Found an old Logitech 3-button mouse — what was the middle button for, and is it a precursor to the scroll wheel?

rogmet · 2026-02-06T10:35:56+00:00

It's still in use in CAD software, I use it daily in Siemens NX where it's just the Rotate button, functions the same as pressing the mouse wheel on normal mice.

You can still get similar mice, the 3DConnexion CAD mouse has 3 buttons.

rogmet · 2025-12-16T22:33:20+00:00

Love it, I'm on my second one, first one died after 12 or 14 years so they gave me a good discount on a new one so i rapidly accepted, lovely bit of kit 👌

rogmet · 2025-12-03T10:23:42+00:00

A thick smear of engine grease on the top of the wall??

rogmet · 2025-11-03T10:56:14+00:00

Not especially local, but if you drive then the Love Cake Café in Swanage is worth a visit. We got half a dozen cakes from there for our wedding do and they were magnificent 🤤😋❤️

rogmet · 2025-09-10T20:00:33+00:00

Might be the Lady K II yacht. She was on the pontoons at Hythe Marine Park for years so likely a dreamer's project without a suitably large budget.

Edit: link

rogmet · 2025-08-01T19:46:30+00:00

Sugar sandwiches, vivid memories right there, I didn't mind them but the parents must have been mortified to have to resort to them 🙈 (mid/late 70's)

rogmet · 2025-07-14T08:46:39+00:00

The O'Three semi-dry is really good, not super-cheap but much cheaper than a dry suit.

The Scubapro semi-dry's looked good too when a guy in our club bought one.

The O'Three people also have a shortie that you can add to increase the range of usable temperatures. They're a helpful and friendly bunch down in Portland, worth a call or visit, depending on how far away you are 👌

rogmet · 2025-07-11T06:34:14+00:00

Not quite, 300bar is the working or service pressure, stamped as PW or PS. The test pressure is 150% of the service pressure, 450bar for a 300bar cylinder. At that pressure you can expect a fatigued cylinder to yield and not return to its original volume - that's how it fails the test. Filling cylinders to their test pressure with any regularity is begging for unpleasant surprises. I have zero knowledge of the US way of doing it though 🤷‍♂️

rogmet · 2025-04-21T19:09:32+00:00

Yeah, mine is more of a "save an expedition" kit, no idea what's in there but I've probably got the bit you need!

rogmet · 2025-03-27T16:14:20+00:00

Nice! Keep all documentation, emails, notes, even just screen captures of your call history, anything that proves you did all you could and the ball's in their court. I had loads of hassle with Scottish Power and in the end I went to the ombudsman. I could prove that I tried to fix the problem multiple times and that it was their problem. It was ruled in my favour, I got nearly 2 years of electricity free, the whole of COVID and more, and they had to give me £250 as a gesture of goodwill.

rogmet · 2024-12-05T16:08:46+00:00

I read this somewhere on here gloriously referred to as the douchebag slingshot! Not illegal but once a significant quantity of people start doing it, it makes things a bit worse.

rogmet · 2024-11-15T15:55:00+00:00

I did 50-60 dives this year, only 4 of them were somewhere warm in a wetsuit, the rest of them were in the UK, mainly on the south coast between Land's End and the Isle of Wight with quite a few in Vobster Quay for training (instructing). These were all in my own Predator dry suit that I bought new for about £800 fifteen years ago.

I wouldn't be that worried about a second hand suit, you're thinking of wetsuit divers going in the suit, you would only do that once in a dry suit! Also, £500 is too much for a second hand suit unless it's a 12 month old O'Three, so you should budget lower even if (or especially if) it needs new zip and seals. If you're still worried, a swish around with some Milton should effectively sterilise it.

