Okay. Whoever moderated this down is an idiot. You don't moderate a posting up or down based on whether or not you agree with the point made: you moderate based on the quality of the facts and method in which they're presented.
You know, I see that this dinosaur is known for its rather unusual teeth.
British people on the whole, including rock stars, are often known for their equally unusual teeth.
So, it's natural: name the snaggletoothed dinosaur after a Brit!
Now, in all seriousness, kidding aside, Mark Knopfler kicks ass. He's arguably one of the greatest guitarists of our time. His music has melody and power. He's not to be underestimated, either: his fan base is *huge* and loyal, though he's kinda like Cliff Richards in that he's not really a North American phenomenon.
Hit Napster, take a look around for Money For Nothing - the extended version, about 7 minutes long - it's his biggest hit and it has one of the best guitar solos out there.
Most of the rest of his stuff is more mellow; it's great tunes for making out in the back seat of your vintage musclecar. Brothers in Arms, My Parties, Telegraph Road (live) and Sultans of Swing are the best of Dire Straits.
My Parties is one of the best songs with which to upset your enviro-wacko friends:
Now don't talk to me about the polar bear
Don't talk to me about the ozone layer
Ain't much of anything these days, even the air
They're running out of rhinos - what do I care?
Let's hear it for the dolphin - let's hear it for the trees
Ain't running out of nothing in my deep freeze
It's casual entertaining - we aim to please
At my parties
Of course, Mark is only kidding around... he's a big Greenpeace supporter or something like that.
November 21,1783 was the first recorded manned flight in a hot air balloon. 1793 was first balloon flight in USA.
Bah! Balloons! No engine, no point.
Even so, remember Around the World in 80 Days? That was set in 1888. Well less than a century later, we could do the circumference of the planet in under 88 minutes.
That's an order of magnitude.
Shoot, the idea of flight goes back to the myth of Icarus flying too close to the sun. When was the first concept of radio transmission? Somebody in the 1830's must have thought, "this telegraph is great, but could we do this without wires?"
True. I think it was really Faraday and Oerstead who pioneered in radio, though they didn't understand it. Tesla made the first practical broadband transmitters (!) later in the century and then it was Marconi who actually saw the broader picture and was able to harness all the concepts discovered by the others.
Of course, that's subject to very volatile debates among radio afficionados.
But, really, since then, what has happened? We haven't got radio waves to travel faster than the speed of light. All we've managed to do is refine the transmitters and receivers to the point where they're small, efficient, and can often change freqency on the fly. You still really have only two ways of modulating a carrier, and one of those (AM) hearkens right back to the dawn of the era with the first spark gap transmitters.
Because Omnibot is Gaelic for all-purpose penis. There aren't that many Gaelic speakers, but enough to make the product a laughing-stock.
Hey, I'd have thought that would have *helped* it sell. Especially to bored housewives whose husbands are spending *way* too much time tending the sheep.
Stupid naming mistakes, Part II. Chevrolet Nova. Named during the space race, a lot of other cars had space-themed names: Buick Apollo, Plymouth Satellite, Ford Comet/Mercury Meteor.
Of course, General Motors couldn't figure out why the Chevrolet Nova didn't sell well to Hispanics.
The name translates with incorrect grammar, but certainly doomed the sales of the Nova in Mexico.
Why? Copying data CD's is illegal. Making a personal copy of an audio "musical work" is not. Maybe you didn't know that.
I'm sure I did, actually.
I think I'm underscoring the stupidity of the following situation: when I buy blank CD-Rs to make a backup of the contents of my hard disks, I'm paying to support the losses of the Canadian recording industry.
You see, I think that's unfair. And, because it's unfairness that has been ramrodded into place for dubious protectionist causes, it's also socialism doing what it does best.
It is a levy not a tax. None of the money goes to the government, it goes to the Canadian Private Copying Collective.
Yes. The equivalent to a garnish on your paycheck, except imposed on the other side of the short cycle that money has in my possession.
Hell, let's get down to brass tacks. I don't copy music CDs. Especially not Canadian artists. Most of it is only slightly less lame than the average high school band. So why should I have to pay for "service charges" that the Collective forces on me, when, in fact, no services were rendered?
It's an erosion of my freedom. Because I work for my money, every percentage point of my income that is taken away for government programs that don't benefit me erodes my freedom. Money is merely a tangible approximation of time; money that is wasted by silly taxes (yes, and *levies*) is simply an indentured servitude.
It's less voluntary than being slave labor in a prison yard: at least the prisoner has chosen to have his time wasted when he committed his offense.
I hate Canada. At least these porkbelly projects represent a lesser percentage of the tax load in the United States.
(Every time I say that I hate Canada, I get moderated up, then one or two intelligent postings agreeing with me, and a flurry of "then move!" messages from basically illiterate Anonymous Cowards. Let's skip all the bullshit, okay? When I *do* take a position in the United States (and I'm marking off days on a calendar at this point), it will be Canada's loss. I am not coming back. There will be one less sucker sending more than 50% of his income to Ottawa so that it can be reappropriated to protectionist porkbellies like the CBC, the CRTC's Canadian Content monitoring, cash immigration bonuses to illiterate Bangladeshis while doctors from G7 countries are denied visas, and a government bureaucracy that is so heavily unionized that it has no hope of ever running efficiently.)
Also, are you implying that gambling is outlawed in Socialist Canada? Here in Ontario I can think of large Casinos in Orilla, Niagra Falls, Windsor, Sue-Saint Marie, and countless slots at all the race tracks..
No, I didn't imply it. Re-read the posting. It was quite clearly an analogy of an equally stupid, hypocritical, and yet common, government position.
As a sidebar, I think gambling should be completely legal, with far less restrictions than it currently has. If people are stupid enough to throw away their paychecks on games of chance, let them. In nature, it's called survival of the fittest, and it seems to work pretty well.
But you HAVE paid for the right to copy CDs. For you and for friends. You have paid all the royalties you owe, and it would never make it to court because you didn't do anything illegal. Look it up for yourself if you want.
If that's the case, that has to extend to data CDs, too.
Which means that *if* I happen to have installed Windows 2000 on this computer, and *if* I did it only because I need to learn it so I can support it at work, and *if* it happens to be installed from a CD copy that was made on a disc that was covered under the media tax, *then* I should have no issues.
I'm not saying I've done that, I'm only citing this as yet another protectionist and socialist scheme which has backfired. Because, of course, the government taxes blank media since the royalties aren't going to artists. However, it also becomes a tacit encouragement to make illegal copies. This is as hypocritical as a government that outlaws gambling yet still runs a state lottery.
Gee, if I were an artist, I'd be sooooo glad that those wonderfully consequence-thinking socialists were looking out for me.
A copyright tax on blank media is merely a way that the government can legalize piracy as long as they get the proceeds. Like a lottery is a way that the government can legalize gambling as long as they get the cash.
Now, if the socialists hadn't taxed blank media, then a pirate couldn't argue that he'd paid his royalties, and therefore copyright law would remain fully enforceable.
(For the record, my employer provided me with my copy of Windows 2000 Professional. But the example still holds.)
Yup, I've got the scissors all sharpened up for Sunday afternoon's Pravda-shredding. As any pre-democracy Russian will tell you, the Wednesday edition of Pravda makes the best toilet paper. I don't know why, but when I use it to wipe, it's almost as cottony soft as Lenin's beard.
We've had this in Canada since last year, and it really hasn't made any difference.
Heh. Yeah, right. Tell that to Sheila Copps, the bitch who helped to put it in place. It's to help more inept musicians saturate Canada's airwaves, while talented Canadian musicians - who will prosper on their own without government help - promptly pick up and move to greener pastures in the United States.
(See Alanis Morrissette, The Barenaked Ladies, Crash Test Dummies, Big Sugar, Maestro Fres Wes, SoulDecision, Choclair, Celine Dion, Sloan,... Paul Anka?)
Meanwhile, it's yet another tax to help to "level the playing field" so that the untalented can saturate our airwaves. To, effectively, make up for the lesser talent and ability of, for example, The Tragically Hip.
I hope Sheila Copps gets inoperable colon cancer.
However, I think that the people that set the levy realised that corporations were only out to save themselves... or the people were vocal enough that the amount chosen was really small.
If I'm paying a tax that is auspiciously because I'm going to illegally copy something anyway, haven't I then paid for the right to copy it? Haven't I now paid the royalties that I owe, in order to make all the guilt-free CDs, for me and my friends, that I want to make? I think that could be a very interesting court challenge.
In any event, I would consider us lucky.
Oh yeah. Any luckier, and the Sunday afternoon tradition in Canada will be cutting up last week's Pravda for toilet paper.
Of course, police love to do things like this to people they know won't be convicted because the police know that his equipment will be seized. He will likely never see any of his 7 computers or "hacking books" ever again no matter what happens because it will be filed as evidence. Read "the hacker crackdown". Of course, that book would be "evidence" if you are ever raided.
So, uhh, even though I haven't touched an illicit substance since I left my previous career of sound and lighting for rock concerts, could my book, "Grow Yer Own Stone" be used against me?
Sheesh. I'd better get rid of those fluorescent light fixtures stacked in my closet - I bought them to put up in my garage, and just haven't gotten around to it yet.
