Not so, the small particles are produced, in the atmosphere, via photochemical and other chemical processes, from the NOx, which are then inhaled, and they are believed to be very nasty indeed.
It's more that today's diesels are especially bad; at least potentially.
The general trend behind this is that people want to reduce CO2 emissions & use less fuel. Now, diesels can be made very efficient, particularly with high pressure combustion.
Trouble is, high pressure combustion gives high temperatures which are certainly more efficient, but boost the levels of NOx. Now NOx is a fairly horrible pollutant; it kills people. But the older, less efficient diesels didn't run so hot/at such high pressure, and didn't produce much of it, but produced particulates and higher CO2.
Now, some cars can do both; not produce much NOx and produce less CO2 as well as low particulates; but the way they normally do that is with urea injection which acts as a catalyst.
For various reasons VW wanted to avoid the catalyst tank, and yet also produce less CO2, but their (expensive) attempt to make an engine that did this using exhaust recirculation failed; and then they faked the tests.
So yeah, basically diesels tend to make worse NOx now.
It's not true that cars are inherently bad for your health. Electric cars don't have to burn anything; you can run them off wind, hydroelectricity, nuclear, solar; no particulates.
And they don't take such a lot of electricity either; only 10kWh per day to do the average 30 mile range, easily made with solar panels or wind turbines.
Sure, there may well be some particulates produced in their manufacture, but as the grid becomes greener, even that may become less; steel can be made from recycled metal using arc furnaces for example.
That's what I think too. The manufacturers will write code that will keep THEM out of trouble with the local legal system. In most cases it will avoid killing the driver as well, but there's no way that they're going to make the car software swerve off the road and mow down a queue at a bus stop to preserve the life of the driver.
People are saying: it's an ethical issue, no, it's primarily a legal issue, the programmers/company execs will keep themselves out of prison, everything else is secondary.
They seem to (perhaps unwisely) also be doing some encryption or modulo arithmetic or something to make sure that neighbouring cells have completely different words.
Not so much. Mainly, Teslas can charge fast, just because they have an enormous battery; so it can handle proportionately more power, and it turns out that having a big (heavy) battery doesn't affect the energy efficiency that much, so they can get lots of range as well.
Main downside: $$$$
That's also why Teslas accelerate so fast: the battery can output proportionately more power and Tesla can fit huge motors. If you put the same motor in a Nissan Leaf, the battery would explode- it can't safely supply the juice.
Of course the bigger battery makes the car heavier, which slows it down a bit, but adding battery is still a net win.
Cooling is also important, and smaller batteries DO help, but a lot of it is just having the massive battery pack.
Maybe it's related to the AF crash. In that, they pulled back on the stick and the stall warning went away. They pushed forward, and the stall warning came back.
Apparently, the stall warning system didn't believe the angle of attack readings (which were unusually high, but basically accurate) and that automatically silenced the alarm, even though: stall.
> But there's something weird going on here. The first officer apparently pulled his stick all the way back and made the plane climb at a rate of more than 10,000 ft/min before it stalled. That's a pretty insane maneuver and I can't find a rational explanation for it no matter what his training was. It's not an "inappropriate response" but rather a completely unprovoked action for no good reason whatsoever.
Maybe it would make sense if everything was working properly.
With modern fly-by-wire, you're not flying the aircraft, you're telling it what needs to be done. Pulling back all the way on the stick means 'go up, as fast as possible', and the aircraft will go up as fast as it can, and it won't let it stall.
In a degraded mode what will it do?
At that point a lot of the fly-by-wire will have shut down; and it may well let you stall it (looks like it does, two aircraft have been lost that way.)
So maybe the aeronautics have been implicitly training the crew to use over-the-top stick inputs, and that leads to crashes in these kinds of situations.
a) you're being extremely racist b) the copilot was actually French, and not Asian. c) it was the copilot that pulled back on the stick, while the stall warnings were on d) they were both pretty experienced- thousands of hours flying
But this wasn't an opaque box, there wasn't anywhere the hoax explosive could be. If there can be no explosive (or detonator) in it, and if he's not even presenting it as a bomb, then it's not a hoax bomb, whether there's superficial resemblances or not.
This is the tech that keeps lithobraking and exploding when it's supposed to be landing on a barge. They've been trying to pin a landing since the first flight of Falcon 1. They're currently on Falcon 9.
Maybe they'll succeed one day, but the very high performance rockets they build are obviously *very* fragile.
And that's the problem with their approach, pure rocket reusables have to be super lightly built, and then it's very difficult to make it back down to the ground.
Actually, I once did a computer model of SpaceX-style reusability, and that's actually what my model showed me, that it would be extremely hard for SpaceX to get it to work.
But my modelling shows that Skylon ought to make orbit, and return and land safety with comparative ease, Their design is very insensitive to weight growth; and they actually have spare mass built into their design in case things are harder than they look.
