So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Inkstainedwretch]

The American use of the term 'un' has become common place here. When fuel, as in petrol (gas) became know as unleaded, it grated on the ear of older people simply because if the additive in the fuel is left out, how can you unlead something that wasn't there in the first place. Alas, unleaded is now an everyday common place word.
In retaliation, I always ask for petrol when I'm in one of those, pay before you buy, gas stations in America. Nobody has ever said "What?" Drat.

I feel the same way about the word "debrief." I first heard it used after the early manned space flights. On return, the news said that the astronauts were being "debriefed." Young though I was, this struck me as senseless. Like, did NASA give them a briefing before the mission and then they took the briefing back? I remember that David Brinkley was bemused by the term as well.

 

[ChrisB]

On return, the news said that the astronauts were being "debriefed."

Perhaps they were changing their underwear.

 

[Stearmen]

You can't have a credit rating if you have no credit to rate.

I still have several cards. Hard to live in the 21st century without them.

 

[Stearmen]

Leaded gasoline has been illegal for consumer use in the US since 1996, and for use in newly-built cars since 1975. So if one wanted be semantically correct, "unleaded gasoline" should simply be "gasoline," since it's been the default for decades, and "leaded gasoline" the exception.

I imagine there's a kid somewhere driving a pre-1996 beater with an "UNLEADED FUEL ONLY" sticker on it, and is puzzling over what other kind there is.

Not completely true. While it is true, you can not just pull up and fill your new car with leaded fuel, you can still purchase race fuel with lead, from 87 octane to as much as 115/145 in jerrycans or drums. There is also 100LL, or low lead for airplanes.

 

[Stearmen]

I forgot to mention, I got the roof done yesterday, after wasting another whole day, he knocked of $80.00 for my troubles. It rained heavily from the time his helper was finishing up, until early this morning, good test, no leaks. So trying to make a little lemonade out of the situation.

 

[GHT]

I still have several cards. Hard to live in the 21st century without them.

It is if you buy online, but although I retain one card, it's called a debit card and it's really an electronic cheque book. Only the electronic cheque can't bounce because if there's no money in the account it shows up.
It's years since I used plastic to pay, nowadays though, even small transactions are about as rare as a letter is to an email. I have always paid cash and, as yet, never encountered suspicion. In fact when I pay a restaurant bill with cash by peeling off a few ten or twenty pound notes and finishing with a five pound note adding: "And that's for you." It never fails to get a smile and a: "Thank you very much, Sir."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Not completely true. While it is true, you can not just pull up and fill your new car with leaded fuel, you can still purchase race fuel with lead, from 87 octane to as much as 115/145 in jerrycans or drums. There is also 100LL, or low lead for airplanes.

True, but those aren't intended for everyday consumers -- Joe Blow can't drive up to a race track and fill up. Leaded fuels aren't legal for use on public roads.

What I'd really like to find is genuine 70 octane gasoline for the Plodge, so I could set the spark and timing to where they're supposed to be.

 

[tonyb]

It is if you buy online, but although I retain one card, it's called a debit card and it's really an electronic cheque book. Only the electronic cheque can't bounce because if there's no money in the account it shows up.
It's years since I used plastic to pay, nowadays though, even small transactions are about as rare as a letter is to an email. I have always paid cash and, as yet, never encountered suspicion. In fact when I pay a restaurant bill with cash by peeling off a few ten or twenty pound notes and finishing with a five pound note adding: "And that's for you." It never fails to get a smile and a: "Thank you very much, Sir."

It is thanks to debit cards that I am suspicious of anyone writing a check to pay a restaurant bill, say, or for anything else that leaves the merchant with little practical recourse should the check bounce.

I usually tip servers with real folding money. It's money they can spend now, and they are losing no percentage of it to card fees. And, having worked for some shifty characters myself -- people (to use the word expansively) who cheated workers (some industries are havens for such scumbags) -- I do what I can to see to it the money gets to its rightful recipients.

 

[EngProf]

True, but those aren't intended for everyday consumers -- Joe Blow can't drive up to a race track and fill up. Leaded fuels aren't legal for use on public roads.

What I'd really like to find is genuine 70 octane gasoline for the Plodge, so I could set the spark and timing to where they're supposed to be.