I know exactly what you mean. The research lab I worked in had a LJII that had been cranking away since it was new, and when I left there (7 years ago), the page count was 350,000.
Uh-huh.
I used to work for a small office equipment company many years ago - 1995/1996. We had a bunch of service techs who would fix photocopiers and laser printers; I was one of the computer techs.
We had one customer who had a LaserJet II, and they were with a publishing house. Their authors used to frequently submit manuscripts on diskette or via e-mail, and then the editors would print them out, read them, and make notes - you know, the sort of thing that you can really only do on paper (no matter how sophisticated M$ tries to make Office).
I don't remember how to do it now, but I was horrified when I printed out the test page and saw a count of over 1.5 million pages.
Granted, that machine was *worn out* - all the motor bushings, separator pads, even the buttons on the front panel, were worn loose or polished smoothly.
And yet, the damned thing kept on going.
There are only a few things that will survive a nuclear war: cockroaches, McDonalds uniforms, Dodge Darts and Hewlett-Packard printers.
Amazing products. Too bad I don't plan on having kids, these would make great family heirlooms.
Indeed! The family tree stops here, too. I still need to figure out who (50 years from now, I expect) will get my antique radio and TV collection. (Oh, and my TI-99/4As.)
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
That man must have gone through a lot of Marshalls. Jimi was kewl.
Spagthorpe Motorcycles? [sigh] You almost got me with the Nicola Tesla in the people page - one could argue that he helped to refine magneto ignition. Then I read the article...:)
Posting an obit is just not something you want to post a joke with... Period, the end.
I want my funeral to be a happy celebration of my life.
I want people to have fun as they remember crazy things I've done; the Chevette with the 3.8L Buick V6 engine, the displaced Chevette 1.6L engine installed on the old Ariens snowblower, the TI-99/4A playing Flight of the Bumblebees in three part harmony with its floppy disk drives. The secret project that I'm working on right now...
Like I say, when I die, I want a party. I wanna have a kegger in my name. And the eulogy? As long as it's respectful, it can call me certifiable as many times as its writer wants.
Show a little fucking respect. He was an ingenious engineer and an far more amazing person that Bill Gates
Well, there's a backhanded compliment, if ever there was one. There are only two ways that they're even remotely comparable: They're both on Pacific time, and they're both named Bill.
Ok, this is kinda offtopic, but man, chill. Everyone always gets all uppity when someone dies and takes things way to serious. I mean hell, obviously the guys at slashdot thing highly enough of Bill Hewlett to post about his death, which is a tribute to him in and of itself.
Exactly. I'm an HP fan. I use a lot of their test equipment in my work. And put a lot of miles on their printer. Hewlett-Packard makes fine products, and it takes a fine man with vision and concern for his customers to enforce that.
And with no disrespect for him - Bill Hewlett and David Packard are two people whom I admire tremendously - I will take his name in vain next time I fire up that damned 25 year old HP oscilloscope that I've been trying to get my boss to replace. I know that I'm not going to get the new 'scope I want until that thing dies. I also know that thing is not going to die on its own. And it's too much of a work of art to pull a Kevorkian on it by dropping a quarter into one of its ventilation slots.
From everything I've heard about him, that little tale would make William Hewlett smile.
Rock on, Bill. The world needs more people like you.
Hewlett-Packard: responsible for confusing generations of calculator users.
At least you can be sure that once you've figured out how to use the damned calculator, you won't need to replace it for a *long* time.
Hewlett-Packard: responsible for building indestructible test equipment and laser printers.
At the office, we have a ten year old LaserJet IIID. It's had a fuser in it because our receptionist caught a label in it and scratched the teflon off it by trying to scrape the sheet out with scissors. Aside from that, a toner/drum cartridge every two weeks. Yes, a toner cartridge every two weeks. We do print that much, and the thing has never missed a beat.
Estimating conservatively 3,000 pages per cartridge (probably more because we do lots of long documents) and 50 weeks in a year (actually 52, but that's okay):
10 years x 50 = 500 weeks.
New toner every 2 weeks = 250 toner cartridges.
3,000 pages per toner x 250 = 750,000 pages.
And to think that the office supply company told us to buy an offset press. Ha!
More stuff should be built like that. It goes without saying that when the engineering department needed a printer of their own, we bought another LaserJet.
Now, if only I could get that damned 25-year-old HP dual-trace oscilloscope to die so I can buy a new HP Digital Storage scope. Or the friggin' 35-year-old HP Microwave Power Meter that uses a bank of 12AX7s which require a few seconds to warm up but 20 minutes to stabilize before I can take a good reading.
Damn you, Bill Hewlett. <grin> Sometimes excessive quality is a liability. And it's really cool to be able to complain about this.
You forgot the "stealth" factor with respect to photo speed radar guns. The hood reflected incoming radiowaves up, while the radiator coils below the hood were slanted and reflected the radiowaves down into the ground. So almost nothing reflects back to the radar gun!
Yeah, all one would need to do for complete stealth would be to hang a CD from the rear view mirror to deflect a laser speed trap. [sigh]
First off, radar waves are a kind of radio wave, in a band called "Microwave", because the wavelength is so short. They're highly directional, like light; but they pass through, and are reflected by, the same things as ordinary radio waves. Radar speed traps usually run in X-band, which is about 12GHz, and is usually generated with a Gunn diode with a 1/2 wave antenna poking into a piece of waveguide.
In a Fiero, the hood - the *whole* hood - is plastic. Microwave energy will go right through it, hit the firewall behind, and bounce back to the gun. The Doppler effect (the same thing that makes a train whistle appear to change in pitch as it goes past you) is read by a computer which then calculates your speed and puts it on the display (and therefore onto the impending speeding ticket).
Yes, the radiator - which is aluminum, and is angled at about 35-40 degrees forward - will reflect some of the energy toward the ground. But there'll be more than enough coming off the car's steel unibody for the cop to get a good read off you.
And, no, the CD hanging from the rear view mirror doesn't stealth you from laser speed guns, despite the urban legend that every Home Boyzzz in a chainsaw-mufflered Integra seems to believe.
Here's what you do if you want to avoid police radar: don't drive like an idiot. Speed limits are in place because many people aren't capable of driving faster than the speed limit on a given stretch of road. Actually, most people around here are probably marginally capable of a given speed limit at best.
And if you must drive like an idiot, use brains. Look around the electronics surplus places for an old X-band magnetron. You don't need precision, you need one that fires. That's all. Probably your best bet for finding one is scrapped marine radar equipment.
Then, you need a slotted antenna, and a right angled waveguide bend. Make sure that you put choke to flat as you're assembling it, and make sure all the surfaces are clean. You want the magnetron behind your radiator support and the antenna's slots facing the road in front of you. Put a big piece of heatshrink tubing over the slotted antenna to keep crap out of it. Relax, the heatshrink is transparent to microwave energy.
Now, you need a radar detector (hide it but install it carefully) and a 12 volt strobe light. And a DC regulator that suits the filament voltage of your magnetron.
Hook the voltage regulator up so that the magnetron's filament on whenever the ignition is on. Hook the strobe light's high voltage output across the magnetron's pulse leads (usually both the filament leads referenced to ground). Hook the strobe light up so that it starts firing when the radar detector detects something. Hide the whole arrangement so that it's invisible. The radar detector is legal, the rest of this is a big FCC fine if the cop wants to push it.
What happens?
The magnetron is a tube. Most marine magnetrons are rated between 2.5kW and 25kW of output power at 12GHz. Note that this is for a very short duty cycle pulsetrain. (In radar terms, this is the "trigger" pulse.) Now, like most tubes, the filament takes a few seconds to heat up, so you want this warm whenever the ignition is on.
In driving, with the magnetron already nice and warm, the radar detector working, if a cop points a radar gun at you, the radar detector will turn on the strobe light circuit. However, instead of the strobe light, the strobe circuit pulses the magnetron and makes it fire. Net power output? Can't tell you, but you can calculate it from the strobe circuit's output voltage, capacitor ratings and the magnetron type you scored. Basically, though, it's gonna be short pulses of a *hell* of a lot more than the 100mW or so that the radar gun is firing at you. Peak power at the top of the pulses would probably be in the range of a kilowatt. RMS power probably under 5 watts. Way more than enough.
You will foul the gun's receiver section. In fact, you could theoretically damage it.
As for risks involved, you're running an unlicensed transmitter. You can be fined by the FCC for that. Health and safety? Don't stand in front of it when it's firing. No, it won't give you cancer, it's not ionizing radiation, but, like a microwave oven, the burn hurts *a lot*. Be careful of the high voltages you're using to pulse the magnetron.
Credentials for telling you this? Take a look at my User Info here. Yeah, I work for Litton Marine Systems. Yeah, I do all sorts of really weird things for them, from computers to designing radar equipment. And yeah, I built one of these, and while I've tested it with a police radar gun, I've never had the balls to install it in a car. Oh, and yeah, I had a 1985 Fiero 2M4 SE, 5-speed transmission; bought it for $350 bucks and rebuilt the motor, replaced the clutch and changed all 6 balljoints in the suspension myself. I know those cars quite intimately.
As for thwarting a laser speed trap? Get out the sandblaster and frost your windshield. Then paint the whole car, windows included, with flat black paint. I think this system may have adverse side effects, but it would work.
