Re: G5 fans

Andy Hewitt <wildrover.andy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[..]
It's what they're telling us right now - it's been in the news this
week!

They are saying that if we can't cleaner energy, it's going to cost us -
the punter that is!

<shrug> So someone's working a scam. I've been hearing other things on
the radio this week, and reading other things all over the place.

Of course there's a scam. Do you really think the big businesses are
going to do anything other than try to increase profits?

Do you really think that big business is run by such morons that they
won't do everything in their power to maintain their market position and
ensure long-term optimum profitability?

Not *maximum possible now*, but `optimum, taking everything into account
including the long view'.

They're not stupid, are the boards running most big businesses - at
least, not as stupid as typical politicians. Of course they're trying
to maximise their profits, but the sensible ones have a long-term
conservative view (as one would expect) and they're not trying to
arrange for absolutely maxium profits right here&now regardless of
what's going to happen next week or next year or next decade, are they?

No, it's all about optimizing things, doing the best possible taking
everything into account.

*SOME* business people are stupid, and/or don't give a damn what happens
when they're retired and/or dead. That sort is not in a majority any
more as far as I can tell - but all I'm saying is that I think the
fraction is `less than 50%' which is a long way from `hardly any of 'em
being that thick or psychotic'.

[snip]

At the moment, we're paying a huge premium for using fossil fuel. I can
recall thinking `50p a litre for petrol! Oh god it's getting
expensive!' and that was only a decade or so ago.

Think on that.

I can recall the fuss about £1 a gallon.

The problem we have now is the speed at which the price is increasing in
such a short timescale.

Why's that a problem, particularly? I recall petrol at about £2/gallon
back in the 1970s. There were no fuel blockades, there was no screaming
from the great unwashed about how they couldn't afford to live, people
just got on with it.

People didn't rely so much on cars back then, indeed the 'great
unwashed' wouldn't have dreamed of owning a car anyway.

My father's parents were working class (although well washed, well
spoken, and living in a nice house with a nice garden). They had a car
from before I was born - and they lived in White City, hardly `bad for
public transport'. On the other hand, if you've got a static caravan on
the Isle of Sheppey, the car's dead useful.

However, right
now it's really starting to show up in other places now, the cost of
*everything* is now increasing,

It's not, you know. Food and fuel, yes - but not everything's going up.
Okay, the fuel price rise is biting into a lot of things.

and it's hurting in the wrong places.
Luxury items are still decreasing in price, but essentials (such as
food, heating, and commuting) are increasing, and quite significantly.

Aye - that is indeed the Big Problem. Under New Labour, the rich have
got richer and the poor have got poorer in a very noticable fashion.
Social exclusion and social segregation have increased greatly.

Bloody Mrs T's Tories did a lot more to help those less well off than
any Labour government that I've known myself, I reckon. And they
knocked down a lot of the old social barriers.

I've got a lot of very harsh things to say about Mrs T's lot especially
that scumbag Cecil `get her pregnant then dump her and who gives a ***
about that handicapped son of mine?' Parkinson; but they did get some
things right.

<sigh> One of the noticable characteristics of New Labour is its utter
incompetence. They keep cocking things up really, really badly - worse
than I recall even from the Heath and Wilson circus we used to suffer
from.

[snip]

Besides, who's to know where we might get
our resources in the future?

Me. We're not going to be getting material resources from off-planet
for many decades *at the earliest* - unless somone cracks the problem of
a true `space drive' sooner. I don't expect to live to see it, but I
might.

Who knows, we have seen some science fiction predictions come true not
too long after they were conceived.

Science fiction never attempts prediction. Or rather, traditional
`proper' SF doesn't. A lot of SF is written as warnings of what *MIGHT*
happen, or an exploration of `what might potentially happen, if...'

But it's not prediction.

I can't think of any ideas from SF that made it into reality soon after
they were conceived. You'd do well to bear in mind that quite a lot of
ideas from SF date back to ancient Greece.

We will be seeing `stuff made in Earth orbit' sooner than that; /much/
sooner than that. But I predict that almost all the raw material will
be lifted up from Earth, processed in orbit, and dropped back down again
(or used up there). I do expect to live to see that - less than 30
years, I reckon.

Well, yes, that's some of the point of the ISS.

No it's not. Not really. The EU wanted to use it for that, but the USA
put its foot down because while it was one of the original ideas, it
turns out that the USA is doing bugger all in that line in orbit and
wanted to ensure that the EU didn't have the chance to get a lead on the
USA.

So any work like that being done by ISS so-called partners has to be
done off the ISS proper. There is an EU project to do exactly that,
mind you.

All down to US protectionism. The USA doesn't really understand
`international co-operation'.

Sources that should be much easier, and cheaper, to
obtain in the future.

<puzzled> There's no energy source easier to get access to than solar
energy. Just step outside in the daytime - there it is. You wanna use
it? Plant some seeds.

Seems they government disagrees, looking at their intention to bung up
*thousands* of new wind turbines.

But where does that wind come from? Wind and wave power come from the
sun, don't they?

It's all solar - but how to gather it?

Direct photovoltaic conversion, direct conversion of solar radiation to
useful heat, or pick it up from the wind and the waves?

It all depends on the economic balance of things.

Perhaps we should be distinguishing between 'direct' and 'indirect'
solar energy then - just for clarification.

Not a bad idea. It's the sort of pedantry that's right up my street.

