Good morning Mastodon!
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I cycled here and am stupidly early because I was (justifiably as it turns out) worried about bike parking, so you're just going to have to entertain me till 9:45, sorry folks. The back of the building is actually much more interesting than the front, I spotted it from a distance not just by the chimney but the flock of swifts swooping overhead, presumably catching flies drawn to the rubbish.
I ended up parking my bike in the covered racks at the newly built (2023 it turns out, but it still feels new to me) Marsh Barton station and walking back. See we can invest in infrastructure if we try!
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I ended up parking my bike in the covered racks at the newly built (2023 it turns out, but it still feels new to me) Marsh Barton station and walking back. See we can invest in infrastructure if we try!
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I ended up parking my bike in the covered racks at the newly built (2023 it turns out, but it still feels new to me) Marsh Barton station and walking back. See we can invest in infrastructure if we try!
@afewbugs not enough people colour coordinate their pedals to their basket flowers. Keep up the good work
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Good morning Mastodon! Remember when you were in primary school and went on school trips to places teachers though were important or free, and retained nothing from them except for who was sick on whom on the way there? Now you're older and nerdier did you ever think "Actually it might be really interesting to visit a major piece of civic infrastructure and learn how it works?" Just me? Well I was in luck today because the University sustainability team has organised a tour of #Exeter Energy Recovery Facility in #MarshBarton, where all our non-recyclable rubbish ends up.
https://www.viridor.co.uk/energy/energy-recovery-facilities/exeter-erf/
@afewbugs Ooo, I'd really like to do that! I used to co-lead a Stage 1 environmental science field week to Bristol and we arranged to visit all sorts of similar places.
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I ended up parking my bike in the covered racks at the newly built (2023 it turns out, but it still feels new to me) Marsh Barton station and walking back. See we can invest in infrastructure if we try!
They have now put me in a room with coffee to await the rest of the tour group and instructed me not to touch anything, so I'm back on Mastodon to distract me from the irresistible urge to touch everything
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Good morning Mastodon! Remember when you were in primary school and went on school trips to places teachers though were important or free, and retained nothing from them except for who was sick on whom on the way there? Now you're older and nerdier did you ever think "Actually it might be really interesting to visit a major piece of civic infrastructure and learn how it works?" Just me? Well I was in luck today because the University sustainability team has organised a tour of #Exeter Energy Recovery Facility in #MarshBarton, where all our non-recyclable rubbish ends up.
https://www.viridor.co.uk/energy/energy-recovery-facilities/exeter-erf/
@afewbugs
That sounds more interesting than some of the places school took us to.Although I'll never forget science club and going to play with radioactive materials. Even though we were told not to, some of us did get alpha, beta, and gamma rays pointed at each other.
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@afewbugs Actually the only one I remember was to a chemical plant in Avonmouth, to see amongst other things some Haber process pressure vessels.
One of which blew up and killed someone a few years later.
@TimWardCam @afewbugs possibly Terra Nitrogen. We went there (see other post) a number of times and standing next to the Haber reactors will stay with me...
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They have now put me in a room with coffee to await the rest of the tour group and instructed me not to touch anything, so I'm back on Mastodon to distract me from the irresistible urge to touch everything
@afewbugs
Sounds like you are going to have a more interesting day than I am.
Following.... -
@TimWardCam @afewbugs possibly Terra Nitrogen. We went there (see other post) a number of times and standing next to the Haber reactors will stay with me...
@morgrugyn @afewbugs Yes, it felt dodgy at the time.
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They have now put me in a room with coffee to await the rest of the tour group and instructed me not to touch anything, so I'm back on Mastodon to distract me from the irresistible urge to touch everything
@afewbugs Can you post photos of the things you're not allowed to touch?
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They have now put me in a room with coffee to await the rest of the tour group and instructed me not to touch anything, so I'm back on Mastodon to distract me from the irresistible urge to touch everything
@afewbugs You have touched your phone. I'm sorry
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@morgrugyn @afewbugs Yes, it felt dodgy at the time.
@TimWardCam @afewbugs I'm not sure I felt it as dodgy, the rhythmic pulsing and radiating warmth from the towers was both powerful and a bit scary... maybe that is dodgy! The huge warehouse with thousands of dumpy bags full of ammonium nitrate was something else as well. Disclaimer... I am a chemist.