Heh. What about the cars that, BY DESIGN, had an oil resevoir on the top of the engine and just let it all slowly drip out the bottom? Hey! The dirt road absorbed that!
For sure! Kept down the dust!
Back when I was a kid at the cottage my parents rented, the highway department used to actually go through and oil the dirt road with used motor oil.
Just up the bank from a lake, at that. (Lac Cameron, Laurentian Mountains, southwestern Quebec, Canada)
That was about 1983-1984. Horrible as it sounds, at the time, this was thought to be a perfectly acceptable practice.
Fortunately, used motor oil is now quite a valuable commodity. It's readily recycled into new motor and machine oil, so it doesn't get dumped very often.
oh yeah, and rust is mainly a problem in the snow belt because of the unnecessary practice of salting roads. Sand? Cinders?
I agree. I hate salt, it's nasty. Sand would be great, except that it doesn't dissolve like salt does, so when it gets washed into sewers, it clogs them. That's the primary reason why sand isn't used.
Salt kills plants and trees,
And the sand that makes it out of sewers gets into streams and collects on the streambed, which kills all the aquatic plants.
it's non-renewable, it essentially DOUBLES the cost of car ownership for people living in areas where roads are salted (cars last on average half to a third as long as they would otherwise for a given climate). There are alternatives that are safer, cheaper, and more environmentally sound, but the politicians are too wrapped up. It was actually an argument FOR salt to say that it increased economic activity by dissolving people's cars, and giving detroit auto workers jobs.
I've never heard of an ice melter that's as good as salt for less money. It sucks, I agree, but unless someone wants to open up the budgets a bit, we're stuck with it.
The Province of Ontario was looking to ditch salt because of its hidden costs: damage to pavement and cement. It causes millions of dollars of damage to bridges and stuff every year. Until the purse strings are opened a bit more, we're stuck with it.
Until then, I keep the welder handy so that I can weld in new patch panels on my daily driver, and I powerwash then Tremclad the underside every autumn.
Or the incredibly fast Buick Regal T-type and Buick Grand National. Those were made from 197x to 1987. Those are arguably the last true musclecars.
3.8L SFI Turbo V6. Very clean burning, and some of them get 25-30 MPG. Not bad for the size of them, or how fast they are.
Many consider them a collector's item. They're also a great body to build replica's of other cars onto. (e.g., there are "lamborghini" conversion kits for Fieros).
Highly. The Fiero is an insanely cool car. But, you know, most people think that they're front wheel drive, or that they're cheap plastic, or that they're dangerous, or that they're poorly built. Or they get scared of the fact that the gas tank sits between the driver and passenger.
In fact, Fieros are groundbreaking in many respects. They're the first mass-produced plastic-bodied car, a role model for the Saturn and the Pontiac TransSport/Montana/Lumina APV. They've got amazing brakes, rear wheel drive, four wheel independent suspension with double A-arms up front, a weight ratio of 49/51 rear, and they were the most crash-safe vehicle when they came out (35 MPH front impact).
And the gas tank couldn't be in a safer place: by the time the gas tank ruptures, you'd be dead from the impact anyway.
While they had design problems - mostly due to the fact that they're really an economy car, not a sports car, and they don't stand up well to the hard driving most of them experience - they're a great little car. And a milestone in American automobiles.
BTW, how do new cars get to survive long enough to be someday considered "vintage" if they all go into the crusher in 10 years?
Well, the guy to whom you're replying said it himself. He's painted a broad stroke (with the exception of RX-7s and Porsches, of course) that there were no cars worth saving since 1980.
Of course, that's absolute bullcrap.
How about a Dodge Omni GLH, which is a 4-door Dodge Omni hatchback with a 2.2L or 2.5L turbocharged motor built by Shelby? How about the Mustang 5.0 of the '80s? How about the Cordoba and Mirada personal luxury cars? How about the first K-cars as (slow-moving and mundane) museum pieces? Hell, in 20 years, people will be collecting the very first minivans and SUVs. I guarantee it.
And does the cot off date for "vintage" and for "smog test exemptions" advance each year?
No, actually, it seems to go *back* every year. It starts in 1966 now, though *everything* must pass a basic standard (ie. no blue smoke, no obvious problems) before that. It's gonna be really interesting if they try to hook a Ford Model T or something like that up to a tailpipe sniffer - those had driver-operated ignition timing, so it will depend on the skill of the guy testing the car.
It's completely ridiculous, since these things don't account for any percentage of the total miles travelled in any given year.
Dude, Nash Bridges is from San Francisco, and he has that sweetass Cuda that's likely not helping the pollution 'problem' any. Relax, he's a police officer, and he's not going to let his senator do anything rash.
Who's to say?
A performance built car burns gasoline as efficiently as possible, all with an eye towards performance. It's good to note that a gasoline engine, when it's producing its best power, is also producing its least emissions.
Aside from the sheer quantity of fuel a 426 Hemi is capable of going through, the 'Cuda is not a smogger. Hell, with careful adjustment of timing advance curves (both mechanical and vacuum), it's possible to beat modern NOx emissions standards even without having the EGR system.
My question is, with today's gas prices, how can an alleged cop afford to keep those dual Carter AFBs fuelled up? That's *8* barrels of carburetion, over 1000 CFM.
And a Hemi has a high enough compression ratio that he's not getting away from the pumps without Sunoco Ultra 94 Premium.
The flaw in this analogy is obvious. Electrical energy is a resource that can be produced in practically limitless amounts, given the right technology.
No, it isn't. If it's practically limitless, why are the rolling blackouts in California an issue?
However you make electricity, you still make noxious waste, whether it be spent radioactive fuel rods, or dead fish from the hydroelectric dam, or greenhouse gases from a fossil fuel plant.
A photovoltaic cell (solar) requires more energy to manufacture than it will produce over its entire life.
The silver bullet that will eradicate all of the problems with electrical consumption (harnessed fusion) is even further off than zero emissions cars.
So, your thinking and your understanding of the world is flawed. You don't think about where the electricity comes from.
Therefore, if you can have such luxuries as you >17" monitor, I'll have my 1974 model car.
Clean air isn't something we can create (at least, not yet) - it is by definition a lack of pollutants. Therefore, the best way to make more energy is to generate more, the best way to make more clean air is to pollute less.
Of course! It's so easy to do! I'm a good person, I can run my big and inefficient 17" monitor because they can always generate more power, even though that power is derived from [insert ecological threat here]!
You make no sense.
What you're basically telling me is that *you* can have *your* inefficient big monitor, and *I* can't have my allegedly inefficient old car?
Of course, energy conservation is important, too; a ban on old refrigerators might be a good idea, it's just not practical to enforce.
Sure! I have a 1956 QuikFrez. Nice fridge, though it can't keep ice cream worth a damn.
Where'd I get it? When I first moved out on my own, I was driving past an appliance shop and I spotted it sitting by the scrap metal bins. I managed to get it into the back of my old Chevette and tied it into place. Bringing it home, I found that the compressor was bad.
I shrugged my shoulders, drained the freon (a friend of mine bought it off me), and pulled the fridge to pieces. New insulation. New magnetic door seal gasket, custom made for me. New paint job, Honda's white paint. New thermostat. New compressor, with R134a (ozone safe) freon.
Now, are you going to take that away from me because it's an old fridge? Because it really isn't. It's a new fridge that happens to be in an old cabinet.
Cars, on the other hand, have to be individually licensed, so inspecting them for emissions is more than practical.
Electric bills have to be paid individually, so going into peoples' houses to look for energy-wasting old fridges and 17" monitors is more than practical. Maybe they can save us a whole lot of trouble and look for subversive materials while they're there, you know, like the copy of Socialist Worker that you keep on your coffee table?
I find the hatred for environmental legislation that some people exhibit to be profoundly disturbing.
I find the willingness to give up your basic rights to privacy, possession and maintenance of those things that you've bought or built to be frightening.
Of course I'm pro-capitalist and pro-industry
Sure you are.
but people's health and quality of life have to be maintained.
Think about it this way:
If my old fridge were so inefficient, how many years would it take for a new fridge to pay for itself with the electrical savings? My electric bill gives me a vested interest in making sure that my appliances are efficient. (Why do you think I spent over $300 for a *good* compressor for that fridge and then hours cutting appliance-grade styrofoam to shape to fit into its curved top? I could have repaired the old one and left the original fiberglass insulation in there.)
If you want to splurge with a 17" monitor, I'll splurge with my old car.
This doesn't mean a ban on industry, just the diversion of some resources into minimizing the impact on the air and water.
Too often, these things are unrealistic or just simply stupidly planned.
For example, if you're running a power plant that's been operational for 30 years, because the power plant is old, it doesn't have to meet modern emissions standards. It would be rather unfair to have to make the owner spend $10 million for an unforseen upgrade.
Now, if you're considering replacing that power plant because you want something that's going to give you more power for every ton of coal that you burn, and yet you have to spend $10 million in pollution controls that your old plant didn't have to have, how long will it take you to recoup that $10 million in additional energy efficiency? Probably longer than your shareholders want.
So, if there were no rule, the upgrade would have happened, and the power plant would produce x more kWh of electricity for every ton of coal burned. More electricity produced from each ton of coal means that less coal is required to meet demand, and therefore less emissions occur.
