One Question

Answering Those Everyday Questions

Apr 16

What’s galvanised steel then?

by kelvin

At the weekend we were buying some new furniture for the office.

We wanted something made that could look cool and a bit industrial when inside, but also not fall to bits if we put it out in the garden, then forgot to bring it in for a few months.

We talked to a man in the know who told us we need to either use stainless steel, or galvanised steel. We all knew stainless but thought that was all a bit too shiny and brash, so what’s galvanised then?

It turns out that steel is bathed in molten zinc at 450 degrees!

So sort of a zinc coating that makes it resistant to rust and corrosion.

Coolio. We’ll be going down that route then.

Maybe some sleeper wood for the seats? But not real sleepers as they go all gooy in the hot sun and would wreck your clothes.

Hey! Suddenly we’re learning furniture design.

 

Gardens Style Technology

No Comments »
Feb 29

Where’s the anti-idiot app?

by onequestion

Here’s one that I wish the girls had written, but as they pointed out to me kindly this morning, they don’t need to consider the topic.

I was suggesting that someone develop an anti-idiot app.

After all my phone will now tell me which stars I’m looking at even if it’s cloudy, it’ll synchronise all my life, except what’s in my brain. It’ll teach me to cook, and translate stuff just by looking at it. So why can’t it stop me being an utter idiot at times and perpetrating the myth that we Irish are daft?

Surely if my email system can remind me that I haven’t attached the thing that I have just written about it could also ask me if I’m sure I want to pee in the fountain when drunk and in teh presence of her majesty’s law enforcement officers?

Or ask me if I really want to talk about what I was up to and post photos onto Facebook when one day I might want to go for a really big job and the interviewer might just pull up said photos at the very final stage.

Oh Lord protect me from myself and inspire someone to create the anti-idiot app!

Sean (in the stupid house).

Technology

No Comments »
Feb 27

How do you keep up?

by kelvin

This is the old man of the office here writing up thoughts following a good banter with the youth this morning on the topic of keeping up.

I wonder if it has always been the case that the generations in their forties have sat feeling like they could just shut their minds to anything new and happily live out their days on what they already know.

I felt better this morning when my three beautiful and youthful colleagues confessed that they don’t bother even trying to understand anything not directly related to their lives. Phew I thought.

We were engaged in the bizarre and esoteric topic of the incredible sources of information available to the modern online trader. Odd? You bet. On one hand everything a trader needs to know is now available at his finger tips. I suggested that this made trading something easy that anyone should be able to get into now. Sean though countered with the wise suggestion that what we were talking about was knowledge accessibility, but what made a successful trader was what he did with that knowledge, and how quickly he did it.

Well, I guess employing such clever guys is my equivalent – I just need to manage my team well and life will be dandy. I don’t need to know everything (although it’s nice to believe that I do).

Intelligent life Technology

No Comments »
Nov 5

Who is this Guy Fawkes fellow?

by onequestion

Wow!

Even in times of a pretty nasty global recession we in Britain will send up a few million pounds worth of fireworks tonight.

Guy Fawkes gets the credit after his 1605 attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament and wipe out the English protestant king, James 1st.

Apparently his cover was blown by an informer and he was caught red handed, confessing under torture. Fawkes was a catholic, fighting wars in the cause of Catholicism.

Living in middle England, in spirit if not in geography, fighting between catholic and protestant seems so alien to us now, but if we lived in Northern Ireland or maybe even Glasgow I guess it would seem a whole lot easier to understand.

I’d like to tackle the question Is There A God? But I don’t think we have the ability between us to take that one on. Perhaps we could just promote the lovely Florence?

Life Technology

No Comments »
Nov 1

How do I choose which smart phone to use?

by onequestion

Remember when phones were for ringing up your mates?

And they were attached to the wall in your home, and your mum would be shouting at you about who was paying the bill?

Then you first saw someone with a mobile.

Then your mates had one.

Then suddenly you had one – and it cost you a fortune, but suddenly that phone at home was cheap as chips.

Within no time you were writing to your friends on your phone. Bizarre that one, didn’t we get a phone to save having to write?

Then suddenly you could email and get online on your phone and you were truly connected. 24/7 if you wanted. It took photos, stored your music, was your calendar, in fact, it had become a vital component of your life. Smart!

There were just two (well, that wasn’t truly the case, but it seemed that way). A Blackberry if you were a businessman, or an i-phone if you were cool and thought yourself creative.

But life’s not so simple anymore is it?

I’m about to change my phone and I don’t know where to start – I’ve just found a good mobile phone reviews site by Recombu with the ideal article – a review on Apple, Razr, Nokia and Samsung’s smart phones. It seems to give a good range of advice – but of course the choice is still down to me.

I read that the wily Japanese are suddenly going crazy over phones that just phone. Though I may sometimes yearn for a more simple life, I’m not sure I’d like to go back there.

Life Phones Style Technology

No Comments »
Copyright 2012 One Question |