h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I found that out from a helpful leaflet I from The Forum when on holiday in Rome (don't trust Wikipedia). I still got the leaflet if you want to see it. I like the fact that SPQR is used on municpal things in Rome, a sort of continuity isn't it?


Always amazed by how much information you can find about a partciular topic..

Dancer- what's that a picture of? And how did you do that?

BTW, I have a typo in the earlier thing. I put 1.14&1.15, it should have been 1.41&1.15, meaning that if the least distance across for each is 4 feet(60.96cm times 2), to use the measurement in the article, the longest distance across the square is 5' 7.8", the longest distance across the triangle is 4' 7.4", and the longest distance across the circle is 4' 0". That's in feet and inches, it would be similar in metric. So, from there, the hole(across its longest distance) would have to measure at least one foot eight inches less for a square cover, at least 8 inches less for a triangular cover, and anything that will support weight for a circular cover(2 inches, according to the article, 2.5cm times 2). I guess I could see a lip of 4 inches working out. Does anyone know how this math works for a regular pentagon?

Excellent stuff In this place and time, everyone has got to worry about political correctness - y'know, Man/Womanhole Cover - but that just sounds obscene doesn't it?

Anyway.
"The forged print of a manhole cover almost always contains a code for the company that made it."

What does 'code' mean? I think that on my local manhole covers, it just says the acronym for the water company. Of course I'd have to check... but it seems like an awfully easy 'code' to crack to me

Anyhoo, some good points have been raised in this thread. All fairly minor points, I think, so with a little work, I look forward to seeing this in the Edited Guide

I'm sure saw mentioned on the tv that there are people that collect old manhole covers, wonder what you'd call them as a group?

They call people who like poking around in sewers 'drainspotters', which I love

Are you talking about manhole covers in any particular counrty? I ask because in the UK, I'd say most were square or rectangular. I work in the construction industry & have spend many a day trying to get the bleeders up!
Also in the UK, with the manual lifting restrictions being brought in, anything over 25kg needs to be lifted mechanically.
Drainage runs tend to be in the middle of roads as it's easier to connect buildings up to them on either side, but I agree, it does make it difficult if you need to do an inspection!
Interesting post though.

Scruff

According to Tony Hawks in Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, the manhole covers in Moldovia usually get stolen and aren't replaced by the impoverished government, who also can't afford to supply street lighting at night. So all the locals now know the locations of the open manholes and so they know where not to walk at night...

That's a good book!

All Tony Hawks' books are.

Just a couple of notes:

- You mention why manhole covers are round, but it might be worth further clarifying that rectangular manhole covers have to have a wider surface area to avoid the width of the shortest side from being shorter than the diagonal of the hole.

- If you pop tags inside your ones, it will space the bullet points out in a nicer way.

Sorry for not getting back to everyone sooner. I have been in the process of moving for the past couple of weeks and have been lacking appropriate Internet access.

I will try to make the changes when I can. Thank you for all of the comments. I never knew there would be so much interest in something like manhole covers.

I will try to get it polished up and everyone can trake a crack at it then letting me know what they think.

Talk to you soon...

nice entry

You made several great points and I will take a few into consideration, especially those listed about House Style.

There are such things as road side drains and I was going to write about those next. I didn't realize that there was so much information to be known about manhole covers so it's taking me a bit longer than I had first expected as I am the only researcher on the entry.

England does have manhole covers.

I didn't list any abbreviations for manhole covers because I felt that I would need to list ALL of them and didn't want to tread down that path. However, now that you mentioned it, I feel there is a need to give an example and would like to use your's with permission and credit.

I will work on this a bit more. Should I take it out of Peer Review to make all of these changes and then resubmit it once they are complete?

It's taken a lot longer to get this entry polished up because I recently moved and FedEx lost my main research computer which had all of my data on it. It's going to take me a while to recover everything as I have to start over again.

And thank you everyone for the nice comments regarding the entry. I especially liked the one about it being rubbish until read.

Very good

Correction to above posting for clarification:

England does have manhole covers.

Should be changed to:

England does have circular manhole covers.

One of my friends lived there and I interviewed him for what he knew on the subject. He happened to show me a picture of he and his wife alongside a street in London or Sussex where there was a round cover in the middle of the road behind them. That's all the data I have on it though.

You don't really need to give me credit for the SPQR thing. I wouldn't want to take credit as you then won't be able to count it as a solo entry, and you might get a badge one day.

(Does an "Additional Information by" credit do that too?) If not, one of those would be ok.

How you doing with this one Cyber?

Equilateral manhole covers CAN be dropped down a triangular hole, not a round one. But since the cover seat around the manhole itself is always bigger across its smallest dimension than the round manhole itself, it's pretty bloody immaterial *what* shape is used to cover the hole.

Manhole covers are sometimes round because they are heavy, and it's a lot easier to roll them to their place rimwise than carry them, for instance. It also means that they seat easier, and can be cast to lesser tolerances than square covers as the chances of getting a slightly irregular cover to fit are much greater with a round cover than a square one.

I ought to work for Microsoft...

You still about CL?

This one can go in when CyberLama gets back. Nice entry.

Do we need the author to come back to pick this one? I thought everything in the PR thread had been dealt with.