However, because there was a rule, the power plant bumps along as it did, inefficient as before, because the cost of new pollution controls makes it impractical in any business sense, burning more coal than it needs to, and therefore producing more nasty by-products.
Before catalytic converters were added to cars, cars did have more emissions of unburnt gasoline (hydrocarbons) than they have now. But sulphur dioxide was absolutely unheard of in car exhaust.
So, all the tree huggers whined, and the EPA demanded that cataclysmic converters be added to cars. Gas mileage went down, because the engine has to push exhaust gases past this new restriction in the exhaust pipe. And while unpleasant smelling but relatively harmless HC was removed from the exhaust, the small amounts of sulphur in the fuel were catalyzed into sulphur dioxide, which promptly floats up into the clouds to combine with water and form acid rain.
Good job, environmentalists. See what happens when you don't ask a scientist before you start writing your Congressman?
Today, cataclysmic converters are de rigeur, despite their gas mileage (which means more emissions!) penalty and the sulphuric acid which falls from the sky and kills lakes and forests.
Here's what I'm saying: everyone has a vested interest in energy efficiency. Businesses, individuals, environmentalists. Restrictions and laws that are designed to help more often than not end up creating their own problems which impede the normal tendency of the marketplace to improve products and services.
However, anytime any government gets involved in anything, it gets screwed up. It's been proven time and time again. The places where the governments are most intrusive are also the poorest, dirtiest places on earth. Look at India as an example. I understand their parliament debated for months as to whether they should allow Coca-Cola to be sold there - all the while people are starving to death.
Car companies switched to electronic ignition from Kettering points back in the 1970s because the market demanded better drivability and gas mileage, and technology made the price reasonable. Likewise, modern fuel injection systems and overhead cams would have been adopted for market reasons, without government intervention. When gasoline is burned at its stoichiometric optimum of 14.7:1, it produces the most power with the least emissions. Power translates to engine efficiency and therefore gas mileage; emissions reductions go hand in hand with that.
It gets worse. It's arguable that the current SUV craze is based on government-legislated Corporate Average Fuel Economy laws. After all, the Feds told the car companies that all their carlines had to have an average fuel consumption. Over the years, this was increased and increased and increased. Cars like the Caprice Classic, Impala and Crown Victoria are being squeezed out.
And yet, the market shows that some people still want a big and heavy car. Ask an SUV owner why they like their SUV; weight is a recurring theme.
So, because trucks are exempt from CAFE rules, the car companies started to build big land yachts that are technically trucks. The SUV was born. 4x4 isn't even the prime motivator anymore. Look at how many Blazers, Durangos, Explorers - hell, even Jeeps, are 2WD.
The buyer wants a big, heavy car, but can't get one. So, instead, he buys the next best thing. He buys a station wagon with leather seats that has been built onto a truck frame. Sure, because of its huge frontal area and the excess weight of a frame that was designed for carrying around sheets of drywall, it consumes twice the gas of the Caprice Classic that he wanted. But since the Caprice is discontinued, he bought the next best thing.
Neat, huh?
I've heard that CAFE will soon start to be applied to a manufacturer's truck lines, too. I assure you, this will backfire, too. I don't know how, I can't predict it. But mark my words, and remember them ten years from now: I guarantee that somehow the market will again turn environmentalist rules against the environmentalists.
And since when did anyone have a "right" to drive? By democratic legislation, cars have always had to be roadworthy, safe, and operated by a governmentally licensed driver.
When on the road, yes. However, your simple right to possession takes over when it's parked in your driveway. Possession is 9/10 of the law.
If you want to say that a car has to be registered as your possession while it's parked in your driveway and not being driven, I'd suggest that my next step is to ask when I have to register my other possessions, like my computer, my kitchen knives, my TV set, my telephone, etc. with the government authorities. After all, all of these devices either consume precious energy or can be used in subversive and dangerous ways.
I don't think he is referring to your fully restored 1956 Corvette. Instead he is referring to the 1986 Mercury Topaz with one hubcap ('cause three got stolen) which has not had a tune up in 5 years.
What about my 1974 Plymouth Valiant Brougham?
It's old, it's rare, and it's my baby. And yet, you still occasionally see a Valiant (not a Brougham, though!) driving down the street.
Does that mean some bureaucrat is going to arbitrarily decide that, because it's not a restored 1956 Corvette, it's not worth anything, or that it will never run clean?
Does that mean that the witchhunt will exempt only those cars which are most commonly collected and restored, like Corvettes, Mustangs and Camaros? Wow. That would be nasty. Not just because I like cars that are more interesting that those, but because eventually some desk-bound halfwit might decide that because he's never heard of a Cord, the one sitting in a Van Nuys driveway can't be worth anything financially or historically.
If you don't have a current registration permit on your car - even if it's in your driveway and not on a public road - California can take it away from you.
So, what happens to my Valiant if I've got it all apart because I'm restoring it, and my registration expires in the process? Last time I checked, your engine needs to run to pass the dynamometer emissions test - kinda tough to do if your engine is in over 400 neatly labeled ZipLock baggies.
I'd be screwed. Outdated registration. Therefore, even with over $30,000 invested in restoring the car, I could come home from work one day and find that it's gone. Probably already been through the crusher by the time I track it down.
Wanna see someone go postal? Having the government steal my car off my property would be a good way to do it.
Now, how about the other cars? The cash for clunkers schemes are emptying out junkyards. Cars that have been abandoned in desert scrub land for decades are being crushed in the name of clean air. Gimme a break. These junkyards full of old cars are a valuable source of parts to those of us who love restoring and driving an old car. Where else are you going to get the taillight bezel for a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere?
How about the good, solid, rust-free southwestern sheet metal that is being exported to the snowbelt and Canada by the truckload? Large companies specialize in doing nothing but stripping front fenders and hoods and stuff off old cars so that they can sell them in snowy markets where rust tends to be a problem. What happens when the junkyards from which they source all these parts have been emptied out?
It's a little silly to crush a car that has been sitting in a junkyard for 10 years because that car may be causing air pollution. For Christ's sake, it's a hunk of steel. That's it. The air pollution comes with poor use of it.
As for the Topaz, fine. Annual emissions test. Okay. But power for the state to come and seize and destroy the vehicle? What if the owner has financial hardship and can't afford to re-register it? Then, after the vehicle is crushed, all the socialist tree-huggers are gonna have a real dilemma: they will have screwed a poor person to save the planet. That would be as conflicting to them as introducing Hitler to a blonde Jew.
Even so, this whole argument is stupid and moot. For the state to demand that your car pass reasonable emissions tests, fine. Roadside sniffers, I'm all for that. But to arbitrarily decide that any car made before 19xx is unclean, or that if your tags expire it must be because you're irresponsible and your car must be running dirty, is just ridiculous.
And it's a flagrant transgression of your rights to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.
To return to the monitor analogy, you like a bigger monitor. Sure, we all do. But, I'm sure you could do everything you do with a 15" monitor. You pay for the electricity it uses. Your bill reflects its inefficiency, regardless of whether it's a power pig or not. So, do you really need a harried bureaucrat who works with typical government inefficiency to come into your home and decide for you what possessions you're allowed to have?
In addition to this, solar energy is still a bit of a fallacy. It takes more energy to actually make a photovoltaic cell than it will ever generate in its lifetime.
I did not know that!
ROFL
Bet your butt I'm gonna use that next time I've got some tree-hugger preaching the values of solar power.
You know, that's another interesting thing that few people consider; solar cells *do* have a relatively short lifespan, compared to other semiconductors. Probably because they're almost a complete wafer of brittle silicon in size, which makes them prone to cracking in the heat cycling from day to night to day to night...
Well, I guess it's back to the drawing board. Maybe in a few decades, they'll be ready. But certainly not yet.
There is a terrible air pollution problem in California; the emissions standards are designed to alleviate this.
There is a terrible energy crisis in California. What I propose is designed to alleviate this. Read on.
Very few older cars may be able to pass these inspections.
Very few 17" or greater monitors use as little energy as a 15" monitor.
Whether your car's driving on your property or on the highways, it's still polluting a common resource; the air we breathe.
Whether your monitor is being used to surf the web or for kernel-bashing, it's still using excess energy on a common resource, the electrical grid.
Therefore, I propose that we have a law that bans people from being able to connect to the Internet if they have a monitor bigger than 15".
Further, as the next phase of the program, I propose that if we *see* a 17" or bigger monitor in someone's home, we remove it from their property because destroying these energy wasting and inefficient big monitors will serve the greater good.
Scared yet? This is *exactly* what is done to those of us who love and cherish old cars. Even if you have no interest in old cars, you've got to realize what a profound and dangerous reduction in personal freedoms this is.
I'm all for clean air. That's why I maintain my vehicles well. Old vehicles don't count for a huge percentage of the miles travelled. Old age, wear and accidents control the quantities of old vehicles on the road quite effectively as it is, and without an erosion of your freedom or mine.
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Okay. Whoever moderated this down is an idiot. You don't moderate a posting up or down based on whether or not you agree with the point made: you moderate based on the quality of the facts and method in which they're presented.
Yes, read your moderator guidelines.
Regardless, I still have more karma than you do.
You know, I see that this dinosaur is known for its rather unusual teeth.
British people on the whole, including rock stars, are often known for their equally unusual teeth.