But yeah, I do agree with you pretty much on the economics, that's the worst part of their design. But compared to the economics of the Space Shuttle...;)
> Sure, at this stage of any project it's easy to be "looking at" very low costs. They haven't done anything yet. The nature of these kinds of projects is there are a whole bunch of costs, technical an regulatory, that aren't apparent until you actually start building something.
I don't agree. For example, the Space Shuttle estimates were about on the money. As in they said, the cost estimate is $X, but we'll need $1.2 X, to allow for obvious contingencies. President Nixon went: we don't budget contingencies, we'll give you X and then fund the overrun later. NASA: OK boss.
So actually, it cost what they said, but it looked to the rest of the world like an overrun.
And the Space Shuttle main engine was about as complicated as SABRE looks like it will be, maybe more so, it was an unreasonably complicated design.
And Reaction Engines actually have a careful design, with computer modelling of everything. That bodes well for a relatively straightforward detailed design and build. The X-33 had none of that, and when they got around to it, they found the horizontal stabilisation was total shit.
And the engine is particularly clever in that it works almost the same at all speeds; the precooler means that it doesn't care whether it's at ground level or Mach 5, the air behind the cooler is at the same temperature. That means, like a rocket engine, they can do almost complete testing when stationary. And the precooler also, they've already tested the precooler; it works fine. And the precooler was the most challenging bit of the whole system; it's something like half a gigawatt per tonne of cooling.
The take-home message is not that it's not a clever design, it's that most of the clever bits are easy to ground test. About the only bit they can't totally test on the ground is the aerodynamics of the aeroshell- but that was basically the same problem that the Space Shuttle faced and dealt with.
Slashdot Mirror
The Falcon 9 is built more like an eggshell whereas the SRBs was built more like a ship.
That actually makes a big difference. The SRBs should have been more reusable than the Falcon 9 is, although the SRBs needed more rework each time.
Not so, the small particles are produced, in the atmosphere, via photochemical and other chemical processes, from the NOx, which are then inhaled, and they are believed to be very nasty indeed.
It's more that today's diesels are especially bad; at least potentially.
The general trend behind this is that people want to reduce CO2 emissions & use less fuel. Now, diesels can be made very efficient, particularly with high pressure combustion.
Trouble is, high pressure combustion gives high temperatures which are certainly more efficient, but boost the levels of NOx. Now NOx is a fairly horrible pollutant; it kills people. But the older, less efficient diesels didn't run so hot/at such high pressure, and didn't produce much of it, but produced particulates and higher CO2.
Now, some cars can do both; not produce much NOx and produce less CO2 as well as low particulates; but the way they normally do that is with urea injection which acts as a catalyst.
For various reasons VW wanted to avoid the catalyst tank, and yet also produce less CO2, but their (expensive) attempt to make an engine that did this using exhaust recirculation failed; and then they faked the tests.
So yeah, basically diesels tend to make worse NOx now.
It's not true that cars are inherently bad for your health. Electric cars don't have to burn anything; you can run them off wind, hydroelectricity, nuclear, solar; no particulates.
And they don't take such a lot of electricity either; only 10kWh per day to do the average 30 mile range, easily made with solar panels or wind turbines.
Sure, there may well be some particulates produced in their manufacture, but as the grid becomes greener, even that may become less; steel can be made from recycled metal using arc furnaces for example.
Has that EVER happened???
That's what I think too. The manufacturers will write code that will keep THEM out of trouble with the local legal system. In most cases it will avoid killing the driver as well, but there's no way that they're going to make the car software swerve off the road and mow down a queue at a bus stop to preserve the life of the driver.
People are saying: it's an ethical issue, no, it's primarily a legal issue, the programmers/company execs will keep themselves out of prison, everything else is secondary.
Pro-tip: You're made of meat. Feel free to come over for dinner sometime, and leftovers.
They seem to (perhaps unwisely) also be doing some encryption or modulo arithmetic or something to make sure that neighbouring cells have completely different words.
Obviously, multiple implants!
Not so much. Mainly, Teslas can charge fast, just because they have an enormous battery; so it can handle proportionately more power, and it turns out that having a big (heavy) battery doesn't affect the energy efficiency that much, so they can get lots of range as well.
Main downside: $$$$
That's also why Teslas accelerate so fast: the battery can output proportionately more power and Tesla can fit huge motors. If you put the same motor in a Nissan Leaf, the battery would explode- it can't safely supply the juice.
Of course the bigger battery makes the car heavier, which slows it down a bit, but adding battery is still a net win.
Cooling is also important, and smaller batteries DO help, but a lot of it is just having the massive battery pack.
Maybe it's related to the AF crash. In that, they pulled back on the stick and the stall warning went away. They pushed forward, and the stall warning came back.
Apparently, the stall warning system didn't believe the angle of attack readings (which were unusually high, but basically accurate) and that automatically silenced the alarm, even though: stall.
> But there's something weird going on here. The first officer apparently pulled his stick all the way back and made the plane climb at a rate of more than 10,000 ft/min before it stalled. That's a pretty insane maneuver and I can't find a rational explanation for it no matter what his training was. It's not an "inappropriate response" but rather a completely unprovoked action for no good reason whatsoever.
