Comments for Daniel's blog

Comment on Why the scammer wanted to pay by paypal by Simon

Simon — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 18:15:18 +0000

Certainly a lot of deaf oceanographers about. I got the exact same message when I put my car up for sale on Autotrader. That’s £10,000 that could have gone the wrong way.

Comment on Why the scammer wanted to pay by paypal by Annie

Annie — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:37:05 +0000

I am so glad I found this posting (the wonder of the Internet!). I just posted chairs for sale on Craigslist last night and got an inquiry from a deaf oceanographer! It is basically word for word of what you got. Thank you for looking into this and sharing. I, too, was wondering what the catch was if they are paying me by PayPal. This is kind of scary!

Comment on Why the scammer wanted to pay by paypal by Melanie

Melanie — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 06:39:03 +0000

Thanks for posting this. I too received an email in reply to an ad from a “Deaf Oceanographer” that read word for word to yours. Even though I hadn’t seen or heard of this type of scam using PayPal yet, it sounded just a bit too strange. Within less that 2 mins of reading his second email reply to me I had Googled “Deaf Oceanographer” and found what you had written and had my answer with 100% certainty. I’m so glad that you didn’t lose your guitar and again, I thank you for making my own moments of feeling guilt for instantly assuming suspicions of this poor deaf ocean dweller very short lived.

Comment on A photo collection of twentieth century telegraph poles by Bert

Bert — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:09:53 +0000

Ah, that’s a spring-loaded, manual, three-phase air-break switch – probably 11kV, though possibly 33kV. More than that, and the switch would require SF6 gas arc suppression.

Comment on Another new axe! by Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:19:56 +0000

The pun, such as it is, is merely that axe is a synonym for a guitar. On a guitar forum when told someone has purchased a new axe it is interpreted rather differently than on a bush craft forum.

Look… I never said it was a good pun!

You are also quite correct that it is, in fact a splitting maul. However according to wikipedia (which knows everything) a splitting maul is a form of axe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axe#Axes_as_tools

Jenny asked me whether it is possible to split hairs with a splitting maul… she just doesn’t properly understand pedantry.

Comment on Another new axe! by Mike

Mike — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:48:24 +0000

Not sure I undertand the pun – but then I’m not a guitarist. I also suspect this is a splitting maul rather than an axe – but I’m no expert so may be wrong.

Whatever – it’s a superb tool, and I just love the fact it has a stand to go in!

Comment on A photo collection of twentieth century telegraph poles by Mike

Mike — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:44:05 +0000

I find myself compelled to comment. What can be said about a picture of a power pole? I should think anyone who has use of a such a device, especially one with the ability to cut off all power to the nearby village, should exercise their abilities very carefully.

On a related topic – I was always a little bemused by the men who drove vans proudly labelled ‘power rod’. When I was younger I thought that would be an awful lot to live up to – now a bit older, I wonder if such things go in the ‘all mouth and no trousers’ category?

Comment on Introduction by Mike

Mike — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:55:12 +0000

This is a comment too. Presumably if YOU want to delete it you can simply unmoderate it (or should that be immoderate?).

Comment on 21st Century Bushcraft by Mike

Mike — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:53:33 +0000

I’m old enough to remember when the cable on electric bedside lamps was made like this – two single cores twisted together. I wonder if that idea came from rope making too?