Do you know this, I've sat in a *lot* of cars. I've sat in an FSO Polonez and a Trabbi, and I've sat in Jaguars and Lexuses. I've been in a Bentley Continental with hand-built custom seats trimmed in Harris tweed and tartan. I've driven a tractor which had a seat that in itself was more expensive than a mid-range Merc E-class, never mind the rest of the tractor. I own a couple of Citroen CXes (seats not that great but the ride makes up for it) and Mercedes Vito van (seats actually pretty good, ride and handling pretty competent for a work van). I've even flown a custom-built sports plane with specially-made one-off Recaro seats.
Do you know which vehicle had the best seats I've ever sat in? The mid-80s Nissan Micra K10 series. Hands down. I've never driven anything that I could drive a full 500 miles on a tank of fuel without stopping, and not get so much as a trace of a numb arse. They were the best bit about the car, which to be fair isn't particularly hard.
stiff suspension is a prerequisite for good handling
No, it isn't. Stiff suspension will give you a harsh ride, nothing more. It may help give you good handling on a perfectly smooth road surface with banked turns - ie. a track - but it will give you atrocious handling on practical roads.
You need stiffly-damped suspension with relatively soft springs. Unfortunately lots of people now associate "sporty" with low, excessively stiff suspension (the suspension needs to be stiff because the car has so little ground clearance to begin with any heavy weight in the car will cause it to bottom out). Oh, and let's not forget a loud farty exhaust, that makes it sporty too.
I've driven a few cars with self-levelling suspension (Citroens and Mercedes, and also a Bentley with the cut-down cost-reduced version of the Citroen CX suspension - a horrible compromise but then the Bentley isn't really intended for fast twisty roads). I've also tried ones with active suspension - probably the nicest is the Hydractive system fitted to Citroen XMs and some Peugeot 605s. This actually varies the spring rate by switching in and out an additional "sphere" (gas spring) and damper block depending on how the car is being driven. A car equipped with this suspension system will easily outhandle anything with old bedsprings.
Uhm, have you ever driven a BMW? They have *horrible* ride quality, with rock hard suspension and crap seats - and downright unpleasant handling. BMW haven't really made a decent car since the E30.
What's particularly a pain in the arse about BMW is that from at least the E30/E34/E32 family onwards the central locking actuators have a mechanical locking mechanism that prevents the lock rod being pulled out against the motor - that is, when the central locking is on the locks can't even be released from the inside, or with the key.
Now, imagine you need to recover a nice new 3-series with an electrical fault. There's no power, so the central locking doesn't work. You can't unlock it with the key (the newest models don't even have external locks). Even if you take out a window you can't get the doors open. You can't even release the locks without removing the door card, but you can't do that because the door is still closed and you haven't got room to get at it. You can't get at the wiring to the actuators (and in any case the newest cars use CANBus to talk to them so you're out of luck until you get the electrics back up. You can't get at the body ECU without the passenger door open, without sitting in a weird upside down yoga pose on the passenger seat, legs wrapped around the headrest and head under the dashboard (and if you can do that for any length of time I'd like to meet your sister).
At this point, just sawing the car in half, fixing the locks, and welding it back together starts to look like a viable option.
Don't kid yourself. Cities in the US have got just as much CCTV, *and* you've got armed police everywhere too. Not to mention the proliferation of metal detectors in public buildings.
Please realise that this story is published in a far-right newspaper originally started to publish the antisemitic views of Oswald Moseley. The Daily Mail is anti-government, anti-Europe, against socialised healthcare or indeed any form of social responsibility, and run by people known to be members of right-wing extremist groups.
If you're not white, English and a good tax-paying servant^Wcitizen, the Daily Mail hate you and want you jailed, deported, or dead.
Well, that's the thing. Part of the problem there was that the Americans were pumping all sorts of goodies at the bratty German kid. It took well into 1942 before they realised they were backing the wrong side and, as with so many alliances the US have been involved in since, they flip-flopped and started to come round to the idea that maybe these *weren't* the good guys after all.
Once the US had bought some important technologies from Britain (like, aero engines that didn't totally suck - the US has never made a good engine) and effective radio equipment, then they were able to help quite a lot. They sure as hell didn't "win the war" by themselves, though. They very nearly lost it utterly.
What's more likely is that the Americans will poke at them until they get annoyed, then start a fight. Then we'll have to send British and Swedish forces in to sort out the resulting mess when the Yanks can't handle it.
This is one of the great things about the BBC. A dozen or so channels, with *no adverts*. None. Masses of good radio channels, too, again with no adverts.
Well, on a 6502, 16 bit addition is a whooping two instructions instead of one, so I don't see the problem, really.
Ah, but it's not as simple as that. You've got to fetch four bytes separately from memory, which takes longer than two word fetches.
The clock speed doesn't tell the whole story, though, because the 6502 used a split-phase clock. So, a single machine cycle takes two clock states - the fetch occurs on the leading phase and the execute on the lagging phase. Theoretically a 2MHz 6502 is rattling through instructions at roughly the same rate as a 4MHz Z80.
