Chat & Social > The Bar - General Chat
useless fact
Bulli:
--- Quote from: "Drift" ---Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs. Left-handed knights would have had no troubles, except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil.
Ok Im left handed :( :lol: :lol: :lol:
--- End quote ---
Sinister is originally a Latin term for left or to the left, and is used in heraldry to refer to the left of the bearer of the arms, and to the right by the viewer's eyes. It is often used to mean evil.
Drift:
--- Quote from: "Bulli" ---
--- Quote from: "Drift" ---Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs. Left-handed knights would have had no troubles, except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil.
Ok Im left handed :( :lol: :lol: :lol:
--- End quote ---
Sinister is originally a Latin term for left or to the left, and is used in heraldry to refer to the left of the bearer of the arms, and to the right by the viewer's eyes. It is often used to mean evil.
--- End quote ---
Please dont tell my Mrs that :shock: :lol: :lol: :lol:
muddycarl:
--- Quote from: "Drift" ---
--- Quote from: "Bulli" ---
--- Quote from: "Drift" ---Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs. Left-handed knights would have had no troubles, except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil.
Ok Im left handed :( :lol: :lol: :lol:
--- End quote ---
Sinister is originally a Latin term for left or to the left, and is used in heraldry to refer to the left of the bearer of the arms, and to the right by the viewer's eyes. It is often used to mean evil.
--- End quote ---
Please dont tell my Mrs that :shock: :lol: :lol: :lol:
--- End quote ---
thought your mrs knew that :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Drift:
--- Quote from: "muddycarl" ---
--- Quote from: "Drift" ---
--- Quote from: "Bulli" ---
--- Quote from: "Drift" ---Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs. Left-handed knights would have had no troubles, except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil.
Ok Im left handed :( :lol: :lol: :lol:
--- End quote ---
Sinister is originally a Latin term for left or to the left, and is used in heraldry to refer to the left of the bearer of the arms, and to the right by the viewer's eyes. It is often used to mean evil.
--- End quote ---
Please dont tell my Mrs that :shock: :lol: :lol: :lol:
--- End quote ---
thought your mrs knew that :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
--- End quote ---
No she only thinks it, and I dont want it confirmed :shock: :lol: :lol:
DEANO3528:
'The Devil's Advocate Rides Out"
You are all falling into the trap of actually trying to justify your choice of vehicle to this 'Silvery Thing'.
Just like the anti 4x4 brigade, it's not his business what you choose to drive, and rising to the bait as you all seem to have done isn't helping your cause.
Talking of the Prius, no one will win me over to that environmental killer - prat or not - it has destroyed the landscape both in Canada and around the works in Wales. One of our members worked on the battery engineering in Wales and told me personally how the area around some material within the Prius had shrivelled and died.
Now I went looking for the original link and it has strangely been replaced by an apology that the article had been misinterpreted!
Hope The Mail had a good xmas party on the proceeds of that retraction.
Shame that, except I still have the original on file...
Toyota factory turns landscape to arid wilderness
By MARTIN DELGADO, Mail on Sunday - Last updated 18th November 2006
The 'green-living' Toyota Prius has become the ultimate statement for those seeking to stress their commitment to the environment.
However, the environment-saving credentials of the cars are seriously undermined by the disclosure that one of the car's essential components is produced at a factory that has created devastation likened to the arid environment of the moon.
So many plants and trees around the factory at Sudbury in Ontario, Canada, have died that astronauts from Nasa practised driving moon buggies on the outskirts of the city because it was considered the closest thing on earth to the rocky lunar landscape.
Unlike normal cars, hybrids such as the Prius, whose proud owners include Gwyneth Paltrow, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and ex-Tory leader Michael Howard, are powered by a battery that contains nickel - as well as a traditional petrol engine.
Toyota gets the metal from a Canadian company whose smelting facility at Sudbury has spewed sulphur dioxide into the air for more than a century.
The car giant buys about 1,000 tons a year from the plant, which is owned by Inco, one of the world's largest nickel-mining companies.
Fumes emerging from the factory are so poisonous that they have destroyed vegetation in the surrounding countryside, turning the once-beautiful landscape into the bare, rocky terrain astronauts might expect to find in outer space.
Although efforts have been made in recent years to reduce emissions from the plant's 1,250ft chimney - dubbed the Superstack - campaigners say the factory is still responsible for some of the worst pollution in North America.
David Martin, energy co-ordinator of Greenpeace Canada, said: "The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside.
"The solution they came up with was the Superstack. The idea was to dilute the pollution, but all it did was spread the fallout right across northern Ontario. Things improved in the Nineties but the plant is still responsible for large-scale emissions of sulphur dioxide.
"Sudbury remains a major environmental and health problem. The environmental cost of producing that car battery is pretty high."
Once the nickel is smelted it is sent 10,000 miles on a container ship journey which in itself consumes vast quantities of fuel and energy.
First it is shipped to Europe's biggest nickel refinery at Clydach near Swansea, South Wales. From there it is transported to the Chinese cities of Dalian and Shenyang to be turned into a lightweight substance called nickel foam.
The final stage of the manufacturing process takes place in Japan where the Prius batteries are made.
Toyota produced nearly 180,000 Prius cars last year, some 4,000 of which were sold in Britain. Last week 14 MPs from all parties claimed they had exchanged their petrol-guzzling vehicles for a Prius or similar hybrid.
But some experts doubt whether the Prius even wins the argument over fuel consumption.
Robert Fowler, of the Battery Vehicle Association, said: "It is questionable whether it does any more miles to the gallon than a good diesel.
"The hybrid system has a very small battery so most of the time it's operating as a petrol car, particularly out of town and above 30mph."
A Toyota spokesman said last night: "I cannot confirm the source of the nickel used in the Prius battery. It is true there is a slight increase in the energy required to produce the materials for the car."
An engineer wrote:
I designed the machinery that made the Prius batteries possible, taking the raw reticulated foam through the coating process, the furnace lines and the slitting and editing machines.
I don't have time to write about how horrible the process is but, down in Wales where the plant is, they have a large rock from which the nickel ore is extracted, sitting in pride of place on the lawn outside their offices. The rain has dissolved the nickel and it, along with sundry other elements, has killed all the grass in a twenty metre radius.
The prius batteries use a nickel matrix, which is made by depositing pure nickel on to a polyurethane foam, this proccess involves converting the nickel to a gas form known as carbonyl, which is has the strange characteristic of condensing on to things warmer than itself.
which means that if you were to breathe in the carbonyl gas, it would coat the inside of your lungs in pure nickel.
Consider the possibilities of a gas leak!
Unlike others, I leave the choice of vehicle one drives, to the person driving it.
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