Quickest way to boil a kettle, in a car?

[Peter Thomas]

Did that have the driving fast, stopping, stepping out and falling over on black ice story?

[Mary Fisher]

Goove?

Mary

>

[Peter Thomas]

In message , Mary Fisher writes

The Shed. Evolved from RoT-13 Guvax.

[Robert Harvey]

That was the one. Do you have my copy?

[Robert Harvey]

Ah, sorry. Shedspeak. "think" ->ROT13-> "Guvax"

It's customary on usenet to rot13 rude words. In the shedde the rudest words are those implying personal physical effort or excessive zeal at organisation in things.

[Robert Harvey]

Mike Couper - That was he.

[Peter Thomas]

Possibly. It may well be that either my father or I acquired a correctly not-arj copy. Where did yours go?

[Mary Fisher]

Oh.

Er ... thank you.

I think ...

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

Ah. Think. Is think a rude word then?

Mary

[Guy King]

The message from "Mary Fisher" contains these words:

It implies rather more xrrarff and rssbeg than we prefer.

[Bob Eager]

Hmm. I see why you need to rot13 with words like those.

[Robert E A Harvey]

Oh come on. How am I supposed to know THAT? It went /away/, like all good buks.

[Mary Fisher]

Well, there is that ...

I don't do much of any of them.

Mary

>

[akertez]

The stainless thermos is not the same as a vacuum flask,a good vacuum flask will keep water at a higher temperature for 24 hours,the stainless only ke ep hottish for 8 to 10 hours,if you read carefully you will see that stainl ess thermos never say it's a vacuum flask otherwise trading standards would be straight on to them. hope this help Alan231

[NY]

Aren't stainless steel flasks vacuum flasks - the only difference being that they are made of metal rather than glass which is more fragile. Or do steel flasks have insulation padding between the inner and outer skins, rather than a vacuum?

[Chris Hogg]

I had the same thought. Whether the OP means any form of SS generic 'thermos' flask, or specifically those made by Thermos, isn't clear. There are plenty of adverts out there for SS vacuum flasks. OTOH it wouldn't surprise me if the cheaper ones are not true vacuum flasks but are as you describe, with some form of insulation material between the walls. Having said that, I see the supposedly genuine Thermos flasks on the John Lewis web site don't describe themselves as vacuum flasks, although other flasks there, do.

I always assumed that the reason hot things cool a little faster in SS flasks was because SS has a thermal conductivity roughly ten times that of glass.

and scroll down a long way.

[NY]

Yes, presumably when the inside skin heats up, the heat conducts to the neck of the flask (AIUI, the only part where there is contact between inside and outside skins).

I can never look at one of the modern wide-necked stainless steel flasks nowadays without remembering a woman that I used to work with. She was one of a group of us who went to lunch each day in the work canteen. One lunchtime, when she was about half-way through her lunch, she pulled a large flask out of her bag and proceeded to tip the uneaten dinner into the flask - a sort of vacuum flask doggy-bag. One of my colleagues gave her a look with spoke volumes - "WTF are you doing" - because she put her pud in with her main course :-(

She explained that she sometimes got hungry in the middle of the afternoon and her blood sugar got low, so she saved some of her lunch to eat later on. Excellent idea, but the idea of mixing her pud in with her roast beef and potatoes was very weird. Prior to this, she'd intrigued some of us by eating her pud *before* her main course - and my wife and I still use her name ("let's have a Jane-snack") to describe having a dessert (eg some biscuits or a cake) before the savoury part (sandwiches etc) when we're having a picnic.

[Brian Gaff]

What??? Where did this spring from? Brian

[Robin]

It was a reply to a long thread in March 2005 from someone who patently disagrees with those who find stainless steel flasks perfectly serviceable.

I think they are fine. And, as with all flasks, extended life can be achieved with a few offcuts of insulating foam board, a sleeping bag, a duvet, etc etc

[top-posted for Brian's screen reader]

[Dave W]

They're both vacuum, but it's possible that the steel ones don't keep the contents hot for as long as the glass ones because the neck connection between the inner and outer is thermally conductive steel rather than insulating glass.