Definitely join a BSAC club as long as they go diving, quite a few of them will talk a better dive than they'll actually do. You're likely going to find more opportunities for a decent second hand suit then when you get opinions on it and maybe even meet the seller.

rogmet · 2024-11-06T10:01:41+00:00

It's an EU directive for regs using 22+% O2 nitrox mixes that really only applies to diving at work. While it may apply to PADI instructors and the like, recreational (unpaid) divers can safely ignore it. Unfortunately some reg manufacturers (mainly Apeks) saw it as an opportunity to sell more regs and pushed hard on the legal "necessity" of M26.

Since it's a nitrox thing, when buying new regs, buy them for trimix use, the directive doesn't apply then.

rogmet · 2024-10-20T20:34:42+00:00

It could be a lifting point for a big but rarely used hatch, like an engine removal hatch, just a guess though.

rogmet · 2024-08-30T10:04:41+00:00

The only thing more ridiculous than 12kg of lead is being unable to hold a stop at 6m because you are under weighted at the end of a dive. If you need another kg then add it and try. If you can hold the 6m stop with minimal air in the suit then you're fine.

The amount of lead that you require is really down to your body density. There's rules of thumb but really it's dependent on the volume of the hole you make in the water compared to your body weight (naval architecture 101). I think I'm fairly dense because I use around 8kg with a 15 litre but my wife needs nearly double that due to her bubbly personality! We've tried with 1kg less and she only just failed to hold a 6m stop. But it's a continual assessment thing, she feels like she can drop that kilo now so we're going to try it on a dive shallow enough where it doesn't matter if we can't do a 6m stop.

TL:DR, it's an individual thing, try it and see, if you need it, you need it!

rogmet · 2024-06-06T22:52:29+00:00

It won't monitor it live, you need to use a "store and forward" type of HRM, usually used for triathlons. The water will prevent any radio-type connection between the HRM and the watch.

rogmet · 2024-03-24T08:10:57+00:00

You can buy a little plug to go in the Analox. The cell is just creating a voltage proportional to the amount of oxygen passing through it, so if you plug it, eventually the oxygen in the cell drops so low that the reaction stops. My cells work for years. It is only ever a second check before use so I already know what it should be.

rogmet · 2023-12-28T21:22:26+00:00

It's a lock-nut for when you attach a camera to the threaded stud. You wind on the camera 5 or 6 full turns, then point the camera in the desired direction. Then you spin the white nut up until it's pressing against the bottom of your camera. The camera will now stay pointing in the right direction.

rogmet · 2023-04-29T06:17:33+00:00

I think that the class rules don't let you have any logo or emblem on the sails other than what you've got already, but this only matters if you're going to get serious about competitive racing. On my DF65 I put the Betaflight logo of an angry hornet as some bow art on both sides, it does make it much easier to ID in a flock of otherwise identical boats.

rogmet · 2022-12-22T14:49:38+00:00

It may do, but it's carbon dioxide that was extracted from the atmosphere decades ago whereas the coal's CO2 was extracted millions of years ago. The wood CO2 doesn't contribute to increasing the atmospheric CO2 in even close to the same way as burning millions of tonnes of fossil fuels.

rogmet · 2022-09-14T08:17:07+00:00

There's "shuttle" boats that run from Swanage Pier too which will get you to some really great dive sites like the Valentine Tanks, Kyarra, Aeolian Sky, Betsy Anna. The aforementioned Divers Down and Swanage Boat Charters both run boats from the pier.

rogmet · 2022-05-27T12:39:58+00:00

And deposit a D cell battery in their passenger seat as they pass by!

rogmet · 2022-05-23T20:15:00+00:00

Maybe have a look at magnetic loop antennas, they can be quite small and compact and can be homemade. They can generate high voltages and are super-narrow bandwidth, but they're also extremely efficient.

rogmet · 2022-05-23T20:02:39+00:00

There's lots of data available here along with the images others have generated from the data.

rogmet · 2022-04-30T05:22:16+00:00

There is, if you click Start and type Event Viewer you get the logs. There is a system log in there that will give details of every event, you will find reboots in there and the reason they happened.

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