Posts by Jemma

Re: In other news; 1st April moved forward by a month ....

Thanks muchly for that image. I may never sleep again.

Still could be worse. Trump could go to fancy dress party as the transvestite from Little Nicky...

Fair point but to be blunt - Micronesia probably has a bigger defence budget than the UK and half of it is sinking into the sea.

What I can't work out is this. How has no one noticed that in comparison to the QEs or Vanguard the modern "navy" is using what amount to coracles, but if you adjust the prices and compare they're paying 10x as much for the coracles.. Running Windows for Warships no less and half the weapons won't fit, don't work or possibly don't exist. How did we get to this point?

And I really wouldn't worry about Putin McNukeyface. So he drops a nuke on London - what he doesn't own here (and everywhere else) the Chinese do - so he certainly doesn't gain, he's busy quietly buying up farmland (even in the US) so it's kind of pointless from that angle. About the only place he might be able to nuke to a net benefit would be the Galapagos and I wouldn't want to be him afterwards.

Putin has been relying on people being idiots for almost his whole life, sadly America and to a lesser extent western Europe have made that a perfect strategy and I don't see it changing any time soon.

Re: Why were inverted V12s popular with the Germans?

It's partly for packaging reasons and partly also accessibility and survivability. It's easier to replace fluids from an external tank with a feed pump than spend time mucking about and armoured lines and tanks are lighter than armouring a whole crankcase - you can also have aux lubrication circuits when you need them.

IE almost all aero prop engines have two entirely separate ignition systems (as did the BRM V16, bad idea). Mostly they run on both (which also aids power) but if one distributor or magneto went south, you've still got a running engine. The A10 ground attack aircraft has no less than three hydraulic-electric control circuits, AND a fully manual rod & joint type which one American was very happy for when her plane got badly shot up - she managed to get it back home but I'd imagine she wasn't feeling all that happy about 48 hours later - a lot of pulled muscles, manual means manual on those. No hydraulic pressure probably means no flaps or brakes either..

Re: 9th largest air force in the world at the time

Then there was Dr Strangelove.

The guys in the bomber and rigging up that set weren't allowed to get with 100 yards of a B52. So several of them having served on B29/B50 types in the AF they decided to take those configurations and work it out from there, using first principles.

All well and good - except they apparently nailed the console set up and dialogue so well, the AF had a conniption, thought they'd been spying and sicced the FBI/CIA onto the people concerned. Poor set designers had all sorts of trouble before they convinced the pointy haired generals it was just coincidence..

Course it might have been something in the water..

Not if you want to live you won't, they had a nasty "sabre dance" like stall problem on take off, killed a lot of pilots including two experten recently - it was so unusual it took powerful computer modelling to work out what was happening.

Back in the day no one had the foggiest how to solve it - pilots were just taught to climb out very shallow - otherwise it'd lose air flow, stall and drop out of the sky backwards, not a survivable experience in most cases.

Re: Why were inverted V12s popular with the Germans?

The packaging is better with the sump/crank upwards (the widest part of the engine is towards the widest part of the fuselage. It's a reason why flat-12 and wide V were used in formula 1 - easy to build aero around.

The reason you don't get hydro lock and a very expensive set of flying piston rods is the DB engine was a dry sump design - car engines are wet sump, invert one while it's running and expensive things happen quite quickly.

Specific to the 109 it also allowed a 20/30mm motorcannon to fire through the hollow crank and for two 151 to be placed above the flat deck of the "sump". The toasty motor kept the guns warm (its - 30c at 35,000ft) & the narrow mounting of most of the weapons (compared to a spit for example) made it much easier to put shells through a target in a nice tight pattern. Win-win unless you were the other guy.

However it wasn't all sweetness and light. The canopy opened to the side, so forget about getting out in a hurry, the undercarriage had all the design flair of an Austin Allegro (although it's understandable why it was done that way, to save weight) - and the wing tabs turned the thing into basically a giant 1700hp vibrator on fast sharp turns (to the point that some pilots wired them shut). A good pilot was roughly on parity until about late 43, an inexperienced one would be dug out of the permafrost after about a week.

The engine had mechanical fuel injection so it could be bunted when a Merlin would half stall in a cloud of black smoke (partly solved by miss shillings orifice). But being early FI and being 6 litres larger than the Merlin it drank fuel and gave only a 20 minute combat radius over the UK.

Being higher compression than the Merlin - they didn't like artificial petrol either and there are many unexplained accidents were aces just disappeared or had engine failure possibly attributable to fuel that would make 2** cut with Guinness seem like a good idea.

Incidentally if anyone ever tries to sell you purple petrol I'd not bother - they used to use it in racing cars post war but don't leave it overnight - it dissolves the fuel tank.

Re: Are we sure...

Am I allowed to feel smug that I did?

Re: question

Ah, for a P47 Thunderbolt, a full load out of 5in rockets and one nice straight run over Trumps next Inauguration...*

A girl can dream..

*Do they get a parade every term? I've never thought to ask. It'd be a great way to get shot (pun intended) of an unpopular president.

Re: Excuse me ..

Wrong.

For some unknown reason the bf109 and if I remember rightly the bf110 were both referred to in that way officially until the end of the war. The Me210/410 was designated after Dr Willi (and he probably wished they weren't) but it wasn't backdated for some reason.

The only bf109 you'll find with an Me109 build plate would be some few that were repaired/refurbished on the eastern front. In Estonia I think.