I ran my old Citroen CX 25DTR with its 2.5 litre turbodiesel on veg oil. Since it ran so clean compared to burning dead dinosaurs I could drastically increase the fuelling and boost without getting significant smoke. I kept it around 18psi boost, which gave it about 160bhp at 2400rpm and 300lb/ft torque at 1700rpm - I managed 400lb/ft but 22psi of boost is getting unhealthy;-)
At the 18psi settings, I managed to do 0-60mph in 13 seconds - pulling a Chevy Blazer on a trailer.
Mine are perfectly clean and in-band. If something listening 100MHz away can't filter it out, then it's hardly my fault. I can filter out all the buzz and chatter from cheap crappy ISM band gear with an output spectrum as wide as a bull's backside, why can't they?
Yeah, hydroelectric power isn't very ecologically friendly though. You've got to destroy truly massive amounts of land to get a relatively small amount of power. Not a great way to go about it.
(You can see my dad driving a dump truck in one of the films about the construction of the Loch Awe pumped storage scheme)
Yes, this is one of the big downsides of solar here - in the winter when you need the electricity (or heat for that matter) you get about six hours of direct sunlight at most.
Wind isn't much good either, since it's usually too gusty for wind turbines to operate efficiently. In the winter the winds are either too high for the turbines to run safely, or it's flat calm.
It's not really "lost", though. It just gets out of your local closed system and back into the global environment. If you just let all the steam go, it will float off into the atmosphere until it gets cold and all the little molecules start to miss their friends.
There's currently about 5cm an hour of the result coming down all over NW Scotland.
I'll start caring about their wifi toys when they turn off the Homeplug powerline ethernet rubbish that makes such a mess of HF. Oh, and the plasma TVs. They're pretty grubby as well.
When I fire up my 13cm amateur radio gear, I obliterate everything that uses 2.4GHz wireless for a mile or two radius until I'm done transmitting.
Don't like it? Then make sure your filthy unlicensed ISM gear has adequate filtering. Oh, you bought the cheapest crappiest wifi card you could find? Sucks to be you.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you know this, I've sat in a *lot* of cars. I've sat in an FSO Polonez and a Trabbi, and I've sat in Jaguars and Lexuses. I've been in a Bentley Continental with hand-built custom seats trimmed in Harris tweed and tartan. I've driven a tractor which had a seat that in itself was more expensive than a mid-range Merc E-class, never mind the rest of the tractor. I own a couple of Citroen CXes (seats not that great but the ride makes up for it) and Mercedes Vito van (seats actually pretty good, ride and handling pretty competent for a work van). I've even flown a custom-built sports plane with specially-made one-off Recaro seats.
Do you know which vehicle had the best seats I've ever sat in? The mid-80s Nissan Micra K10 series. Hands down. I've never driven anything that I could drive a full 500 miles on a tank of fuel without stopping, and not get so much as a trace of a numb arse. They were the best bit about the car, which to be fair isn't particularly hard.
even if I was the rancher, I'd rather lobby for taxpayer reimbursement through some sort of "cattle-rustlin' loss fund" or something
So how exactly does this replace your stolen cattle?
You can't just go out and buy more.
stiff suspension is a prerequisite for good handling
No, it isn't. Stiff suspension will give you a harsh ride, nothing more. It may help give you good handling on a perfectly smooth road surface with banked turns - ie. a track - but it will give you atrocious handling on practical roads.
You need stiffly-damped suspension with relatively soft springs. Unfortunately lots of people now associate "sporty" with low, excessively stiff suspension (the suspension needs to be stiff because the car has so little ground clearance to begin with any heavy weight in the car will cause it to bottom out). Oh, and let's not forget a loud farty exhaust, that makes it sporty too.
I've driven a few cars with self-levelling suspension (Citroens and Mercedes, and also a Bentley with the cut-down cost-reduced version of the Citroen CX suspension - a horrible compromise but then the Bentley isn't really intended for fast twisty roads). I've also tried ones with active suspension - probably the nicest is the Hydractive system fitted to Citroen XMs and some Peugeot 605s. This actually varies the spring rate by switching in and out an additional "sphere" (gas spring) and damper block depending on how the car is being driven. A car equipped with this suspension system will easily outhandle anything with old bedsprings.
Uhm, have you ever driven a BMW? They have *horrible* ride quality, with rock hard suspension and crap seats - and downright unpleasant handling. BMW haven't really made a decent car since the E30.
What's particularly a pain in the arse about BMW is that from at least the E30/E34/E32 family onwards the central locking actuators have a mechanical locking mechanism that prevents the lock rod being pulled out against the motor - that is, when the central locking is on the locks can't even be released from the inside, or with the key.
Now, imagine you need to recover a nice new 3-series with an electrical fault. There's no power, so the central locking doesn't work. You can't unlock it with the key (the newest models don't even have external locks). Even if you take out a window you can't get the doors open. You can't even release the locks without removing the door card, but you can't do that because the door is still closed and you haven't got room to get at it. You can't get at the wiring to the actuators (and in any case the newest cars use CANBus to talk to them so you're out of luck until you get the electrics back up. You can't get at the body ECU without the passenger door open, without sitting in a weird upside down yoga pose on the passenger seat, legs wrapped around the headrest and head under the dashboard (and if you can do that for any length of time I'd like to meet your sister).
