The Off Topic Topic

[Sheilbh]

So I left the bin timetable thing when it had about 400 people. It's still going! 500 people now but I think it peaked at 1,200

Edit: They're now onto the impact of local authority mergers

Edit: At one point it had Amber from Love Island listening, and whoever's running the Eurovision Twitter account. Plus the Lib Dems.

[Savonarola]

I thought this was cool:

Hubble captures an 'Einstein Ring'

By Tom Metcalfe
A new photograph from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a stunning "Einstein Ring" billions of light-years from Earth — a phenomenon named after Albert Einstein, who predicted that gravity could bend light.

The round object at the center of the photograph released by the European Space Agency is actually three galaxies that appear as seven, with four separate images of the most distant galaxies forming a visible ring around the others.

The farthest galaxy — a special type of very bright galaxy with a gigantic black hole at its center, known as a quasar — is about 15 billion light-years from Earth.

At such a great distance, it should be invisible to even the best space telescopes, but its light is curved by the two galaxies in front, about 3 billion light-years away, so its image appears to us in five separate places: four times in the ring and once at the center of the ring, although that can be detected only in the telescope's numerical data.

[Sheilbh]

Guardian story of weird/disastrous camping trips during the pandemic - and I cannot think of anything I want to do less than this:

Hannah Mitchell, cliff camping. Photograph: Hannah Mitchell/Guardian Community
'We lay on a portable ledge above the crashing waves'

Cliff camping seemed like a great idea during the pandemic, when we were craving adventure. After a couple of hours spotting seals, abseiling and rock climbing with our very patient guide, we abseiled down to our bed for the night, and spent the next seven hours lying on a portable ledge above the crashing waves. I spent the night going from laughter to fear. There were some moments of calm however, and we even spotted a few shooting stars. It was the most unique place I've ever slept, and not a night I will ever forget.
Hannah Mitchell, charity worker, West Midlands

I love camping - but absolutely not

[Sheilbh]

I must be innured to mad London prices, but I think £800k is reasonable for this pleasant 2 bed central London flat, in an art deco building, with a massive bunker
https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/59557159/

Edit: Looks like that building was a Metropolitan Water Board laboratory for "monitoring biological, bacteriological, chemical and chlorination aspects of London's water" - which somehow makes the bunker cooler
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol47/pp165-184

Edit: Also - little bit of outside space in that garden to bunker entrance.

[garbon]

I must be innured to mad London prices, but I think £800k is reasonable for this pleasant 2 bed central London flat, in an art deco building, with a massive bunker
https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/59557159/

Same

[Sheilbh]

Modern Britain - the Marble Arch Mound is a surprise hit as visitors are turning up to see just how bad it is for themselves
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/23/not-pretty-marble-arch-mound-draws-crowds-keen-to-see-how-bad-it-is

Not going to lie - I'm quite tempted to go

[Josquius]

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/working-from-home-emoplyment-salary-b1906028.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB



Anyone ever ran into these multiple jobbers?
I can see it working if one was part time but stacking two full timers....


And yes. 800k for that flat is mad.
My current "Someday...well, if I stayed around here. Currently over priced a fair bit." dream is much nicer. The potential is large.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/82159045#/?channel=RES_BUY

[Sheilbh]

I think £800k is reasonable - it is very central too. But mainly because I think this is the ideal floorplan for a flat:

[Duque de Bragança]

In metric as well, nice! 

[grumbler]

I think £800k is reasonable - it is very central too. But mainly because I think this is the ideal floorplan for a flat:

Please never go into architecture! 

That is, perhaps, the best they could polish this turd, but it is certainly not ideal to have such a narrow second bedroom, nor to combine all of the actual living and working space into a single 11' x 19' room.

That bathroom is going to be mold city without an exterior window, as well.

[Sheilbh]

Everything's always both

Except for roads I don't think purely imperial measurements have been a thing for 40 years. I've mentioned before but it is weird because I don't know about younger generations but my head is very much split between the two (small weight like for cooking, or measuring small distances = metric; large weight like people or long distances = imperial) I don't know why

[Sheilbh]

Please never go into architecture! 

That is, perhaps, the best they could polish this turd, but it is certainly not ideal to have such a narrow second bedroom, nor to combine all of the actual living and working space into a single 11' x 19' room.

That bathroom is going to be mold city without an exterior window, as well.

Almost all of that is just standard in a London flat

The bathroom will have an extractor fan.

I also think those are very much not the most important features in that floor plan

[DGuller]

I never had windows in the bathroom. Neither did any of my neighbors. 

[Duque de Bragança]

Everything's always both

Except for roads I don't think purely imperial measurements have been a thing for 40 years. I've mentioned before but it is weird because I don't know about younger generations but my head is very much split between the two (small weight like for cooking, or measuring small distances = metric; large weight like people or long distances = imperial) I don't know why

Arbitrary division between vaguely defined "small" and "large" still does not make sense but it's WAD for the UK I guess.
I hear bad things about metric use In Ireland, despite no longer being a British colony (in theory?) with people still speaking in "stones".  Still in the British Isles, OTOH...

[The Brain]

I enjoy my bathroom with a window, mostly for the natural light, but bathrooms without windows are extremely common in Sweden.