Posts by Andrew Laird

Come kneel with us at UK's Cathedral, er, Oil Rig of the Canal: Engineering masterpiece Anderton Boat Lift

Niederfinow Ship Lift

Another excellent article in your "Geeks Guide" however in addition to the Belgium and French ship lifts to which you refer, he German ship lift at Niederfinow on the Oder-Havel Canal deserves a mention. Here the height difference in in excess of 30 metres and whereas the renovated Anderton Lift only serves leisure traffic, at Neiderfinow the volume of commercial traffic is such that a new bigger lift is under construction alongside the original. It is due ro open in a couple of years. Further information at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niederfinow_Boat_Lift

Talking a Blue Streak: The ambitious, quiet waste of the Spadeadam Rocket Establishment

Cutting the grass

I grew up in this area and in the summer of 1966, between school and university, my mother, who was what we would now call PA to the Rolls Royce HR Manager at Spadeadam, got me a job as a labourer for a local sub-contractor, Barwick of Gilsland. As a result;t I spent the "summer of love" cutting the grass around the test stands so that engine test firings wouldn't set the whole moorland ablaze. During that time, or maybe in the following summer when I went back, I only witnessed one test from a shelter attached to the main bunker shown in one of the photographs:I heard one or two more. By this time Blue Steak had morphed into the launch vehicle for the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) later to become the European Space Agency. Curiously and circuitously my very last job before retirement a few years ago, was also for the ESA. Arrival at Spadeadaam felt like landing on the set of a Bond movie. After the several mile drive across the moor from Gilsland, the road crested a low rise and below was this industrial complex of machine shops, barracks and fuel storage tanks with, on the horizon, the towers of the engine and rocket test stands.

Windows 10 S forces Bing, Edge on your kids. If you don't like it, get Win10 Pro – Microsoft

Limiting but with a 50%upgrade to Pro

S may well be limited but at least it comes with a much cheaper upgrade path to Pro: $49 as opposed to $99 to upgrade from Home. Has anyone ever worked out why Microsoft pricing is always so bizarre.