Activity for Pont‭

Type	On...	Excerpt	Status	Date
Edit	Post #40844	Initial revision	—	over 4 years ago
Answer	—	A: Did any lighthouses provide directional navigation signals? As already pointed out in a comment, your question is based on a misconception. In poor visibility, such as at night, navigators can tell which direction the lighthouse is from the ship, but it doesn't help them know which direction the ship is relative to the lighthouse. If you know one of the... (more)	—	about 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do people drown while wearing a life jacket? In the specific case you mention, both the NY Post and Deutsche Welle say that the cause of death is still being investigated, and both of them point out the low water temperature (the victims were kayaking in a glacier lake). DW mentions that they were not wearing any protection against cold water. ... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: What is the proper way to use a sauna? I think it's worth focusing on the specifics of your actions here, as gleaned from your Facebook post. Apparently you went swimming in cold water, then entered a sauna, and the following happened: After I entered the sauna room, the people there thought that I was in trouble and called an ambulan... (more)	—	over 5 years ago
Answer	—	A: What's the best way to avoid slipping on ice? Wear socks over your shoes (as well as your usual socks inside your shoes, of course). This is a fairly well-established technique (see e.g. here or here), and its effectiveness has been scientifically demonstrated by Parkin et al. (2009). References "Preventing Winter Falls: a randomised controlle... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Question	—	How can I fix an airbed valve that pops open? I have an old six-reed inflatable camping mattress -- one of the ones with six long parallel chambers that you inflate with lung power. It looks similar to this one. The chambers are sealed with the typical pop-up soft plastic nozzles commonly seen on inflatable water toys -- something like this. ... (more)	—	about 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: What is the possiblity of getting rabies bitten by a street dog in Berlin? In answer to the question in your title, "What is the possiblity of getting rabies bitten by a street dog in Berlin?": the possibility is zero, since (as the doctor correctly told you) Germany is rabies-free. For more details on Germany's rabies-free status, you may wish to read the answers to this q... (more)	—	over 6 years ago
Answer	—	A: Use normal urban jacket for skiing/snowboard As for most outdoor activities, you can certainly get by with non-specialized clothing for skiing and snowboarding. As @imsodin points out in the comments, a ski resort is (compared to a lot of outdoor settings) a pretty safe place to make a mistake about clothing: if you find yourself too cold or we... (more)	—	almost 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is Germany or any of Europe really rabies free? As your travel advisory links state, the ‘rabies-free’ designation ignores bats. This is also mentioned on the CDC list of rabies-free countries which you link to: The countries on this list are those that have not reported recent cases of rabies in land animals and that have adequa... (more)	—	almost 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Dos and Don'ts in an area signed with the shield "Rabies! Endangered District" in Germany If you see a sign like this, you should either Ignore it, or Contact the local municipality (Gemeinde) to have it removed. As Gistiv stated, Germany is rabies-free since 2008, but it seems that there was no concerted effort to remove these signs when rabies was eradicated. This paywalled newspape... (more)	—	almost 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: What kind of animal may have done this? Almost certainly, this is the work of a woodpecker foraging for grubs in a dead and rotting tree: they tend to move methodically up the trunk excavating at intervals, producing the Swiss cheese effect visible in your photo. This being Finland, your culprit is probably the black woodpecker Dryocopus m... (more)	—	about 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: How to confirm/remove ticks in tough spots when alone? Determining whether it's a tick If you have a digital camera or mobile phone with you, you could try photographing your suspected tick. I don't have a tick handy for testing purposes, but I just tried a couple of close-up shots with my mid-range 2015 phone and it doesn't have any trouble imaging fea... (more)	—	over 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is there some sort of portable slow CO2 emitter that can be used in conjunction with a bug zapper? You can generate CO2 with a mixture of yeast, sugar and water, and there is scientific evidence for its effectiveness in attracting mosquitoes. Saitoh et al. (2004) tested the apparatus shown below. They constructed it as follows: Two plastic bottles (2-liter volume) were used to hold water so... (more)	—	over 7 years ago
