51–60 of 79 posts
My Italian grandparents operated a fish, chips and ice cream joint in Falkirk called the York Cafe. It has nothing to do with the article but this is the first time I can remember Falkirk being discussed on HN!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>easy half-day trip out of Edinburgh Another way to think about it is to stop somewhere outside of Edinburgh. Edinburgh is an easy half-day trip away. Walk 200 yards of the Royal Mile from the castle. It just repeats with the same kind of tourist shops for the rest of it. Now get back in your car and go and see some of Scotland!
But don't do the thing that American tourists do where they say "Oh we're staying in Edinburgh and on Wednesday we're going to drive up to Skye to see Dun-vay-gin Castle because it's our ancestral seat because we're totally MacLeods you know" You won't be able to drive from Edinburgh to even Kyle and back in a day, never mind up to Dunvegan. You just won't. I could drive you from Edinburgh to Dunvegan and back in a d…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>easy half-day trip out of Edinburgh Another way to think about it is to stop somewhere outside of Edinburgh. Edinburgh is an easy half-day trip away. Walk 200 yards of the Royal Mile from the castle. It just repeats with the same kind of tourist shops for the rest of it. Now get back in your car and go and see some of Scotland!
But don't do the thing that American tourists do where they say "Oh we're staying in Edinburgh and on Wednesday we're going to drive up to Skye to see Dun-vay-gin Castle because it's our ancestral seat because we're totally MacLeods you know" You won't be able to drive from Edinburgh to even Kyle and back in a day, never mind up to Dunvegan. You just won't. I could drive you from Edinburgh to Dunvegan and back in a d…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But don't do the thing that American tourists do where they say "Oh we're staying in Edinburgh and on Wednesday we're going to drive up to Skye to see Dun-vay-gin Castle because it's our ancestral seat because we're totally MacLeods you know" You won't be able to drive from Edinburgh to even Kyle and back in a day, never mind up to Dunvegan. You just won't. I could drive you from Edinburgh to Dunvegan and back in a d…
Apple says Edinburgh to Skye is a 3.5 hour drive, mostly along the A9. My understanding is A roads in the UK are much like USA interstates. What makes the trip terrifying and slower than what Apple says?
Not in Scotland, some of them aren't dualled (just a single carriageway in each direction), narrow, windey, full of terrible potholes and animals you can hit etc... its a 5-6 hour drive in reality
source: Live in Edinburgh
Newspaper-style units, but laughter aside, I tried to do the math.
If a kettle is rated at 2.5kW, then five minutes of usage (to boil a kettle, or for eight of them do a turn of the bridge) is 2.5kWh * (5/60) * 8 = 1.6kW.
My Nissan Leaf stores about 24kWh. So it's about 7% of a Leaf's battery to turn the wheel, or 10km of range. Given mass, perhaps it is finely balanced, and that seems more reasonable than I expected.
I am not an electricity expert and will get things mixed up ;)
The Falkirk Wheel is cool and a fun trip, along with the nearby Kelpies, which were much more striking in person than I'd anticipated. The wheel is a one-of-a-kind, but there are other ways of avoiding having a ladder of flood locks, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boat_lift I really liked this one in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterborough_Lift_Lock Built as a real working lift l…
Its design is TERRIFYING.
The boat is floated into a tube that get sealed at both ends and then (in the dark..) that tube is winched down into a completely flooded chamber until it (hopefully) lines up with the egress port at the bottom. The tube with the boat in is unsealed and the boat floats out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But don't do the thing that American tourists do where they say "Oh we're staying in Edinburgh and on Wednesday we're going to drive up to Skye to see Dun-vay-gin Castle because it's our ancestral seat because we're totally MacLeods you know" You won't be able to drive from Edinburgh to even Kyle and back in a day, never mind up to Dunvegan. You just won't. I could drive you from Edinburgh to Dunvegan and back in a d…
Apple says Edinburgh to Skye is a 3.5 hour drive, mostly along the A9. My understanding is A roads in the UK are much like USA interstates. What makes the trip terrifying and slower than what Apple says?
The US interstate is probably more comparable with UK motorways.
> and the same power it would take to boil eight kettles. Newspaper-style units, but laughter aside, I tried to do the math. If a kettle is rated at 2.5kW, then five minutes of usage (to boil a kettle, or for eight of them do a turn of the bridge) is 2.5kWh * (5/60) * 8 = 1.6kW. My Nissan Leaf stores about 24kWh. So it's about 7% of a Leaf's battery to turn the wheel, or 10km of range. Given mass, perhaps it is finel…
Not only is it balanced, because the boats displace water when they enter, if one side has a boat and the other doesn't, it still balances.
Practical Engineering YouTube did a video "the hidden engineering behind the Falkirk wheel" two months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq6ZOVbKQhY
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>easy half-day trip out of Edinburgh Another way to think about it is to stop somewhere outside of Edinburgh. Edinburgh is an easy half-day trip away. Walk 200 yards of the Royal Mile from the castle. It just repeats with the same kind of tourist shops for the rest of it. Now get back in your car and go and see some of Scotland!
But don't do the thing that American tourists do where they say "Oh we're staying in Edinburgh and on Wednesday we're going to drive up to Skye to see Dun-vay-gin Castle because it's our ancestral seat because we're totally MacLeods you know" You won't be able to drive from Edinburgh to even Kyle and back in a day, never mind up to Dunvegan. You just won't. I could drive you from Edinburgh to Dunvegan and back in a d…
Could've been ragebait, to be fair - they weren't interested when people pointed out that things like weather, hours of daylight, travel time were all going to be against them (or even that the Lake District is a pretty tourist-friendly place to start with).