Re: more cfrp bleating
- From: jim beam <spamvortex@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 09:16:08 -0700
Peter Cole wrote:
jim beam wrote:http://science.slashdot.org/science/07/09/20/1352208.shtml
fortunately, the slashdot crowd is a little more analytical.
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=303589&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=20680345#20680839
Most of the slashdot comments were pretty random, not really addressing the concerns of the Dan Rather story.
For anyone interested in the actual letter that Vincent Weldon (ex-Boeing employee) sent to the FAA, it is here:
<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2007/09/17/2003889769.pdf>
I found it to be a rather detailed and interesting description of the issues. Most of the concerns discussed (g-force transmission to passengers, lightning strikes, toxic combustion byproducts) have little relevance to the use of CF in bikes. His description of the fundamental characteristics of composites are pretty interesting in light of prior threads, though. Many of those are relevant to bikes.
I wouldn't dismiss this guy as a crank, although I think he could have a better spokesperson than Dan Rather.
who gives a damn about dan rather? /i/ posted it as a follow-up to carl fogel's story on the same subject. and it illustrates what happens when the uninformed and hysterical start bleating about subjects on which they have no knowledge, but an easily exploitable fear of what to them is the unknown.
as a further example, here in the bay area, we're building a new span to the bay bridge. one day during the most visible new construction phase, there was a sensational headline picked up in the local media about defective welds and "massive cover-up" on behalf of the contractor. source? disgruntled former worker that had been fired and who wanted to stir up trouble - and who knew enough technical jargon to cook up a credible sounding story to the uninitiated. and the media, being uninitiated, takes his story as sufficiently sensational to run with. the story died out after the "source"'s credentials and history were exposed, and after the contractors had wasted a bunch of time and money going back through their testing certification, but it's a "story" that would never have come to light if the media had done even basic background checking or bothered to speak with other engineers first.
and what do we have here? an identically disgruntled former employee with a mouthful of "credible" sounding doomsday warnings approaching an ignorant but sensation-seeking media looking to stir up trouble. and apparently succeeding if the ridiculous bleating on r.b.t is a gauge.
still, as part of the old saying goes, "you can fool some people all of the time", and thus it is proved.
.
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