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Bicycle hub with traditional cup and cone bearings © Eugene Brennan. |
Friday, April 04, 2025
Bicycle Wheel Bearing Maintenance
Thursday, April 03, 2025
Septic Tank Inspections
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Schematic of a septic tank. Image courtesy Tilley, E., Ulrich, L., Lüthi, C., Reymond, Ph., Zurbrügg, C., CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons |
The smell of overflowing septic tanks is something I encounter regularly, cycling the highways and byways of Kildare. Two incidences yesterday in the Suncroft area and one close to Narraghmore Game Reserve. Maybe there are other issues that cause smell though like bad drainage or older systems that don't agitate the contents of the tank? Agitation increases the oxygen content of liquid in a septic tank, improving the rate of aerobic bacterial growth and speeding up the digestion of sewage. This recent article from the Kildare Nationalist by Finian Coghlan fills us in with the details of the inspections.
Plate Tectonics and Finger Nails
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Image created using by Bing Image Creator. |
Plate
tectonics is a theory, superseding and encompassing the earlier
continental drift theory, that the Earth's continents make large scale
movements over geological time. The process is really slow, and occurs
at the same rate finger nails grow: about 0.1 mm a day. That's 36.5 mm a
year, 36.5 m per millennium and 36.5 km per million years or 3650 km in
100 million years. Ireland, or more correctly the parts that make up
Ireland, were once located south of the equator in tropical seas. (I
found a rock once in the midlands, when helping to dig a deep hole. The
rock was embedded with large fossilised cockles). Over millions of years
the parts drifted northward and merged, to make the island. The
dividing line between the northern and southern parts of the island of
Ireland runs roughly down a line between Louth and Kerry.
Force Between Magnets Over a Distance
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Public domain image via Pixabay |
Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Tree Manslaughter
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Dead apricot tree. © EugeneBrennan |
Tuesday, April 01, 2025
Ardnacrusha to Dublin Transmission Line and Mystery Engine House
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Image courtesy Military Archives. |
I still haven't found out what was housed in the "Engine Ho.", located approximately where Scoil Bhríde is now. A stationary engine for pumping water from a well for the convent? Or maybe a machine for making meal for feeding animals on the convent "farm"? Or did the convent have their own electricity and this was where the engine and generator was located? Maybe someone knows.
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Image courtesy Tailte Éireann (OSI) |
Well Fancy That!
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St Brigid's Well, Kilcullen. © Eugene Brennan |
KCA have added a nice new gravel ramp leading up to the bottom step at St. Brigid's Well which will help us older or short-legged folk negotiate the incline. The riser of the step was always quite tall. The others are a bit tall too. The gravel ramp should be safer than the existing stone one which is probably risky in the winter because of ice and algae. The steps are somewhat slippy, possibly because the hard rock has become worn and polished from traffic. In winter the situation is worse because of algae, but KCA (I presume) have regularly sanded the steps which helped and made them safe
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St Brigid's Well, Kilcullen. Ramp added to reduce step height. © Eugene Brennan |
On This International Women's Day, Remembering Irish Pioneers of Science and Technology
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Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Kathleen Lonsdale, Mary Parsons, Kay McNulty and Mary Ward. See below for Image attributions. |
How Much Does the Length of a Day Vary By?
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Created with Bing Image Creator. |
More info here.
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Linear Park at the Riverside Site
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Site plan courtesy and by permission of Darmody Architecture. |
Drawings are available here:
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Construction works on the riverside park, Kilcullen. © Eugene Brennan |
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© Eugene Brennan |
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© Eugene Brennan |
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© Eugene Brennan |
Dunlavin Water Supply Rationalisation Project
Big Picture Science Podcast — Your Mind on Movies
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Image generated by Bing Image Creator. |
Apparently your blood coagulates when you watch a horror movie, preparing you for bleeding. In this podcast episode, we hear why.
Broadband Charges
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Image generated by Bing Image Creator. |
Horizontal Line Illusion
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Image courtesy illusionist Victoria Skye. |
Science Friday Podcast — Latest Episode
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Image generated by Bing Image Creator. |
Friday, March 21, 2025
Real-Time Information From EirGrid
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Screenshot from the EirGrid website. |
Golden Falls Releases Through the Spillways
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Golden Falls dam. © Eugene Brennan |
High flows at Golden Falls today, which were forecast to be 10 m³/s all day. The releases are due to recent heavy rainfall. I always end up here late in the afternoon on dull days, so the high contrast in the scene means photos aren't the best. So the sky gets washed out if I increase the exposure.
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© Eugene Brennan |
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© Eugene Brennan |
Five Reasons Why I Hate Grass Verges
Seduisant, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons |
- They waste "real estate" that be could be used for creating adequately wide foothpaths. Sometimes they're as wide as the lane of the adjoining road and often wider than the foothpath.
- They're usually full of dog shit and other nasty stuff.
- They're an unpleasant obstacle when crossing a road, especially when grass is allowed to grow long for biodiversity reasons and then ends up soaking wet. Usually there are an inadequate number, if any, crossing points in the verges.
- They often end up with huge, unsightly ruts in them when trucks decide to pull in and park on them.
- If there's any broken glass from smashed bottles in them, it can't be seen when the grass is allowed to grow long, potentially leading to foot injuries.
Odlums Mill Demise
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© Eugene Brennan |
Reading about the demise of Odlums Mill in Sallins and commencement of demolition work last month led me down a rabbit hole to this 2019 article from The Irish Times. Apparently, according to the article, there were 900 mills still in operation in Ireland in the 1940s. In the Kilcullen region alone, there were around seven mills operating at various periods over the centuries: a corn mill just north of the bridge in the town itself, which was demolished in the 80s, two more at Carnalway/Harristown, one on the Mill Stream at New Abbey and another in Mile Mill in the field behind The Mill pub. At Ardenode between Kilcullen and Ballymore, there was a mill on the Toor Brook, a tributary of the Liffey. There was also of course the large woollen mill in Ballymore Eustace and water powered cotton factory at Inchaquire (located on the left side of the road, between the two turns for Colbinstown), both of which employed hundreds of people.
Mower Troubleshooting
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Public domain image by Skitterphoto on Pixabay |