So, it's natural: name the snaggletoothed dinosaur after a Brit!
Now, in all seriousness, kidding aside, Mark Knopfler kicks ass. He's arguably one of the greatest guitarists of our time. His music has melody and power. He's not to be underestimated, either: his fan base is *huge* and loyal, though he's kinda like Cliff Richards in that he's not really a North American phenomenon.
Hit Napster, take a look around for Money For Nothing - the extended version, about 7 minutes long - it's his biggest hit and it has one of the best guitar solos out there.
Most of the rest of his stuff is more mellow; it's great tunes for making out in the back seat of your vintage musclecar. Brothers in Arms, My Parties, Telegraph Road (live) and Sultans of Swing are the best of Dire Straits.
My Parties is one of the best songs with which to upset your enviro-wacko friends:
Now don't talk to me about the polar bearDon't talk to me about the ozone layer
Ain't much of anything these days, even the air
They're running out of rhinos - what do I care?
Let's hear it for the dolphin - let's hear it for the trees
Ain't running out of nothing in my deep freeze
It's casual entertaining - we aim to please
At my parties
Of course, Mark is only kidding around... he's a big Greenpeace supporter or something like that.
November 21,1783 was the first recorded manned flight in a hot air balloon. 1793 was first balloon flight in USA.
Bah! Balloons! No engine, no point.
Even so, remember Around the World in 80 Days? That was set in 1888. Well less than a century later, we could do the circumference of the planet in under 88 minutes.
That's an order of magnitude.
Shoot, the idea of flight goes back to the myth of Icarus flying too close to the sun. When was the first concept of radio transmission? Somebody in the 1830's must have thought, "this telegraph is great, but could we do this without wires?"True. I think it was really Faraday and Oerstead who pioneered in radio, though they didn't understand it. Tesla made the first practical broadband transmitters (!) later in the century and then it was Marconi who actually saw the broader picture and was able to harness all the concepts discovered by the others.
Of course, that's subject to very volatile debates among radio afficionados.
But, really, since then, what has happened? We haven't got radio waves to travel faster than the speed of light. All we've managed to do is refine the transmitters and receivers to the point where they're small, efficient, and can often change freqency on the fly. You still really have only two ways of modulating a carrier, and one of those (AM) hearkens right back to the dawn of the era with the first spark gap transmitters.
Because Omnibot is Gaelic for all-purpose penis. There aren't that many Gaelic speakers, but enough to make the product a laughing-stock.
Hey, I'd have thought that would have *helped* it sell. Especially to bored housewives whose husbands are spending *way* too much time tending the sheep.
Stupid naming mistakes, Part II. Chevrolet Nova. Named during the space race, a lot of other cars had space-themed names: Buick Apollo, Plymouth Satellite, Ford Comet/Mercury Meteor.
Of course, General Motors couldn't figure out why the Chevrolet Nova didn't sell well to Hispanics.
The name translates with incorrect grammar, but certainly doomed the sales of the Nova in Mexico.
gotta be more than 100... not sure why this is such a big deal
It's not! That's what's so incredible.
But if that's incredible, consider that from Kittyhawk to Apollo 11 was only, what, 66 years?
Yeah, from first flight to the moon. 66 years.
IP is impressive, and spread spectrum RF is cool. Cellphones are amazing.
But radio pales in comparison.
Why? Copying data CD's is illegal. Making a personal copy of an audio "musical work" is not. Maybe you didn't know that.
I'm sure I did, actually.
I think I'm underscoring the stupidity of the following situation: when I buy blank CD-Rs to make a backup of the contents of my hard disks, I'm paying to support the losses of the Canadian recording industry.
You see, I think that's unfair. And, because it's unfairness that has been ramrodded into place for dubious protectionist causes, it's also socialism doing what it does best.
It is a levy not a tax. None of the money goes to the government, it goes to the Canadian Private Copying Collective.Yes. The equivalent to a garnish on your paycheck, except imposed on the other side of the short cycle that money has in my possession.
Hell, let's get down to brass tacks. I don't copy music CDs. Especially not Canadian artists. Most of it is only slightly less lame than the average high school band. So why should I have to pay for "service charges" that the Collective forces on me, when, in fact, no services were rendered?
It's an erosion of my freedom. Because I work for my money, every percentage point of my income that is taken away for government programs that don't benefit me erodes my freedom. Money is merely a tangible approximation of time; money that is wasted by silly taxes (yes, and *levies*) is simply an indentured servitude.
It's less voluntary than being slave labor in a prison yard: at least the prisoner has chosen to have his time wasted when he committed his offense.
I hate Canada. At least these porkbelly projects represent a lesser percentage of the tax load in the United States.
(Every time I say that I hate Canada, I get moderated up, then one or two intelligent postings agreeing with me, and a flurry of "then move!" messages from basically illiterate Anonymous Cowards. Let's skip all the bullshit, okay? When I *do* take a position in the United States (and I'm marking off days on a calendar at this point), it will be Canada's loss. I am not coming back. There will be one less sucker sending more than 50% of his income to Ottawa so that it can be reappropriated to protectionist porkbellies like the CBC, the CRTC's Canadian Content monitoring, cash immigration bonuses to illiterate Bangladeshis while doctors from G7 countries are denied visas, and a government bureaucracy that is so heavily unionized that it has no hope of ever running efficiently.)
Also, are you implying that gambling is outlawed in Socialist Canada? Here in Ontario I can think of large Casinos in Orilla, Niagra Falls, Windsor, Sue-Saint Marie, and countless slots at all the race tracks..No, I didn't imply it. Re-read the posting. It was quite clearly an analogy of an equally stupid, hypocritical, and yet common, government position.
As a sidebar, I think gambling should be completely legal, with far less restrictions than it currently has. If people are stupid enough to throw away their paychecks on games of chance, let them. In nature, it's called survival of the fittest, and it seems to work pretty well.
But you HAVE paid for the right to copy CDs. For you and for friends. You have paid all the royalties you owe, and it would never make it to court because you didn't do anything illegal. Look it up for yourself if you want.
If that's the case, that has to extend to data CDs, too.
Which means that *if* I happen to have installed Windows 2000 on this computer, and *if* I did it only because I need to learn it so I can support it at work, and *if* it happens to be installed from a CD copy that was made on a disc that was covered under the media tax, *then* I should have no issues.
I'm not saying I've done that, I'm only citing this as yet another protectionist and socialist scheme which has backfired. Because, of course, the government taxes blank media since the royalties aren't going to artists. However, it also becomes a tacit encouragement to make illegal copies. This is as hypocritical as a government that outlaws gambling yet still runs a state lottery.
Gee, if I were an artist, I'd be sooooo glad that those wonderfully consequence-thinking socialists were looking out for me.
A copyright tax on blank media is merely a way that the government can legalize piracy as long as they get the proceeds. Like a lottery is a way that the government can legalize gambling as long as they get the cash.
Now, if the socialists hadn't taxed blank media, then a pirate couldn't argue that he'd paid his royalties, and therefore copyright law would remain fully enforceable.
(For the record, my employer provided me with my copy of Windows 2000 Professional. But the example still holds.)
Yup, I've got the scissors all sharpened up for Sunday afternoon's Pravda-shredding. As any pre-democracy Russian will tell you, the Wednesday edition of Pravda makes the best toilet paper. I don't know why, but when I use it to wipe, it's almost as cottony soft as Lenin's beard.
useless products like digital frying pan,
Oh, has Intel brought out another new processor?
The best thing I ever saw about The Guess Who is that they made it big with NO CanCon laws. Ah well.
I don't like them hugely, but I guess they must be good; exactly as you say, they made it without Canadian Content Laws or Sheila Copps.
Ooh, Rush. I like Rush, and they made it without CanCon or Copps, too.
We've had this in Canada since last year, and it really hasn't made any difference.
Heh. Yeah, right. Tell that to Sheila Copps, the bitch who helped to put it in place. It's to help more inept musicians saturate Canada's airwaves, while talented Canadian musicians - who will prosper on their own without government help - promptly pick up and move to greener pastures in the United States.
(See Alanis Morrissette, The Barenaked Ladies, Crash Test Dummies, Big Sugar, Maestro Fres Wes, SoulDecision, Choclair, Celine Dion, Sloan, ... Paul Anka?)
Meanwhile, it's yet another tax to help to "level the playing field" so that the untalented can saturate our airwaves. To, effectively, make up for the lesser talent and ability of, for example, The Tragically Hip.
I hope Sheila Copps gets inoperable colon cancer.
However, I think that the people that set the levy realised that corporations were only out to save themselves... or the people were vocal enough that the amount chosen was really small.If I'm paying a tax that is auspiciously because I'm going to illegally copy something anyway, haven't I then paid for the right to copy it? Haven't I now paid the royalties that I owe, in order to make all the guilt-free CDs, for me and my friends, that I want to make? I think that could be a very interesting court challenge.
In any event, I would consider us lucky.Oh yeah. Any luckier, and the Sunday afternoon tradition in Canada will be cutting up last week's Pravda for toilet paper.
Of course, police love to do things like this to people they know won't be convicted because the police know that his equipment will be seized. He will likely never see any of his 7 computers or "hacking books" ever again no matter what happens because it will be filed as evidence. Read "the hacker crackdown". Of course, that book would be "evidence" if you are ever raided.
