Share a Fact from Your Job

[iacas]

I like weird little bits of trivia, so I thought I'd start this thread.

Share something - a fun fact, an interesting fact, something - that you know because of your job. Whether it's something like a civil engineer saying something like "when considering traffic for the construction or maintenance of a road, one semi truck counts the same as 50,000 passenger cars" or what… share an interesting fact.

[Mr. Desmond]

Client tidbit: The purpose of foundation support of a home is to prevent further settlement and support the existing foundation. If you get a lift of the slab or framing, crack closure, or windows shutting easier, that is a residual benefit, but not the purpose of the work. One can't really repair a foundation since you don't know where it started -- one can only attempt to relieve stress and not overstress it during the work. Also, supporting the perimeter of the foundation does not help the interior ...

[Patch]

YESTERDAY

I'm retired now but in the job I had for 30 years it was an accepted fact that golf courses, factories, and other businesses parking lots were major polluters of America's waterways, which also includes groundwater in addition to lakes and rivers. Even dry washes that only had water in them occasionally. Golf courses use of fertilizers, and pesticides were known pollutants. Parking lots made of asphalt, with cars dripping other petroleum products could reach America's waterways, when washed down by rains, or other cleaning methods. Polluted water could run unchecked through storm drains into various types of waterways.  Quite a few storm drains are not treated like sanitary sewers.

The fun fact of this? If you had a politician in your pocket, or were a voter, you didn't have to worry about these types of pollution, or the regulations associated with them.

TODAY

Now that I am retired and do volunteer work for the National Parks, I can tell that 99% of the folks who visit National Parks are good people. That other 1% would do well over in Afghanistan.

[Patch]

Client tidbit: The purpose of foundation support of a home is to prevent further settlement and support the existing foundation. If you get a lift of the slab or framing, crack closure, or windows shutting easier, that is a residual benefit, but not the purpose of the work. One can't really repair a foundation since you don't know where it started -- one can only attempt to relieve stress and not overstress it during the work. Also, supporting the perimeter of the foundation does not help the interior ...

I "mud jacked" a few foundations during my working days.

[Duff McGee]

Circumstantial evidence is equal to direct evidence. TV shows and media always say things like "well they only have circumstantial evidence," like it is a lesser type of evidence. People also usually misunderstand "beyond a reasonable doubt." It is not "beyond all doubt" but instead lands somewhere between "pretty likely" and "100% positive." Reasonable doubt must actually be reasonable. Thus, many of the cockamamie defenses used by TV defense lawyers would never actually fly in real life.

[saevel25]

I like weird little bits of trivia, so I thought I'd start this thread.

Share something - a fun fact, an interesting fact, something - that you know because of your job. Whether it's something like a civil engineer saying something like "when considering traffic for the construction or maintenance of a road, one semi truck counts the same as 50,000 passenger cars" or what… share an interesting fact.

I might as well correct my statement, it's probably more near the 10,000 car mark. Still a lot :D. I thought it was higher, but I had to check.

---

When considering pavement marking material. Thermoplastic does not stick well to concrete, but does stick well to asphalt. If you want to use thermoplastic on concrete you need to spec preformed heat fused thermoplastic. This means that a person with a blowtorch will come out and melt the pavement markings down onto the concrete. Typically you can tell normal paint versus thermoplastic when you drive over it. Thermoplastic is much thicker and you'll feel your car go over the pavement markings.

[Hardspoon]

In public buildings, guardrails must be designed so that children can't get stuck in them. The way this is legislated: there can be no space in the design that allows the passage of a 4" sphere.

Once you know this, you'll notice a lot of strange patterns in ornamental railings that are clearly designed to meet this requirement.

[ajw426]

Soda (or any sugary drink for that matter) is absolutely awful for your teeth when consumed more frequently than a time or two per day. Some people can get away with more, but most can't. If you get cavities and drink sugary drinks with frequency, then please don't blame your old dentist, don't blame your childbirth (ladies), and don't blame your lack on dental coverage. Get them fixed while they're small, and for goodness sake, drink water.

[Braivo]

Nuclear power plants produce far less electricity than most people realize, a similar size coal plant will produce 4 times the electricity of a nuclear one.

There is no way to "store" electricity, it must be produced as it is used.

[Kenny Lee]

The sheet metal that is used to make the exposed body panels (hoods, door skins, quarter panels, etc.) of today's cars . . .

Nissan uses the highest quality steel of all. Nobody else comes close.

GM and Chrysler are tied for the worst.

[mmoan2]

1/6 of the nearly 7 million residents of the state of Arizona receive "food stamps." Almost twice as many as in 2006.

1/5 of the population is on Medicaid, up over 200k from last year.

[jamo]

This is entirely unrelated to golf, but: cast is crap.

[colin007]

New law here in N.Y. affecting teachers - we can't give kids an "unhealthy" treat (like a lollipop as a prize for playing vocab bingo) unless we also provide a "healthy" (like carrot sticks) alternative.

[Golfingdad]

This is entirely unrelated to golf, but: cast is crap.

The group that wined and dined me and 3 of my co-workers for a weekend in Vegas several years ago would like to have a word with you:

The presentations for the whole weekend could easily be summed up in one sentence:  "Pre-cast concrete pipe is the best thing known to humankind and HDPE is the devil and needs to die."

(For the record, 95% of the time we spec out PVC in our projects.)

[jsgolfer]

The group that wined and dined me and 3 of my co-workers for a weekend in Vegas several years ago would like to have a word with you:

The presentations for the whole weekend could easily be summed up in one sentence:  "Pre-cast concrete pipe is the best thing known to humankind and HDPE is the devil and needs to die."

(For the record, 95% of the time we spec out PVC in our projects.)

We almost exclusively spec Ductile Iron pipe for water main installation. Steel is used on larger installations.  As a tidbit we have two water treatment plants, one is 130 MGD and the other is 225 MGD.  That's a lot of freaking water.

[Duff McGee]

Nuclear power plants produce far less electricity than most people realize, a similar size coal plant will produce 4 times the electricity of a nuclear one.  There is no way to "store" electricity, it must be produced as it is used.

Interesting

[Phil McGleno]

There is no way to "store" electricity, it must be produced as it is used.

Holy shit man-Do not tell Duracell!

[Braivo]

Holy shit man-Do not tell Duracell!

If they could figure out a way to store enough energy to power cities it would transform the world. Unfortunately they haven't even figured out how make a cell phone last more than two days on a charge, so it'll be a while.