[..]
[..]
So, clearly what we need to do is make sure that Austria is dismantled
so it can't cause any more problems. Obviously.

LOL.

<glowers darkly> I'm only half joking. There are quite a few nations
in that part of the world that are nothing but trouble if you ask me.

I can't see why the `central and eastern European troublemakers' can't
be divvied up: some to Germany, some to the resurrected
Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, some to a Greater Greece, and maybe
Italy gets a few corners. Anything left over, give it to the Ukraine.
Russia can sod off.

Okay, okay, it couldn't possibly work, but.... Who needs bloody
Bosnia-Herzegovina? Serbia? Austria? Pfft.

One of the two main competing proposals for a united Germany (back
before they'd got it) included Austria in the scheme - why not do it
now? With the expanded EU, Germany won't be able to push everyone
around even if it is enlarged to that extent, and if they try invading
France again, the French will cackle in a Gallic fashion, whip out their
Mirages, and say `Go away or we nuke your cities'.

(and if the wind's from the West, they might do it anyway, just out of
spite)

Just look at what happened to Frank Whittle, hew was so badly screwed by
the government. Had he been allowed to develop, and market his idea
naturally, we would have been flying jet planes throughout the second
world war

Erm, not that I could see. There was no `natural' anything much about
the aviation industry back then.

Consider: the first jet powered plane took off in 1910
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coand%C4%83-1910>. My wife's seen a
replica in the museum in Romania. Okay, it was an accidental flight,
the aeroplane caught fire (thus leading to the discovery by its builder
Coanda of what we now call the Coanda effect, about the only advance
that his work gave the world), but it was a jet powered aircraft in
1910.

Hmm, interesting, hadn't seen that one before.

Thing is, that pointed the way. Why didn't commercial aviation
interests develop jet engines during the inter war years? They didn't
have any interest. About the only person I've read of in aviation who
was /really/ keen on jets (aside from the engine developers themselves)
was Hugo Junkers.

Possibly just a lack of understanding then, and I'd guess the lack of
suitable materials at the time for a jet engine.

Not that I recall.

I believe that was one
of the issues that dogged the Whittle design for a long time.

I don't recall reading anything quite like that. It took a bit of work
to figure out what materials to use, but I don't recall there being any
need for anything particularly exotic. The difficult bit was, so far as
I recall, in the design of the turbines and combustion chambers, and
also in control of the combustion.

The gas turbines put into production in Nazi Germany to power Me262s
(etc) had very short lives mostly because while the design was a fairly
reliable one when made with the specified materials, the materials were
not available due to constant bombing.

That's why those early German jets lasted such a short time - aluminium
alloy turbine blades, with some sort of coating on 'em, I forget what.

- if indeed, it would have even happened.

<cough> One of Frank Whittle's big problems was the fact that he was
Frank Whittle and as good at the political side of things as someone
who's very bad at the political side of things.

Keeping himself going on amphetamines and barbiturates did not help his
ability to negotiate with people.

Check out what *really* happened - the conventional story we hear is a
bit one-sided.

Aren't they always.

Not always.

[snip]

That's probably true. However, it was mainly because they needed cash to
develop a new engine to replace the aged V8 they'd been using for 40
years, in order to meet the modern emmission regs. They simply didn't
have £100million to do it.

Quite - they'd not bothered doing engine development. If they'd let
things drift for *40 years*, they had no engine designers left at a
guess, and how come? Crappy management put them in that position, yes?

AFAIK RR cars never did have a decent engine R&D department. They
designed the old 4.25ltr straight six, which was used almost
continuously until the sixties, when they started using the V8 6.75ltr
engine. I did get told that even that wasn't a RR design, but derived
from an American V8 lump (possibly a Buick).

I'd not be surprised.

Most of their technology
was borrowed (they used a GM auto transmission, and Citroen designed
suspension and brakes),

I'd heard about the US gearbox; didn't know about the Citroen
suspension. On the other hand, looking at the classic Citroens,
suspension is one thing they were very very good at.

so I doubt they had any real R&D for any part of
the car. Even the bodywork was often shipped out to specialist coach
builders (Mulliner-Ward and Jack Barclay were probably the most common).

<chuckle> Oh boy.

[snip]

Actually, they didn't. Many early 80's Jap cars had to at least use
*some* leaded mixed with unleaded.

The bikes didn't - not even most of the 1970s ones from what I recall
being said.

I had a 1984 BMW that couldn't run on unleaded - although I did, without
any problems.

Did you check the valve sealing areas?

No, they wouldn't. They get all the upper cylinder lubrication and
cooling they need from the 2-stroke oil - and, they don't (usually) have
any valves.

<shrug> What do you mean by valves? In the 1980s, it was only
primitive Iron Curtain iron that had no auxillary valves on two-stroke
engines. All the Jap 2 strokes had disc valves and/or reed valves, from
what I recall.

My H100 didn't have any.

Really? Coo!

[snip]

and usually needed the head skimming, or renewing if too badly
warped. These were generally caused by overheating just a little every
time they sat in traffic.

That is also caused by inadequate structural engineering in the engine
design - with stiff enough structures and enough strong bolts to hold it
together, the warping wouldn't have happened with mild overheating,
surely?

Possibly, or possibly just a combination of many factors, the heads are
pretty flimsy looking things on these.

Righto.

[snip]

Rowland.

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