So, uhh, even though I haven't touched an illicit substance since I left my previous career of sound and lighting for rock concerts, could my book, "Grow Yer Own Stone" be used against me?
Sheesh. I'd better get rid of those fluorescent light fixtures stacked in my closet - I bought them to put up in my garage, and just haven't gotten around to it yet.
I know exactly what you mean. The research lab I worked in had a LJII that had been cranking away since it was new, and when I left there (7 years ago), the page count was 350,000.
Uh-huh.
I used to work for a small office equipment company many years ago - 1995/1996. We had a bunch of service techs who would fix photocopiers and laser printers; I was one of the computer techs.
We had one customer who had a LaserJet II, and they were with a publishing house. Their authors used to frequently submit manuscripts on diskette or via e-mail, and then the editors would print them out, read them, and make notes - you know, the sort of thing that you can really only do on paper (no matter how sophisticated M$ tries to make Office).
I don't remember how to do it now, but I was horrified when I printed out the test page and saw a count of over 1.5 million pages.
Granted, that machine was *worn out* - all the motor bushings, separator pads, even the buttons on the front panel, were worn loose or polished smoothly.
And yet, the damned thing kept on going.
There are only a few things that will survive a nuclear war: cockroaches, McDonalds uniforms, Dodge Darts and Hewlett-Packard printers.
Amazing products. Too bad I don't plan on having kids, these would make great family heirlooms.Indeed! The family tree stops here, too. I still need to figure out who (50 years from now, I expect) will get my antique radio and TV collection. (Oh, and my TI-99/4As.)
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)That man must have gone through a lot of Marshalls. Jimi was kewl.
Spagthorpe Motorcycles? [sigh] You almost got me with the Nicola Tesla in the people page - one could argue that he helped to refine magneto ignition. Then I read the article... :)
Posting an obit is just not something you want to post a joke with... Period, the end.
I want my funeral to be a happy celebration of my life.
I want people to have fun as they remember crazy things I've done; the Chevette with the 3.8L Buick V6 engine, the displaced Chevette 1.6L engine installed on the old Ariens snowblower, the TI-99/4A playing Flight of the Bumblebees in three part harmony with its floppy disk drives. The secret project that I'm working on right now...
Like I say, when I die, I want a party. I wanna have a kegger in my name. And the eulogy? As long as it's respectful, it can call me certifiable as many times as its writer wants.
Show a little fucking respect. He was an ingenious engineer and an far more amazing person that Bill Gates
Well, there's a backhanded compliment, if ever there was one. There are only two ways that they're even remotely comparable: They're both on Pacific time, and they're both named Bill.
Ok, this is kinda offtopic, but man, chill. Everyone always gets all uppity when someone dies and takes things way to serious. I mean hell, obviously the guys at slashdot thing highly enough of Bill Hewlett to post about his death, which is a tribute to him in and of itself.
Exactly. I'm an HP fan. I use a lot of their test equipment in my work. And put a lot of miles on their printer. Hewlett-Packard makes fine products, and it takes a fine man with vision and concern for his customers to enforce that.
And with no disrespect for him - Bill Hewlett and David Packard are two people whom I admire tremendously - I will take his name in vain next time I fire up that damned 25 year old HP oscilloscope that I've been trying to get my boss to replace. I know that I'm not going to get the new 'scope I want until that thing dies. I also know that thing is not going to die on its own. And it's too much of a work of art to pull a Kevorkian on it by dropping a quarter into one of its ventilation slots.
From everything I've heard about him, that little tale would make William Hewlett smile.
Rock on, Bill. The world needs more people like you.
Hewlett-Packard: responsible for confusing generations of calculator users.
At least you can be sure that once you've figured out how to use the damned calculator, you won't need to replace it for a *long* time.
Hewlett-Packard: responsible for building indestructible test equipment and laser printers.
At the office, we have a ten year old LaserJet IIID. It's had a fuser in it because our receptionist caught a label in it and scratched the teflon off it by trying to scrape the sheet out with scissors. Aside from that, a toner/drum cartridge every two weeks. Yes, a toner cartridge every two weeks. We do print that much, and the thing has never missed a beat.
Estimating conservatively 3,000 pages per cartridge (probably more because we do lots of long documents) and 50 weeks in a year (actually 52, but that's okay):
10 years x 50 = 500 weeks.
New toner every 2 weeks = 250 toner cartridges.
3,000 pages per toner x 250 = 750,000 pages.
And to think that the office supply company told us to buy an offset press. Ha!
More stuff should be built like that. It goes without saying that when the engineering department needed a printer of their own, we bought another LaserJet.
Now, if only I could get that damned 25-year-old HP dual-trace oscilloscope to die so I can buy a new HP Digital Storage scope. Or the friggin' 35-year-old HP Microwave Power Meter that uses a bank of 12AX7s which require a few seconds to warm up but 20 minutes to stabilize before I can take a good reading.
Damn you, Bill Hewlett. <grin> Sometimes excessive quality is a liability. And it's really cool to be able to complain about this.
You forgot the "stealth" factor with respect to photo speed radar guns. The hood reflected incoming radiowaves up, while the radiator coils below the hood were slanted and reflected the radiowaves down into the ground. So almost nothing reflects back to the radar gun!
Yeah, all one would need to do for complete stealth would be to hang a CD from the rear view mirror to deflect a laser speed trap. [sigh]
First off, radar waves are a kind of radio wave, in a band called "Microwave", because the wavelength is so short. They're highly directional, like light; but they pass through, and are reflected by, the same things as ordinary radio waves. Radar speed traps usually run in X-band, which is about 12GHz, and is usually generated with a Gunn diode with a 1/2 wave antenna poking into a piece of waveguide.
In a Fiero, the hood - the *whole* hood - is plastic. Microwave energy will go right through it, hit the firewall behind, and bounce back to the gun. The Doppler effect (the same thing that makes a train whistle appear to change in pitch as it goes past you) is read by a computer which then calculates your speed and puts it on the display (and therefore onto the impending speeding ticket).
Yes, the radiator - which is aluminum, and is angled at about 35-40 degrees forward - will reflect some of the energy toward the ground. But there'll be more than enough coming off the car's steel unibody for the cop to get a good read off you.
And, no, the CD hanging from the rear view mirror doesn't stealth you from laser speed guns, despite the urban legend that every Home Boyzzz in a chainsaw-mufflered Integra seems to believe.
Here's what you do if you want to avoid police radar: don't drive like an idiot. Speed limits are in place because many people aren't capable of driving faster than the speed limit on a given stretch of road. Actually, most people around here are probably marginally capable of a given speed limit at best.
And if you must drive like an idiot, use brains. Look around the electronics surplus places for an old X-band magnetron. You don't need precision, you need one that fires. That's all. Probably your best bet for finding one is scrapped marine radar equipment.
Then, you need a slotted antenna, and a right angled waveguide bend. Make sure that you put choke to flat as you're assembling it, and make sure all the surfaces are clean. You want the magnetron behind your radiator support and the antenna's slots facing the road in front of you. Put a big piece of heatshrink tubing over the slotted antenna to keep crap out of it. Relax, the heatshrink is transparent to microwave energy.
Now, you need a radar detector (hide it but install it carefully) and a 12 volt strobe light. And a DC regulator that suits the filament voltage of your magnetron.
Hook the voltage regulator up so that the magnetron's filament on whenever the ignition is on. Hook the strobe light's high voltage output across the magnetron's pulse leads (usually both the filament leads referenced to ground). Hook the strobe light up so that it starts firing when the radar detector detects something. Hide the whole arrangement so that it's invisible. The radar detector is legal, the rest of this is a big FCC fine if the cop wants to push it.
What happens?
The magnetron is a tube. Most marine magnetrons are rated between 2.5kW and 25kW of output power at 12GHz. Note that this is for a very short duty cycle pulsetrain. (In radar terms, this is the "trigger" pulse.) Now, like most tubes, the filament takes a few seconds to heat up, so you want this warm whenever the ignition is on.
In driving, with the magnetron already nice and warm, the radar detector working, if a cop points a radar gun at you, the radar detector will turn on the strobe light circuit. However, instead of the strobe light, the strobe circuit pulses the magnetron and makes it fire. Net power output? Can't tell you, but you can calculate it from the strobe circuit's output voltage, capacitor ratings and the magnetron type you scored. Basically, though, it's gonna be short pulses of a *hell* of a lot more than the 100mW or so that the radar gun is firing at you. Peak power at the top of the pulses would probably be in the range of a kilowatt. RMS power probably under 5 watts. Way more than enough.
You will foul the gun's receiver section. In fact, you could theoretically damage it.
As for risks involved, you're running an unlicensed transmitter. You can be fined by the FCC for that. Health and safety? Don't stand in front of it when it's firing. No, it won't give you cancer, it's not ionizing radiation, but, like a microwave oven, the burn hurts *a lot*. Be careful of the high voltages you're using to pulse the magnetron.
Credentials for telling you this? Take a look at my User Info here. Yeah, I work for Litton Marine Systems. Yeah, I do all sorts of really weird things for them, from computers to designing radar equipment. And yeah, I built one of these, and while I've tested it with a police radar gun, I've never had the balls to install it in a car. Oh, and yeah, I had a 1985 Fiero 2M4 SE, 5-speed transmission; bought it for $350 bucks and rebuilt the motor, replaced the clutch and changed all 6 balljoints in the suspension myself. I know those cars quite intimately.