Maybe it would make sense if everything was working properly.
With modern fly-by-wire, you're not flying the aircraft, you're telling it what needs to be done. Pulling back all the way on the stick means 'go up, as fast as possible', and the aircraft will go up as fast as it can, and it won't let it stall.
In a degraded mode what will it do?
At that point a lot of the fly-by-wire will have shut down; and it may well let you stall it (looks like it does, two aircraft have been lost that way.)
So maybe the aeronautics have been implicitly training the crew to use over-the-top stick inputs, and that leads to crashes in these kinds of situations.
> Sooner or later a combination of events will occur that will be outside the envelope of the crew's training or their ability to respond effectively.
Sure, but what kind of fucktard pulls back on the stick to a stall warning???
OK I have a few issues with your post:
a) you're being extremely racist
b) the copilot was actually French, and not Asian.
c) it was the copilot that pulled back on the stick, while the stall warnings were on
d) they were both pretty experienced- thousands of hours flying
Moral panic
On that basis, any clock is a hoax bomb, it could have been taken apart and rewired.
This is just a moral panic. All Moslems are, of course, trying to blow up right-thinking Americans, and any behavior is interpreted as that.
Is the Moon a hoax bomb? If I claim it is a bomb, about to go off, is that now a suspected hoax bomb? Give me a break.
Anyone can suspect anything or anyone of anything. That doesn't make it a justified belief.
In real life we want justified beliefs.
The complete lack of anything resembling an explosive or detonator makes anyone suspecting it to be a bomb very stupid.
But this wasn't an opaque box, there wasn't anywhere the hoax explosive could be. If there can be no explosive (or detonator) in it, and if he's not even presenting it as a bomb, then it's not a hoax bomb, whether there's superficial resemblances or not.
Yes, but to be a hoax *bomb* there would have to be a hoax *explosive*.
Where's the fake explosive in any picture of this device???
There isn't one.
Did he even claim it was a fake bomb at any time??? The answer seems to be: no.
It's all a load of rubbish, and the police knew that, which is why they let him go.
Baked beans on toast is complete protein. It's not rocket science.
Yes, they can be used as part of a multi-factor security system, but as a single security factor, they don't work.
> Their tech works and they built it.
LOL, I don't think so.
This is the tech that keeps lithobraking and exploding when it's supposed to be landing on a barge. They've been trying to pin a landing since the first flight of Falcon 1. They're currently on Falcon 9.
Maybe they'll succeed one day, but the very high performance rockets they build are obviously *very* fragile.
And that's the problem with their approach, pure rocket reusables have to be super lightly built, and then it's very difficult to make it back down to the ground.
> Even the most devoutly religious would not actively wager money to put their faith to the test.
People do this kind of stuff all the time.
Many people wager their lives on their belief in a God, and... usually die.
George R. Price famously gave all his possessions to the poor; got evicted, fell into depression and then killed himself.
Actually, I once did a computer model of SpaceX-style reusability, and that's actually what my model showed me, that it would be extremely hard for SpaceX to get it to work.
But my modelling shows that Skylon ought to make orbit, and return and land safety with comparative ease, Their design is very insensitive to weight growth; and they actually have spare mass built into their design in case things are harder than they look.
But yeah, I do agree with you pretty much on the economics, that's the worst part of their design. But compared to the economics of the Space Shuttle... ;)
> Sure, at this stage of any project it's easy to be "looking at" very low costs. They haven't done anything yet. The nature of these kinds of projects is there are a whole bunch of costs, technical an regulatory, that aren't apparent until you actually start building something.
I don't agree. For example, the Space Shuttle estimates were about on the money. As in they said, the cost estimate is $X, but we'll need $1.2 X, to allow for obvious contingencies. President Nixon went: we don't budget contingencies, we'll give you X and then fund the overrun later. NASA: OK boss.
So actually, it cost what they said, but it looked to the rest of the world like an overrun.
And the Space Shuttle main engine was about as complicated as SABRE looks like it will be, maybe more so, it was an unreasonably complicated design.
And Reaction Engines actually have a careful design, with computer modelling of everything. That bodes well for a relatively straightforward detailed design and build. The X-33 had none of that, and when they got around to it, they found the horizontal stabilisation was total shit.
And the engine is particularly clever in that it works almost the same at all speeds; the precooler means that it doesn't care whether it's at ground level or Mach 5, the air behind the cooler is at the same temperature. That means, like a rocket engine, they can do almost complete testing when stationary. And the precooler also, they've already tested the precooler; it works fine. And the precooler was the most challenging bit of the whole system; it's something like half a gigawatt per tonne of cooling.
The take-home message is not that it's not a clever design, it's that most of the clever bits are easy to ground test. About the only bit they can't totally test on the ground is the aerodynamics of the aeroshell- but that was basically the same problem that the Space Shuttle faced and dealt with.