Can you explain that last statement? You should be able to set the spark and timing the same with 87 octane as with 70.
Octane rating effectively sets upper limits for those items, not lower.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My engine runs really bad on 87 -- it starts hard and idles rough -- unless I retard the spark as far as it'll go, and the timing has to be set a bit off from the specifications in the manual. It seems that prewar low-compression engines like a Mopar flathead six can be pretty finicky about what they're fed. Putting any kind of premium fuel -- and 87 octane is far higher than even the highest of hi-test fuels available in 1941 -- in a prewar car is pointless, and in my case at least, actually seems to impede performance.

Somebody around town here once suggested I cut the gas with diesel fuel to bring the octane down a bit, but I'm not that desperate.

 

[EngProf]

My engine runs really bad on 87 -- it starts hard and idles rough -- unless I retard the spark as far as it'll go, and the timing has to be set a bit off from the specifications in the manual. It seems that prewar low-compression engines like a Mopar flathead six can be pretty finicky about what they're fed. Putting any kind of premium fuel -- and 87 octane is far higher than even the highest of hi-test fuels available in 1941 -- in a prewar car is pointless, and in my case at least, actually seems to impede performance.

Somebody around town here once suggested I cut the gas with diesel fuel to bring the octane down a bit, but I'm not that desperate.

I don't doubt what you're experiencing, but would contend that the problem is something else than octane rating. Octane rating is a measure of a fuel's ability to resist preignition and detonation (Pinging and knocking).
Those issues are not really related to startup and idle. Octane rating becomes relevant at high speeds, high loads, and high temperatures.

One principle that usually applies is that if you have to set *external* engine controls at odd/abnormal settings, there may be aspects of engine *internal* settings that are "off". Distributor installation comes to mind, as does camshaft installation (one tooth off in terms of timing chain or gear). I recollect that you had the engine rebuilt not that long ago.

It would take some moderately-more -advanced diagnostic techniques to either find something wrong or to be sure that things are right.
As the '60's song says, " Somethin's happenin' here, what it is ain't exactly clear..."
More thinking required...

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Why is the "regular" gas here at a mile above sea level 85 octane while the regular grade in Seattle is 87 octane?

I could look it up, I suppose. But I'm feeling lazy.

 

[Stearmen]

True, but those aren't intended for everyday consumers -- Joe Blow can't drive up to a race track and fill up. Leaded fuels aren't legal for use on public roads.

What I'd really like to find is genuine 70 octane gasoline for the Plodge, so I could set the spark and timing to where they're supposed to be.

There is 72 octane race gas believe it or not. Mainly used by people trying to set Bonneville records with stock compression flatheads. Harder to find then 104 race gas!

 

[Edward]

And there was me under the illusion that being stood up by contractors was a British malaise.

Today, I closed my credit card account. It took almost 45 minutes. My card, with the British bank Barclays, is known as a Barclaycard. They were the first to introduce credit cards to the UK and did so back in 1966. Mine was issued to me in that year with a strong finger wagging from my branch bank manager not to go overdrawn on my bank account again. Ha! Telling a penniless student to be financially prudent. My first credit limit was just fifty pounds, my credit limit when I closed the account was a quarter of a million. For the last twenty years or so, I've used the card for business rather than apply for a business card. Sometimes the weekly spend could reach six figures, that's why my credit rating was so high, that and the fact that the balance was always cleared, no debt ever incurred.

Three years ago, my credit card became something new, something I didn't ask for. It has the contactless technology that allows the holder to simply tap the card at the terminal without having to type in any security information. Not wishing to have this technology I cut the card up and sent it back. A new card was issued, but again it had the touch & go technology. The card hasn't been used since.

Today I closed the account and in doing so, I seem to have thrown a spanner in the works. Back in 1966, credit cards weren't issued to those whom the banks deemed high risk, like penniless students, so practically every card holder would have been in their mid thirties or older, my application, if you can call it that, the branch manager simply crossed out all the questions and signed it off, so my card was issued.

So what has caused all the fuss? Those early account holders have, it seems, all past away leaving me the longest living card holder, despite that, they still cannot issue me with a card without the contactless technology. So fifty-one years of trading came to an end today. Despite their protests that the touch and go technology is safe, I disagreed. If I can spend vast amounts with the card previously and my custom was appreciated, why must I accept the new technology?

Something tells me that this is not the end.