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I ended up parking my bike in the covered racks at the newly built (2023 it turns out, but it still feels new to me) Marsh Barton station and walking back. See we can invest in infrastructure if we try!
@afewbugs you're clearly very dedicated to bike riding, given that closeness of the rail station.
It's not very nice weather today down here in Devon for cycling, albeit the rain is quite light.
A regularly cycle past Marsh Barton, and expect to do so at the weekend, but I'm very much a fair weather cyclist. -
Good morning Mastodon! Remember when you were in primary school and went on school trips to places teachers though were important or free, and retained nothing from them except for who was sick on whom on the way there? Now you're older and nerdier did you ever think "Actually it might be really interesting to visit a major piece of civic infrastructure and learn how it works?" Just me? Well I was in luck today because the University sustainability team has organised a tour of #Exeter Energy Recovery Facility in #MarshBarton, where all our non-recyclable rubbish ends up.
https://www.viridor.co.uk/energy/energy-recovery-facilities/exeter-erf/
@afewbugs
I can highly recommend a visit to the Diamond Light Source synchrotron (a cyclic particle accelerator).It's free but tickets are by ballot.
https://www.diamond.ac.uk/Public/Public.html -
J jwcph@helvede.net shared this topic
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@TimWardCam @afewbugs I'm not sure I felt it as dodgy, the rhythmic pulsing and radiating warmth from the towers was both powerful and a bit scary... maybe that is dodgy! The huge warehouse with thousands of dumpy bags full of ammonium nitrate was something else as well. Disclaimer... I am a chemist.
@morgrugyn @afewbugs I wasn't much of a chemist. I only just scraped through one of the mock A level papers, but I was lucky with the questions in the real exam and got an A.
Then came school prizegiving. "We want to give you the chemistry prize," they said, "although we know perfectly well you're not the best chemist - so and so is - but we want to give him the maths prize, despite you being best at maths, because [something to do with the values of the individual prizes being different and who they though should end up with the largest total value of prizes, I don't remember the details]. Is this OK with you?"
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@morgrugyn @afewbugs I wasn't much of a chemist. I only just scraped through one of the mock A level papers, but I was lucky with the questions in the real exam and got an A.
Then came school prizegiving. "We want to give you the chemistry prize," they said, "although we know perfectly well you're not the best chemist - so and so is - but we want to give him the maths prize, despite you being best at maths, because [something to do with the values of the individual prizes being different and who they though should end up with the largest total value of prizes, I don't remember the details]. Is this OK with you?"
@TimWardCam @afewbugs absolutely... all seems logical to me!
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@morgrugyn @afewbugs I wasn't much of a chemist. I only just scraped through one of the mock A level papers, but I was lucky with the questions in the real exam and got an A.
Then came school prizegiving. "We want to give you the chemistry prize," they said, "although we know perfectly well you're not the best chemist - so and so is - but we want to give him the maths prize, despite you being best at maths, because [something to do with the values of the individual prizes being different and who they though should end up with the largest total value of prizes, I don't remember the details]. Is this OK with you?"
@morgrugyn @afewbugs The other "lucky with the questions" I got was in my finals, in the numerical analysis paper (which was compulsory, otherwise pretty well nobody would have chosen that course). They asked questions that I'd happened to have revised the week before the exam - who knows whether I'd have got the first otherwise.
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@TimWardCam @afewbugs absolutely... all seems logical to me!
@morgrugyn @afewbugs It was something like: they had to give me the physics prize as well, but the single largest one was the maths one, and they reckoned it was fair to give that to the other boy, who was best at chemistry. I did not, of course, have a problem with this.
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@afewbugs Actually the only one I remember was to a chemical plant in Avonmouth, to see amongst other things some Haber process pressure vessels.
One of which blew up and killed someone a few years later.
High temperature hydrogen attack of the steel tanks?
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They have now put me in a room with coffee to await the rest of the tour group and instructed me not to touch anything, so I'm back on Mastodon to distract me from the irresistible urge to touch everything
@afewbugs wait, are you allowed to touch the COFFEE? I hope the answer is yes...