As for thwarting a laser speed trap? Get out the sandblaster and frost your windshield. Then paint the whole car, windows included, with flat black paint. I think this system may have adverse side effects, but it would work.
Heh. What about the cars that, BY DESIGN, had an oil resevoir on the top of the engine and just let it all slowly drip out the bottom? Hey! The dirt road absorbed that!
For sure! Kept down the dust!
Back when I was a kid at the cottage my parents rented, the highway department used to actually go through and oil the dirt road with used motor oil.
Just up the bank from a lake, at that. (Lac Cameron, Laurentian Mountains, southwestern Quebec, Canada)
That was about 1983-1984. Horrible as it sounds, at the time, this was thought to be a perfectly acceptable practice.
Fortunately, used motor oil is now quite a valuable commodity. It's readily recycled into new motor and machine oil, so it doesn't get dumped very often.
oh yeah, and rust is mainly a problem in the snow belt because of the unnecessary practice of salting roads. Sand? Cinders?
I agree. I hate salt, it's nasty. Sand would be great, except that it doesn't dissolve like salt does, so when it gets washed into sewers, it clogs them. That's the primary reason why sand isn't used.
Salt kills plants and trees,And the sand that makes it out of sewers gets into streams and collects on the streambed, which kills all the aquatic plants.
it's non-renewable, it essentially DOUBLES the cost of car ownership for people living in areas where roads are salted (cars last on average half to a third as long as they would otherwise for a given climate). There are alternatives that are safer, cheaper, and more environmentally sound, but the politicians are too wrapped up. It was actually an argument FOR salt to say that it increased economic activity by dissolving people's cars, and giving detroit auto workers jobs.I've never heard of an ice melter that's as good as salt for less money. It sucks, I agree, but unless someone wants to open up the budgets a bit, we're stuck with it.
The Province of Ontario was looking to ditch salt because of its hidden costs: damage to pavement and cement. It causes millions of dollars of damage to bridges and stuff every year. Until the purse strings are opened a bit more, we're stuck with it.
Until then, I keep the welder handy so that I can weld in new patch panels on my daily driver, and I powerwash then Tremclad the underside every autumn.
What about a Fiero? They only made em from 84-88.
Or the incredibly fast Buick Regal T-type and Buick Grand National. Those were made from 197x to 1987. Those are arguably the last true musclecars.
3.8L SFI Turbo V6. Very clean burning, and some of them get 25-30 MPG. Not bad for the size of them, or how fast they are.
Many consider them a collector's item. They're also a great body to build replica's of other cars onto. (e.g., there are "lamborghini" conversion kits for Fieros).Highly. The Fiero is an insanely cool car. But, you know, most people think that they're front wheel drive, or that they're cheap plastic, or that they're dangerous, or that they're poorly built. Or they get scared of the fact that the gas tank sits between the driver and passenger.
In fact, Fieros are groundbreaking in many respects. They're the first mass-produced plastic-bodied car, a role model for the Saturn and the Pontiac TransSport/Montana/Lumina APV. They've got amazing brakes, rear wheel drive, four wheel independent suspension with double A-arms up front, a weight ratio of 49/51 rear, and they were the most crash-safe vehicle when they came out (35 MPH front impact).
And the gas tank couldn't be in a safer place: by the time the gas tank ruptures, you'd be dead from the impact anyway.
While they had design problems - mostly due to the fact that they're really an economy car, not a sports car, and they don't stand up well to the hard driving most of them experience - they're a great little car. And a milestone in American automobiles.
BTW, how do new cars get to survive long enough to be someday considered "vintage" if they all go into the crusher in 10 years?Well, the guy to whom you're replying said it himself. He's painted a broad stroke (with the exception of RX-7s and Porsches, of course) that there were no cars worth saving since 1980.
Of course, that's absolute bullcrap.
How about a Dodge Omni GLH, which is a 4-door Dodge Omni hatchback with a 2.2L or 2.5L turbocharged motor built by Shelby? How about the Mustang 5.0 of the '80s? How about the Cordoba and Mirada personal luxury cars? How about the first K-cars as (slow-moving and mundane) museum pieces? Hell, in 20 years, people will be collecting the very first minivans and SUVs. I guarantee it.
And does the cot off date for "vintage" and for "smog test exemptions" advance each year?No, actually, it seems to go *back* every year. It starts in 1966 now, though *everything* must pass a basic standard (ie. no blue smoke, no obvious problems) before that. It's gonna be really interesting if they try to hook a Ford Model T or something like that up to a tailpipe sniffer - those had driver-operated ignition timing, so it will depend on the skill of the guy testing the car.
It's completely ridiculous, since these things don't account for any percentage of the total miles travelled in any given year.
Dude, Nash Bridges is from San Francisco, and he has that sweetass Cuda that's likely not helping the pollution 'problem' any. Relax, he's a police officer, and he's not going to let his senator do anything rash.
Who's to say?
A performance built car burns gasoline as efficiently as possible, all with an eye towards performance. It's good to note that a gasoline engine, when it's producing its best power, is also producing its least emissions.
Aside from the sheer quantity of fuel a 426 Hemi is capable of going through, the 'Cuda is not a smogger. Hell, with careful adjustment of timing advance curves (both mechanical and vacuum), it's possible to beat modern NOx emissions standards even without having the EGR system.
My question is, with today's gas prices, how can an alleged cop afford to keep those dual Carter AFBs fuelled up? That's *8* barrels of carburetion, over 1000 CFM.
And a Hemi has a high enough compression ratio that he's not getting away from the pumps without Sunoco Ultra 94 Premium.
The flaw in this analogy is obvious. Electrical energy is a resource that can be produced in practically limitless amounts, given the right technology.
No, it isn't. If it's practically limitless, why are the rolling blackouts in California an issue?
However you make electricity, you still make noxious waste, whether it be spent radioactive fuel rods, or dead fish from the hydroelectric dam, or greenhouse gases from a fossil fuel plant.
A photovoltaic cell (solar) requires more energy to manufacture than it will produce over its entire life.
The silver bullet that will eradicate all of the problems with electrical consumption (harnessed fusion) is even further off than zero emissions cars.
So, your thinking and your understanding of the world is flawed. You don't think about where the electricity comes from.
Therefore, if you can have such luxuries as you >17" monitor, I'll have my 1974 model car.
Clean air isn't something we can create (at least, not yet) - it is by definition a lack of pollutants. Therefore, the best way to make more energy is to generate more, the best way to make more clean air is to pollute less.Of course! It's so easy to do! I'm a good person, I can run my big and inefficient 17" monitor because they can always generate more power, even though that power is derived from [insert ecological threat here]!
You make no sense.
What you're basically telling me is that *you* can have *your* inefficient big monitor, and *I* can't have my allegedly inefficient old car?
Of course, energy conservation is important, too; a ban on old refrigerators might be a good idea, it's just not practical to enforce.Sure! I have a 1956 QuikFrez. Nice fridge, though it can't keep ice cream worth a damn.
Where'd I get it? When I first moved out on my own, I was driving past an appliance shop and I spotted it sitting by the scrap metal bins. I managed to get it into the back of my old Chevette and tied it into place. Bringing it home, I found that the compressor was bad.
I shrugged my shoulders, drained the freon (a friend of mine bought it off me), and pulled the fridge to pieces. New insulation. New magnetic door seal gasket, custom made for me. New paint job, Honda's white paint. New thermostat. New compressor, with R134a (ozone safe) freon.
Now, are you going to take that away from me because it's an old fridge? Because it really isn't. It's a new fridge that happens to be in an old cabinet.
Cars, on the other hand, have to be individually licensed, so inspecting them for emissions is more than practical.Electric bills have to be paid individually, so going into peoples' houses to look for energy-wasting old fridges and 17" monitors is more than practical. Maybe they can save us a whole lot of trouble and look for subversive materials while they're there, you know, like the copy of Socialist Worker that you keep on your coffee table?
I find the hatred for environmental legislation that some people exhibit to be profoundly disturbing.I find the willingness to give up your basic rights to privacy, possession and maintenance of those things that you've bought or built to be frightening.
Of course I'm pro-capitalist and pro-industrySure you are.
but people's health and quality of life have to be maintained.Think about it this way:
If my old fridge were so inefficient, how many years would it take for a new fridge to pay for itself with the electrical savings? My electric bill gives me a vested interest in making sure that my appliances are efficient. (Why do you think I spent over $300 for a *good* compressor for that fridge and then hours cutting appliance-grade styrofoam to shape to fit into its curved top? I could have repaired the old one and left the original fiberglass insulation in there.)
If you want to splurge with a 17" monitor, I'll splurge with my old car.
This doesn't mean a ban on industry, just the diversion of some resources into minimizing the impact on the air and water.Too often, these things are unrealistic or just simply stupidly planned.
For example, if you're running a power plant that's been operational for 30 years, because the power plant is old, it doesn't have to meet modern emissions standards. It would be rather unfair to have to make the owner spend $10 million for an unforseen upgrade.
Now, if you're considering replacing that power plant because you want something that's going to give you more power for every ton of coal that you burn, and yet you have to spend $10 million in pollution controls that your old plant didn't have to have, how long will it take you to recoup that $10 million in additional energy efficiency? Probably longer than your shareholders want.
