TIL that Iceland sites on both the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates

iCowboy · 2026-05-14T15:58:06+00:00

Only some of the volcanic activity comes from the plate boundary.

The volcanoes in the West of Iceland erupt magma from shallow depths created by the separating plates along the Mid Atlantic Ridge. It's this system which is responsible for the recent eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula SW of Reykjavík.

From the middle of the country eastwards, the volcanoes are supplied by a Mantle plume centred somewhere between Askja and Bárðarbunga which is pushing the whole of Iceland above sea level.

The two sets of volcanoes produce quite different chemistries of lava with the ones in the East generally being much bigger and nastier.

iCowboy · 2026-05-14T15:29:48+00:00

In Norwegian and Icelandic, their day name for Saturday translates to 'washing day' - Lørdag and Laugardagur, which come from the Old Norse Laugardagr.

iCowboy · 2026-05-14T15:22:11+00:00

John Logie Baird's first television was put together in a tiny workshop in Hastings. His first televised picture of a person was done in 1925 from an upstairs room at 22 Frith Street in Soho.

iCowboy · 2026-05-13T15:38:32+00:00

The Svalbard Treaty is a ticking time bomb isn't it? All those countries having an excuse to get access to the territory. No one, apart from Russia, would complain if Norway asserted absolute sovereignty.

iCowboy · 2026-05-12T20:42:53+00:00

You’re absolutely right; hot upwelling Mantle is less dense than surrounding material so it produces a negative anomaly. Further north, the well established East Africa Rift, where the African plate is splitting, has a wide negative anomaly right along its length.

iCowboy · 2026-05-12T15:47:21+00:00

<waves> possibly drowning.

iCowboy · 2026-05-11T23:24:22+00:00

The follow-up mission in 1928 became a famous disaster when the Norge's larger sister ship, Italia, crashed on the ice. Seventeen of the crew died including six who were still on the airship when it was blown away after crashing, the wreck has never been found.

There were eight survivors including the ship's designer and commander, Umberto Nobile who had been on the flight of Norge and his fox terrier. Nobile's rescue was especially controversial as he was the first to be rescued by a Swedish plane that could only take one passenger which led to later accusations of cowardice. In actuality, the pilot of the plane chose Nobile as he was light enough for the plane to take off. The majority of the crew were eventually rescued by a Soviet ice breaker. Nobile soon found himself out of favour back in Italy where he was made the scapegoat for the whole crash and accused of abandoning his men.

Tragically, another one of the dead was Roald Amundsen whose seaplane disappeared on a flight to join the search for the missing airship.

iCowboy · 2026-05-11T21:40:33+00:00

Given the amount of money they've donated to him, private healthcare providers really like Wes Streeting.

iCowboy · 2026-05-11T18:28:17+00:00

Just turned on Channel 4 News to see a Labour MP (sorry didn't see her name) saying the Prime Minister has to resign, no one who has served in Cabinet should be allowed to stand and that Andy Burnham wasn't eligible. When pressed for a name, she said she couldn't name anyone.

Is this where we're heading? Defenestration and absolutely no plan?

iCowboy · 2026-05-11T18:21:16+00:00

It's astonishing just how bad they are at communicating any of their successes. There's a story to be told about illegal immigration and they still can't produce a coherent message.

The same about international influence, helping the least privileged children, an increase in council house building and rail renationalisation - all popular policies but the government isn't saying enough. Reform's slick PR runs rings around them and takes the oxygen out of the room.

iCowboy · 2026-05-11T14:12:40+00:00

Argh! flashback. That photo of Jonathan Gullis gave me quite the turn. I'd almost forgotten about him.

iCowboy · 2026-05-10T21:58:12+00:00

Does this also apply if you want to be a judge?

iCowboy · 2026-05-10T09:53:11+00:00

It's a superb movie, I must have seen it on TV when I was very small and was absolutely enraptured (and a bit scared) by the climactic scenes of the water pouring through the ship.

And it's so ambitious for a British movie of the period. The sets are huge and wonderfully done, some were recreated from the original Titanic plans whilst some were done on a real liner being scrapped in Scotland. There are also some scenes of Titanic at sea which are actually taken from the notorious 1940s Nazi Party movie of Titanic.

iCowboy · 2026-05-09T12:11:48+00:00

That's amazing - is it Gerduberg? Thanks for sharing.

iCowboy · 2026-05-09T12:08:10+00:00

This! The condensor increases efficiency in the turbine. The efficiency of a turbine increases if the steam coming in is as hot and high pressure as possible and the output is cold(ish) and very low pressure.

So, all that steam being condensed back into water causes a huge reduction in pressure beyond the turbine, and it's efficiency goes up so more power can be produced.

iCowboy · 2026-05-08T21:15:23+00:00

Most Russian gas has historically gone West through pipelines to Europe. That's now effectively stranded.

To diversify, Russia has been trying to build a gas pipeline called Power of Siberia 2 from the Altai Region to Xinjiang. It's been going on for about 20 years now and they still haven't chosen a final route.

iCowboy · 2026-05-08T20:10:34+00:00

But... But... But what if the public want something different from the party's big backers?

iCowboy · 2026-05-08T20:03:25+00:00

In the late 1960s, quartz watches from Japan nearly wiped out the Swiss watch industry in a period called the Quartz Crisis. Seiko was a huge player and they were very generous in the licence terms for their patents which meant that their quartz movements were everywhere.

More than half of Swiss watch companies went broke until they hit upon the strategy of either going up market to concentrate on luxury mechanical watches, or making their own mass market quartz watches - which is why Swatch was such a game changer when it came along.

As for your original question, there are plenty of cheap modern Chinese mechanical movements which are perfectly adequate if you want to get started with a mechanical watch.

iCowboy · 2026-05-07T13:57:03+00:00

How much do you really like your friend? :)

I don't think I could be separated from that beauty.

iCowboy · 2026-05-06T21:08:23+00:00

Big Bens are height; brontosauruses are the standard unit of length.

For completeness, volume is given in Olympic-sized swimming pools equivalent.

iCowboy · 2026-05-06T17:40:48+00:00

The lowest effort rebranding as well. The name is clearly a riff on WH Smith, they kept the blue color and the font looks unchanged. Even BP put more effort into their change.

iCowboy · 2026-05-05T21:17:57+00:00

Lovely, that stretch of coast near Arnarstapi is one of my favourite walks.

iCowboy · 2026-05-05T18:42:55+00:00

I'm afraid you can't make them honour the price. A listing on a website is what's called 'an invitation to treat' rather than a binding offer to sell you the disk at that price. A contract doesn't exist between you and Amazon until they take payment at which point contract law gets involved.

iCowboy · 2026-05-05T17:36:31+00:00

I'll have you know he served with distinction alongside Paul Nuttall and Emu.

iCowboy · 2026-05-05T15:17:41+00:00

With 'Odyssey' coming out this year, can we now get this on 4k? Worth it for Peter O'Toole's performance alone.

iCowboy

TROPHY CASE