At this point, just sawing the car in half, fixing the locks, and welding it back together starts to look like a viable option.
Don't kid yourself. Cities in the US have got just as much CCTV, *and* you've got armed police everywhere too. Not to mention the proliferation of metal detectors in public buildings.
Scary stuff.
Please realise that this story is published in a far-right newspaper originally started to publish the antisemitic views of Oswald Moseley. The Daily Mail is anti-government, anti-Europe, against socialised healthcare or indeed any form of social responsibility, and run by people known to be members of right-wing extremist groups.
If you're not white, English and a good tax-paying servant^Wcitizen, the Daily Mail hate you and want you jailed, deported, or dead.
Well, that's the thing. Part of the problem there was that the Americans were pumping all sorts of goodies at the bratty German kid. It took well into 1942 before they realised they were backing the wrong side and, as with so many alliances the US have been involved in since, they flip-flopped and started to come round to the idea that maybe these *weren't* the good guys after all.
Once the US had bought some important technologies from Britain (like, aero engines that didn't totally suck - the US has never made a good engine) and effective radio equipment, then they were able to help quite a lot. They sure as hell didn't "win the war" by themselves, though. They very nearly lost it utterly.
People are not arrested and prosecuted for accidents
They're talking about America, Land of the "Free", where you can be arrested and prosecuted *for crossing the road in the wrong place*!
What's more likely is that the Americans will poke at them until they get annoyed, then start a fight. Then we'll have to send British and Swedish forces in to sort out the resulting mess when the Yanks can't handle it.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
We've had 30 years of Tory misrule. It's about time *someone* was pro-Labour.
... which isn't a tax, and which you are not required pay.
I've never had a TV licence, and I neither need one nor intend to get one. I don't intend to get rid of my TV, either.
You don't have to pay taxes for it. It's not taxpayer-funded.
This is one of the great things about the BBC. A dozen or so channels, with *no adverts*. None. Masses of good radio channels, too, again with no adverts.
Well, on a 6502, 16 bit addition is a whooping two instructions instead of one, so I don't see the problem, really.
Ah, but it's not as simple as that. You've got to fetch four bytes separately from memory, which takes longer than two word fetches.
The clock speed doesn't tell the whole story, though, because the 6502 used a split-phase clock. So, a single machine cycle takes two clock states - the fetch occurs on the leading phase and the execute on the lagging phase. Theoretically a 2MHz 6502 is rattling through instructions at roughly the same rate as a 4MHz Z80.
Yes, but the Z80 could use 16-bit data words. 16-bit multiply to give a 32-bit product was a hell of a faffy job on the 6502.
I ran my old Citroen CX 25DTR with its 2.5 litre turbodiesel on veg oil. Since it ran so clean compared to burning dead dinosaurs I could drastically increase the fuelling and boost without getting significant smoke. I kept it around 18psi boost, which gave it about 160bhp at 2400rpm and 300lb/ft torque at 1700rpm - I managed 400lb/ft but 22psi of boost is getting unhealthy ;-)
At the 18psi settings, I managed to do 0-60mph in 13 seconds - pulling a Chevy Blazer on a trailer.
Mine are perfectly clean and in-band. If something listening 100MHz away can't filter it out, then it's hardly my fault. I can filter out all the buzz and chatter from cheap crappy ISM band gear with an output spectrum as wide as a bull's backside, why can't they?
Yeah, hydroelectric power isn't very ecologically friendly though. You've got to destroy truly massive amounts of land to get a relatively small amount of power. Not a great way to go about it.
(You can see my dad driving a dump truck in one of the films about the construction of the Loch Awe pumped storage scheme)
Guess what? I'm breaking all kinds of FCC regulations, *right now*. I don't plan on stopping any time soon, either.
73s de MM0YEQ
Yes, this is one of the big downsides of solar here - in the winter when you need the electricity (or heat for that matter) you get about six hours of direct sunlight at most.
Wind isn't much good either, since it's usually too gusty for wind turbines to operate efficiently. In the winter the winds are either too high for the turbines to run safely, or it's flat calm.
It's not really "lost", though. It just gets out of your local closed system and back into the global environment. If you just let all the steam go, it will float off into the atmosphere until it gets cold and all the little molecules start to miss their friends.
There's currently about 5cm an hour of the result coming down all over NW Scotland.
... so watch it get shouted down by the right-wing big-government cloud-cuckoolanders.
I'll start caring about their wifi toys when they turn off the Homeplug powerline ethernet rubbish that makes such a mess of HF. Oh, and the plasma TVs. They're pretty grubby as well.
When I fire up my 13cm amateur radio gear, I obliterate everything that uses 2.4GHz wireless for a mile or two radius until I'm done transmitting.
Don't like it? Then make sure your filthy unlicensed ISM gear has adequate filtering. Oh, you bought the cheapest crappiest wifi card you could find? Sucks to be you.