Answer	—	A: Do I need down-specific washing liquid for my coat? There's no way you can know from that description whether the two products are identical. There's more than one kind of polycarboxylate, more than one kind of soap, more than one kind of non-ionic surfactant, and certainly more than one kind of ‘other ingredient’. Even if some of those ... (more)	—	almost 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: How do you tie your shoes one handed? For a one-handed knot that doesn't require relacing, try the one-handed variant of the "Ian Knot" from Ian's shoelace site. The result is identical to a standard shoelace knot, though I suspect it will take some practice to master. A more straightforward option is the "one handed shoelace knot" Unf... (more)	—	almost 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: Bald eagle vs. vultures? As bon says in the comments, the most likely explanation is that the vultures and eagle were fighting over a carcass. The answer to your question "do eagles eat carrion?" is an emphatic yes: Unlike some other eagle species, bald eagles rarely take on evasive or dangerous prey on their own... They... (more)	—	over 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: Possible diet to avoid/delay defecation The term you're looking for is "low-residue diet" or "low-residue meal" (for some reason, the medical community tends to avoid the term "poop" in their technical terminology). Simply googling on those terms will get you a lot of good advice; WebMD and Wikipedia are good starting points. A low res... (more)	—	over 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: Leave-no-trace-exception for tissues? It's true that paper tissues biodegrade relatively quickly: this U.S. Bureau of Land Management page estimates 2-4 weeks. However, as the same page notes, Though most trash and litter in the backcountry is not significant in terms of the long term ecological health of an area, it does rank high a... (more)	—	over 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: What is the easiest way to remove creosote from pots and pans? I haven't tried this on woodsmoke creosote, but in general I've found that dishwasher powder or tablets do a much better job on organic gunk than standard dish soap. I would try dissolving a hefty amount (maybe half a cup) of dishwasher detergent in a sinkful of hot water and leaving the pots in it o... (more)	—	over 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: Where does the name Deadman come from in mountaineering gear? imsodin's explanation (it's a heavy object you bury in the ground, like a dead body) seems very plausible. Just to add some history to it, here's the earliest use of the term listed in the Oxford English Dictionary: a1852 W. T. Spurdens Forby's Vocab. E. Anglia (1858) III. 12 Deadman, a piece of ... (more)	—	over 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: Where can I find help identifying an owl by its call? In addition to the other answers, I'd like to recommend BirdForum, a large online birding community. It's free to sign up, and they have a specific forum devoted to answering bird identification questions. I've used it myself for help with unidentified birds, and got very quick, useful responses. If ... (more)	—	over 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: Frogs in pond attacking one reddish coloured frog? What you witnessed was almost certainly mating. As this article from TheScientist explains, “Explosive breeding” is a common reproductive strategy among frog species. Males congregate near sources of fresh water and scramble frantically for any females passing by. Only about 5 to 10... (more)	—	over 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: What to eat if survivaling in Ireland? A full discussion of forageable foods in Ireland would be a book, not a stackexchange answer. Fortunately, such books already exist. For foraging in the British Isles, one classic work (and a personal favourite of mine) is Richard Mabey's Food for Free (originally published 1972 and never out of prin... (more)	—	over 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: Can I sail a raft on a European river with commercial traffic? The good news Navigating the Danube with a raft is certainly possible, and has been done: for instance, Flossbusters are a group of Dresdners who went all the way from Bertoldsheim to the Black Sea on a home-built raft over the course of five summers. Their craft, the good ship Dresden, looks quite ... (more)	—	over 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: Where to get the DOS version of "DataTalk" (for Aladin diving computers)? After a little digging, I found this link on the Internet Archive, which seems to be what you've looking for. The zip file unpacks successfully and I had no trouble installing DataTrak and DataTalk (version 1.6) under the DOSBox emulator. They both seem to run fine under emulation as well, though I d... (more)	—	over 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: What locations to scuba dive inland in the UK? Using Google, I found several lists of inland dive sites in the UK. Here are a few of the more extensive ones. UK Diving (over 50 current and former sites, listed by region) Dive Site Directory (14 sites, clickable map) UK Dive Guide (35 sites, listed by region) SCUBA Diving Adviser (17 sites, inte... (more)	—	over 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: Why aren't there any electric stoves that can be used for cooking where you can't build a fire? Comparing hydrocarbons with batteries As Olin Lathrop wrote, the big problem is energy density: hydrocarbon fuels simply offer a huge amount of energy per unit mass, compared to any current battery technology. To put some numbers on this, we can look at Wikipedia's page on energy density. Let's comp... (more)	—	over 8 years ago
Answer	—	A: Is it more likely for a viper to bite in a muddy weather? In Poland, the only viper (and in fact the only venomous snake of any kind) is the common European viper, Vipera berus (Bateman et al., 2014, p. 332; Cox and Temple, 2009, p. 9), so I am concentrating my answer on this species. For brevity I'll refer to it as the "common viper". To protect yourself ... (more)	—	over 8 years ago