So, if there were no rule, the upgrade would have happened, and the power plant would produce x more kWh of electricity for every ton of coal burned. More electricity produced from each ton of coal means that less coal is required to meet demand, and therefore less emissions occur.
However, because there was a rule, the power plant bumps along as it did, inefficient as before, because the cost of new pollution controls makes it impractical in any business sense, burning more coal than it needs to, and therefore producing more nasty by-products.
Before catalytic converters were added to cars, cars did have more emissions of unburnt gasoline (hydrocarbons) than they have now. But sulphur dioxide was absolutely unheard of in car exhaust.
So, all the tree huggers whined, and the EPA demanded that cataclysmic converters be added to cars. Gas mileage went down, because the engine has to push exhaust gases past this new restriction in the exhaust pipe. And while unpleasant smelling but relatively harmless HC was removed from the exhaust, the small amounts of sulphur in the fuel were catalyzed into sulphur dioxide, which promptly floats up into the clouds to combine with water and form acid rain.
Good job, environmentalists. See what happens when you don't ask a scientist before you start writing your Congressman?
Today, cataclysmic converters are de rigeur, despite their gas mileage (which means more emissions!) penalty and the sulphuric acid which falls from the sky and kills lakes and forests.
Here's what I'm saying: everyone has a vested interest in energy efficiency. Businesses, individuals, environmentalists. Restrictions and laws that are designed to help more often than not end up creating their own problems which impede the normal tendency of the marketplace to improve products and services.
However, anytime any government gets involved in anything, it gets screwed up. It's been proven time and time again. The places where the governments are most intrusive are also the poorest, dirtiest places on earth. Look at India as an example. I understand their parliament debated for months as to whether they should allow Coca-Cola to be sold there - all the while people are starving to death.
Car companies switched to electronic ignition from Kettering points back in the 1970s because the market demanded better drivability and gas mileage, and technology made the price reasonable. Likewise, modern fuel injection systems and overhead cams would have been adopted for market reasons, without government intervention. When gasoline is burned at its stoichiometric optimum of 14.7:1, it produces the most power with the least emissions. Power translates to engine efficiency and therefore gas mileage; emissions reductions go hand in hand with that.
It gets worse. It's arguable that the current SUV craze is based on government-legislated Corporate Average Fuel Economy laws. After all, the Feds told the car companies that all their carlines had to have an average fuel consumption. Over the years, this was increased and increased and increased. Cars like the Caprice Classic, Impala and Crown Victoria are being squeezed out.
And yet, the market shows that some people still want a big and heavy car. Ask an SUV owner why they like their SUV; weight is a recurring theme.
So, because trucks are exempt from CAFE rules, the car companies started to build big land yachts that are technically trucks. The SUV was born. 4x4 isn't even the prime motivator anymore. Look at how many Blazers, Durangos, Explorers - hell, even Jeeps, are 2WD.
The buyer wants a big, heavy car, but can't get one. So, instead, he buys the next best thing. He buys a station wagon with leather seats that has been built onto a truck frame. Sure, because of its huge frontal area and the excess weight of a frame that was designed for carrying around sheets of drywall, it consumes twice the gas of the Caprice Classic that he wanted. But since the Caprice is discontinued, he bought the next best thing.
Neat, huh?
I've heard that CAFE will soon start to be applied to a manufacturer's truck lines, too. I assure you, this will backfire, too. I don't know how, I can't predict it. But mark my words, and remember them ten years from now: I guarantee that somehow the market will again turn environmentalist rules against the environmentalists.
And since when did anyone have a "right" to drive? By democratic legislation, cars have always had to be roadworthy, safe, and operated by a governmentally licensed driver.When on the road, yes. However, your simple right to possession takes over when it's parked in your driveway. Possession is 9/10 of the law.
If you want to say that a car has to be registered as your possession while it's parked in your driveway and not being driven, I'd suggest that my next step is to ask when I have to register my other possessions, like my computer, my kitchen knives, my TV set, my telephone, etc. with the government authorities. After all, all of these devices either consume precious energy or can be used in subversive and dangerous ways.
I don't think he is referring to your fully restored 1956 Corvette. Instead he is referring to the 1986 Mercury Topaz with one hubcap ('cause three got stolen) which has not had a tune up in 5 years.
What about my 1974 Plymouth Valiant Brougham?
It's old, it's rare, and it's my baby. And yet, you still occasionally see a Valiant (not a Brougham, though!) driving down the street.
Does that mean some bureaucrat is going to arbitrarily decide that, because it's not a restored 1956 Corvette, it's not worth anything, or that it will never run clean?
Does that mean that the witchhunt will exempt only those cars which are most commonly collected and restored, like Corvettes, Mustangs and Camaros? Wow. That would be nasty. Not just because I like cars that are more interesting that those, but because eventually some desk-bound halfwit might decide that because he's never heard of a Cord, the one sitting in a Van Nuys driveway can't be worth anything financially or historically.
If you don't have a current registration permit on your car - even if it's in your driveway and not on a public road - California can take it away from you.
So, what happens to my Valiant if I've got it all apart because I'm restoring it, and my registration expires in the process? Last time I checked, your engine needs to run to pass the dynamometer emissions test - kinda tough to do if your engine is in over 400 neatly labeled ZipLock baggies.
I'd be screwed. Outdated registration. Therefore, even with over $30,000 invested in restoring the car, I could come home from work one day and find that it's gone. Probably already been through the crusher by the time I track it down.
Wanna see someone go postal? Having the government steal my car off my property would be a good way to do it.
Now, how about the other cars? The cash for clunkers schemes are emptying out junkyards. Cars that have been abandoned in desert scrub land for decades are being crushed in the name of clean air. Gimme a break. These junkyards full of old cars are a valuable source of parts to those of us who love restoring and driving an old car. Where else are you going to get the taillight bezel for a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere?
How about the good, solid, rust-free southwestern sheet metal that is being exported to the snowbelt and Canada by the truckload? Large companies specialize in doing nothing but stripping front fenders and hoods and stuff off old cars so that they can sell them in snowy markets where rust tends to be a problem. What happens when the junkyards from which they source all these parts have been emptied out?
It's a little silly to crush a car that has been sitting in a junkyard for 10 years because that car may be causing air pollution. For Christ's sake, it's a hunk of steel. That's it. The air pollution comes with poor use of it.
As for the Topaz, fine. Annual emissions test. Okay. But power for the state to come and seize and destroy the vehicle? What if the owner has financial hardship and can't afford to re-register it? Then, after the vehicle is crushed, all the socialist tree-huggers are gonna have a real dilemma: they will have screwed a poor person to save the planet. That would be as conflicting to them as introducing Hitler to a blonde Jew.
Even so, this whole argument is stupid and moot. For the state to demand that your car pass reasonable emissions tests, fine. Roadside sniffers, I'm all for that. But to arbitrarily decide that any car made before 19xx is unclean, or that if your tags expire it must be because you're irresponsible and your car must be running dirty, is just ridiculous.
And it's a flagrant transgression of your rights to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.
To return to the monitor analogy, you like a bigger monitor. Sure, we all do. But, I'm sure you could do everything you do with a 15" monitor. You pay for the electricity it uses. Your bill reflects its inefficiency, regardless of whether it's a power pig or not. So, do you really need a harried bureaucrat who works with typical government inefficiency to come into your home and decide for you what possessions you're allowed to have?
It's scary as all hell.
In addition to this, solar energy is still a bit of a fallacy. It takes more energy to actually make a photovoltaic cell than it will ever generate in its lifetime.
I did not know that!
ROFL
Bet your butt I'm gonna use that next time I've got some tree-hugger preaching the values of solar power.
You know, that's another interesting thing that few people consider; solar cells *do* have a relatively short lifespan, compared to other semiconductors. Probably because they're almost a complete wafer of brittle silicon in size, which makes them prone to cracking in the heat cycling from day to night to day to night...
Well, I guess it's back to the drawing board. Maybe in a few decades, they'll be ready. But certainly not yet.
There is a terrible air pollution problem in California; the emissions standards are designed to alleviate this.
There is a terrible energy crisis in California. What I propose is designed to alleviate this. Read on.
Very few older cars may be able to pass these inspections.Very few 17" or greater monitors use as little energy as a 15" monitor.
Whether your car's driving on your property or on the highways, it's still polluting a common resource; the air we breathe.Whether your monitor is being used to surf the web or for kernel-bashing, it's still using excess energy on a common resource, the electrical grid.
Therefore, I propose that we have a law that bans people from being able to connect to the Internet if they have a monitor bigger than 15".
Further, as the next phase of the program, I propose that if we *see* a 17" or bigger monitor in someone's home, we remove it from their property because destroying these energy wasting and inefficient big monitors will serve the greater good.
Scared yet? This is *exactly* what is done to those of us who love and cherish old cars. Even if you have no interest in old cars, you've got to realize what a profound and dangerous reduction in personal freedoms this is.
I'm all for clean air. That's why I maintain my vehicles well. Old vehicles don't count for a huge percentage of the miles travelled. Old age, wear and accidents control the quantities of old vehicles on the road quite effectively as it is, and without an erosion of your freedom or mine.