the other things that I could make/consume with the time and budget available.


Very true. Though he must have personally known Slobodan Milošević, who died after 6 years of UN detention.


My favourite fact about it comes from https://phys.org/news/2016-02-plasma-physicist-discusses-wen...

“…the supporting structure can only withstand the forces if the interfaces between the ten individual segments of the central rings, which weighs several tonnes, are built with a level of precision of less than 100 millionths of a metre…” - and they found a small family business in the north of Italy capable of doing this!


Odd units.

1 meter = 100 cm = 1000mm.

So 1 millionth of a meter = 1/1000th of 1mm.

thus, 100 millionths of a meter = 0.1mm, or ~4 thou in American units. Easily achievable by hobbyists, let alone by serious, professional equipment.

Sure, that is a pretty exacting specification for what I suppose is a big machine, but I'm pretty sure very normal things like say, car engines get made to far tighter tolerances.


millionths of a meter are known as micron so most people would call this '100 micron' (or '100 micrometers') which is indeed close to 4 thou, as you calculated, and is the level of accuracy of my ~$500 3d printer.

1 thou was achievable in routine shops in the 1940s and a tenth of a thou (2.54 micron) is a common accuracy to target these days. Obviously it depends on the context and the size of the object, at some point you move away from cutting to using grinding and lapping to achieve your results, which is ultra-timeconsuming.


What usually matters more than absolute tolerances is relative tolerance, aka ppm. 100 micron / 4 thou tolerance can be achieved with hand tools and a bit of patience on the benchtop scale, say a 4" part. That's about 1000 ppm, or 0.1%. If I gave you a meter stick, you could probably eyeball marking something +/- 1mm.

Getting the same finish on a 120"/3m coil is 33 ppm. 100 ppm / 0.01% for any operation or process tends to be where things start to get really challenging. Deflection goes up by the length cubed, so increasing the size of all the tooling relative to the tolerance gets really challenging really fast.


You messed up at your last step 1 millionth = 1mm, 10 millionth = 0.1mm, 100 millionth = 0.01mm

0.01mm is very difficult when you’re talking large custom objects with complex shapes.


I think the original commenter is right- correct me if I missed what you’re getting at.

Keeping it all in the same units until the end here:

1 millionth of 1 meter = (1 / 1,000,000)m = (1e-6m)

1 millionth * 100 = 100 millionths => (1e-6m) * 100 = (1e-4m) = 100 millionths

(1e-4m) = .0001m | 1m = 1000mm => .0001m*1000 = .1mm


Ops, 100 ( 1 millionths of a meter) is a much more reasonable tolerance here than 1 / (100 millionth) of a meter.

I am to used to people saying 100 millionth of a meter to mean 10 nm or 0.01 µm which would have looked insane if I had written that.

Aka 100 millionth vs 100 millionths


Oh, English fail on my part then. I had assumed that 100 millionths of a metre == 100 * 1/1000000.


The german site of the source speaks of 0.1mm so you were correct

   > bei Toleranzen von teilweise nur 0,1 Millimeter
https://www.ipp.mpg.de/de/aktuelles/presse/pi/2020/01_20


No your correct, I just read it wrong. Really needed to pay attention to the s.


It may be worse than that if this Sony patent is any guide... https://www.techradar.com/news/sony-patent-would-have-you-ye...


I think there is a distinction between a charitable donation pop-up that forces the user to round up, donate, or actively select 'no donation' is a dark pattern.

Whereas having the option to select a charitable donation, or passively ignore it, as a part of the normal checking out is fine.


Yeah, if these donations where accessible via a different menu (ie: you have cafes, cake, juices, donations) then I'd be fine with it. I'd go to the donation individually if I want to.

The problem is when you put the donation at checkout to "improve" conversion.


To those who don't know, Juicero's juice pressing machines were notoriously complex and expensive due to extensive use of custom components. https://blog.bolt.io/juicero/


I played Doom, Doom 2 and Final Doom all the way through about 20 years ago - I can’t recall a single instance of this kind of level design. Doors stayed open once opened. Maybe it was done with corners/sight lines instead? To be honest I remember some vast areas rendered, especially when accessing secrets.


Doors definitely auto-closed behind you.


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