I had a Barclay Card for a few years myself; the contactless technology was one of several reasons I got rid. I have two credit cards for emergencies, but really I no longer use them as the online protection for debit cards by banks has improved greatly. I bank with Santander, and when they sent me a contactless card, I challenged it. They initially refused, but then a few months later relented (I threatened to go elsewhere). It seems I wasn't the only one. They now issue cards with it by default, but you can opt for one without if you want. I agree with you - it's simply not secure, nor can it ever be - unless is asks for a pin every time, and then its value for "convenience" is diminished. Of course, that would still help for the main reason banks want it used: contactless puts much less wear and tear on the cards, so they don't need replaced as often, saving the bank money. (I've had two or three debit cards in the last few years wear out within two years, not the four or five they are supposed to be valid for.)

It is thanks to debit cards that I am suspicious of anyone writing a check to pay a restaurant bill, say, or for anything else that leaves the merchant with little practical recourse should the check bounce.

I usually tip servers with real folding money. It's money they can spend now, and they are losing no percentage of it to card fees. And, having worked for some shifty characters myself -- people (to use the word expansively) who cheated workers (some industries are havens for such scumbags) -- I do what I can to see to it the money gets to its rightful recipients.

Many places in the UK now no longer accept cheques. Can't remember the last time I wrote one; I know I opened my present debit account three years ago and I took a chequebook "just in case": I've yet to write a single one.

 

[EngProf]

^^^^^
Why is the "regular" gas here at a mile above sea level 85 octane while the regular grade in Seattle is 87 octane?

I could look it up, I suppose. But I'm feeling lazy.

I haven't looked it up, either, but here's the answer I would give if one of my students in Automotive Components class asked that question:
Gasoline is a blend of several liquid hydrocarbons. Some are more volatile than others and this is significant as altitude increases (lower atmospheric pressure) - the boiling point goes down and evaporation goes up due to the vapor pressure of the liquid(s).
The oil companies strike a happy medium as best they can between more volatility (so the gas will vaporize easily and burn) and less volatility (so it won't all evaporate).
If the ingredient that needs to be changed to set the volatility properly has an effect on octane rating, you could easily get a slight change in octane rating for a gas intended (and blended) for high-altitude use.

 

[tonyb]

... Many places in the UK now no longer accept cheques. Can't remember the last time I wrote one; I know I opened my present debit account three years ago and I took a chequebook "just in case": I've yet to write a single one.

I've appeared in person at the bank to procure checks printed on demand there. The default fee for this is a buck per, with a three-check minimum, although I have had that fee waived a time or two. (The checks are printed on a perforated sheet of paper that holds three checks.)

I pay my bills online or over the phone. Except for the municipal taxes I pay quarterly. The city accepts checks but not debit cards and not online payments. I speculate this is to avoid the fees attached to those paperless transactions.

It is common here in the colonies as well for merchants to have a blanket "no checks" policy, which, from my perspective, is entirely defensible. Back when such practices were novel, certain wags posted signs near their cash registers reading "no checks accepted, I still have a drawerful left over from last year."

 

[sheeplady]

I use checks regularly for paying for daycare. When my daughter started, it was a scramble to find the checkbook (which was where we thought it was)... up until that point we used them mainly for the deposit slips in the back.

 

[MisterCairo]

I know I opened my present debit account three years ago and I took a chequebook "just in case": I've yet to write a single one.

You never know when a cheque might come in handy:

 

[Fading Fast]

I'm not quite sure even what a physical check means anymore other than it's a vehicle to list and hold the electronic information necessary for the transfer of funds as I can now deposit checks from my phone. Hence, the physical check is nothing more, in that case, than a scrap of paper to write the relevant information on until it is captured electronically in the bank's system. I'm then supposed to write "void" (I think) on it and discard it after thirty days - which I diligently do by shredding.

I wonder if there is really a signature check - both mine and the writer of the check - when I deposit them on the phone - or is the system just capturing the routing and account numbers and dollar amount and moving on. Then, if there's a challenge, they can look at the image they captured. I just doubt that the old style "scrutinizing" of the physical check goes on anymore in advance. My pure guess is the check moves through the system based on the information and challenges are the only time the signing, etc. is scrutinized.

 

[MisterCairo]

other than it's a vehicle to list and hold the electronic information necessary for the transfer of funds as I can now deposit checks from my phone. Hence, the physical check is nothing more, in that case, than a scrap of paper to write the relevant information on until it is captured electronically in the bank's system.

A cheque/check has only ever been a "negotiable instrument", that is, a scrap of paper authorizing one bank to transfer funds to another on behalf of the payor and payee.

Capturing it on a phone is simply a new method by which the information is conveyed to the banks.

The UK tried to abolish cheques as old fashioned. The backlash was so intense they changed their mind!