Today I Learnt...

Or indeed simply how improbable.

Chicago has near the loop, presidents last names for certain directions (I believe also telling that you're south of the river). Numbered streets indicate that you're on the south side or I like to refer as "served by the CTA's Red Line." or Sox fans referring to the baseball team.

TIL:

Wiki Page on Chicago Roads and Expressway said:
While all north-south streets within city limits are named, rather than numbered, smaller streets in some areas are named in groups all starting with the same letter; thus, when traveling westward on a Chicago street, starting just past Pulaski Road (4000 W), one will cross a mile-long stretch of streets which have names starting with the letter K (From east to west: Keystone (North Side)/Komensky (South Side), Karlov, Kedvale, Keeler, Kildare, Kolin, Kostner, Kenneth, Kilbourn, Kolmar, Kenton, Knox, Kilpatrick, Keating), giving rise to the expression "K-town." These streets are found approximately in the 11th mile west of the Indiana state line, and so begin with the 11th letter of the alphabet. A mile later, just past Cicero (4800 W), the starting letter changes to L, and mile by mile the letters progress up to P. Additionally, for most of the first mile west of the Illinois/Indiana state line, streets are lettered from Avenue A at the state line (4100 E) to Avenue O (3430 E), forming the A group. The areas that might otherwise be the B through J groups are the older parts of the city where street names were already well established before this system was developed (although some small groups of streets seem to have been given names intended to conform to the system), and the Q group (8800 to 9600 W) would fall west of the city, as the only land in Chicago west of 8800 West is O'Hare International Airport, undeveloped forest preserve, and a small strip of land connecting O'Hare to the rest of the city and containing only Foster Avenue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roads_and_expressways_in_Chicago
 
TIL that spending some ?300 on a rollaboard suitcase was one of my better investments. I used it for four and a half years or so, treated it well but not gingerly and did a little bit of "maintenance" (i.e. some light cleaning and greasing) every now and then. Luckily, I live near the headquarters and factory service centre of the company that made it and so I was able to get a destroyed lock and four worn wheels replaced for free.

Today, I went there because a handle had broken and two zippers weren't working properly. The man took his looks and after that, I remembered some cracks in the plastic shell. "Oh... that's really bad." was his comment. A little while and a signature of mine later, I left the place with a free new suitcase that had nothing but some slight cosmetic damage. :blink: So there are some people in this country who know how customer service works!
 
Positivity Thread is thataway ------> Just roll on in there with your bags, sir!
 
TIL that spending some ?300 on a rollaboard suitcase was one of my better investments. I used it for four and a half years or so, treated it well but not gingerly and did a little bit of "maintenance" (i.e. some light cleaning and greasing) every now and then. Luckily, I live near the headquarters and factory service centre of the company that made it and so I was able to get a destroyed lock and four worn wheels replaced for free.

Today, I went there because a handle had broken and two zippers weren't working properly. The man took his looks and after that, I remembered some cracks in the plastic shell. "Oh... that's really bad." was his comment. A little while and a signature of mine later, I left the place with a free new suitcase that had nothing but some slight cosmetic damage. :blink: So there are some people in this country who know how customer service works!

That sounds like the Pelican case company. Which reminds me, I need to get the wheels replaced on one of our flight cases for a combustion analyzer. Sounds like I'm dragging sand paper.
 
TIL what Okamoto, the company whose famous OK hand logo..

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...graced so many Japanese race cars back in the day...

RSIB9h3.jpg

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...actually makes. (It's not speed parts, like I assumed.)

 
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TIL that the girl who played Bruce Willis' foul-mouthed, retainer-wearing daughter in The Last Boy Scout er....... blossomed.

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:wub:
 
Today I learned, you can change the shipping address on an amazon order if it hasn't shipped yet. I used to just cancel and reorder.
 

That inspired me to look up the Californian regulations in question, and I found an interesting twist (emphasis mine):

California Air Resources Board Initial Statement of Reasons for Proposed Amendments to the Portable Fuel Container Regulations said:
To address these issues, ARB staff is proposing to eliminate the current automatic shutoff feature and the fill height and flow rate standards. This will provide manufacturers with greater design flexibility to produce PFCs that are easier to use and more compatible with many types of vehicles and off-road equipment. The automatic closure feature will remain in effect as it has been shown to effectively reduce emissions from evaporation. ARB staff is proposing to remove the fill height and flow rate standards from the regulations 30 days after the date of filing these amendments with the Secretary of State. ARB staff is also proposing to eliminate the automatic shutoff requirement for newly certified PFCs, to take effect by July 1, 2007. Manufacturers are expected to certify new designs by July 1, 2007.

Turns out the reason they got so slow after 2007 was because a regulation was removed (the flow rate requirement). The "issues" they mention were the fact that the original regulations did nothing to prevent spills, as the person in the article noticed, so they got rid of the automatic shutoff, but it's anyone's guess why they also got rid of the flow requirement. The difficult to use part is probably due to the automatic closure feature they kept, though.
 
Hmmm. The last gas can I bought still has automatic shutoff, which makes it a PITA to use.
 
Maybe they added that regulation back in, then. I don't feel like going through everything since 2005. :lol:
 
We need our resident expert on regulations and California-bashing. :p

Spectre, please pick the white courtesy phone...
 
CARB started it, the EPA just made it nationwide. Yes, they made gas cans worse and damn near unusable. In fact, the ones made after 2007 ended up being actually even worse than the ones before.
 
Yeah. However, those kits have two problems.

1. If you should (illegally) fit those to a 'emissions control' can, you still have the problem that such cans don't have a vent and will pour badly.

2. The EPA got wise and forced some can makers (after Blitz - pretty much the major maker of gas cans and such at the time - got idiot-lawsuited out of business by some fuckwits who supposedly didn't understand that gasoline is flammable, with the assistance and encouragement of the EPA) to change the thread and size of the fittings on their gas cans so they won't work.
 
Yeah. However, those kits have two problems.

1. If you should (illegally) fit those to a 'emissions control' can, you still have the problem that such cans don't have a vent and will pour badly.

2. The EPA got wise and forced some can makers (after Blitz - pretty much the major maker of gas cans and such at the time - got idiot-lawsuited out of business by some fuckwits who supposedly didn't understand that gasoline is flammable, with the assistance and encouragement of the EPA) to change the thread and size of the fittings on their gas cans so they won't work.

1. Poke a hole in the back. All of our cans have that mod.

2. Blitz was just a hop, skip and jump from me in Miami, Oklahoma. They regrouped under another name that I have now forgotten.

3. Fuck all that and buy these. Because race car.
 
Goodness, what a perfect piece of petulant whining.
Vehemently disagree, this is EXACTLY the kind of stupidity big governements with to much time on their hands get up to, this sort of petty people pestering out of a sheer cluelessness and a desire for advanced rule monkeying needs to be rooted out core and all.

I realise some will think writing an article about it online to complain is petty and not worth the effort, but this is very much a death of a thousand cuts scenario.....give them this, and at some point you will be asking permission to go take a shit.
 
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