If any survive they'd be rarer than dodo's teeth.

Re: No second hand market

Can you read?... I think not, I think not..

Thanks to the cat.

Arthur Daleys EV Emporium?

I've tested one of those - I don't know what creature it was designed for ergonomically but it wasn't humans.

It's the weirdest driving position I've ever seen - I'm 5"11 and I was peering through the steering wheel - I sat in an Alfa Romeo concept car from the 1950s once and that was safe and comfortable by comparison. When someone says that you know there's issues.

Unless it's someone trying to cull down the electric car types by having them stove their face in every time they do an emergency stop..

The solutions to these problems are easy, most of them have already been listed. That isn't the point.

The point is there is NO sensible reason why we need to build a WHOLE infrastructure basically from scratch across practically every single country on the planet - at massive cost in both greenhouse gasses and money (what you think charging stations made of concrete are green - wake up and smell the co2 (concrete produces it as it sets and for YEARS later)) when we already have a system in place and all we have to do swap in a new production system (solar reactors) to a fully installed and operational distribution system to vehicles that are capable of using it with better performance variables across every possible field - including (when someone takes those TFSI petrols out the back and shoots them) pollution.

Make a standard for a transmission/engine interface plate system so I can go get a nice modern diesel and pop it into an Austin 1800 when the E series finally pops its clogs. Or better the 2200 110hp replaced by a 1600 HDI no waste, less pollution, better economy. Tatra did it for at least 40 years and may still be doing it - they'd upgrade cars that came for repairs by pulling old parts, popping them on the line and replacing the bits as if it was a new build - voila T2-603 from a T603 in about 20 components - instead of a whole car.

Make internals easily replaceable and then you can make bodyshells that last alot longer - because unlike the Trabant you can upgrade internals so much easier you can keep a bodyshell for 40 years that (for example) started with an 65hp 4 spd A-Series lump and now is happily running a 6 speed & Ecoboost with twice the power (or even a little Hyundai 3 banger diesel) , and still looks good.

Adjust body manufacture so like the old Triumph Herald the panels are bolt on and off - easier repairs and replacements for wear or for new styling updates. Include/exclude lighting units so upgrading from halogen to LED is easier or harder depending on skill. Give certain panels smart capabilities - bonnet edge sensors for ice, a Bluetooth transceiver for locating the vehicle, biometric locks (hell, a friend put a pin lock on his own car as a college project 20 years ago)

But no, it all has to be "electric and green and new"

I've some news

Batteries predate even the earliest ICE and actually set the first speed records. Not new.

RWD has been around since year dot (Tesla 3) and is less efficient and more dangerous than FWD. Not new.

Putting the displays out of the line of sight (Tesla) is so far beyond stupid even US car companies stopped that before the 1920s. Not new (but really dangerous)

Electric motors - again with predating ICE engines. Not new.

Getting electric from NG/lignite/Coal - CVN plants - not green. Not new either.

In short we have two options in the context of this discussion. Artificially manufactured petrol/diesel: or electric.

In one we have to make ONE single change in order for it to work. And it'll get its raw materials from the pollution already present.

In the other we have to basically build the whole lot out from scratch, retrofit existing systems and arguably retrain people. Causing more pollution, wasted resources, time and usually half assed solutions.

I'm going with ICE with hopefully some of the tech I've listed above, even my 93 year old grandmother could figure the sensible answer.

What part of this confuses you, I'd honestly like to know.

Re: No second hand market

You of course didn't read the part where I mentioned this might not apply to electrics. In the case you quote it doesn't. In conversions/retrofits it probably does.

It is *certainly* illegal to retrofit an ICE engine or ICE hybrid with remote start and the legality/insurance is dubious even if it's a manufacturer fitted item. Some insurers wouldn't bat an eyelid if it was related to an accident - some would, to quote Dan Halen, "bend you over, and rape the money out of you".

If the engine is running someone has to be attending the vehicle unless it's on private land such as a farm. Carparks, driveways pretty much anywhere if the motor is running you need to be sitting in it in easy reach of the controls.

Re: No second hand market

Umm that wasn't promoting ev - that was promoting a feature US premium cars have had since I was in nappies and at least one eastern Europe car manufacturer has been doing since 1959 and probably earlier (Tatra) - not to mention their 603 had a cd of something like .35 when western manufacturers were still arguing about whether OHV was a step too far, and starting handles ruled the world (not that those were a bad thing). You know (or probably don't actually) the days when the car was more aerodynamic in reverse and two speeds were "good enough for grandpa so they're good enough for you"

I'm glad you're looking forward to your new Muskkretinwagon - I would however suggest you look into the mix of generation in your area and hope fervently you're not like the guy (Hong-Kong I think) who got hit for pollution charges IN COURT because all the electric came from coal generation and therefore was about as eco friendly as a 350,000 mile Ford Orion CVH running on supermarket petrol with half 20w50 and half sawdust "keeping all the magic smoke in".

The right tool for the right job. There's no use case that I can think of that a Tesla fits - other than to be owned by a pretentious wazzock..

Oh wait

Re: No second hand market

Notwithstanding the fact that an ICE vehicle from 1967 with a remote start kit fitted and thermostatic air con can do that, my old Humber Sceptre from 63 could do it with the right upgrades... Although probably not as accurately..

And there is also the fact that technically what your car just did might have invalidated your insurance (on the basis you are not allowed to leave a running vehicle unattended, granted electric is a grey area in this case) it certainly would if a remote start facility caused an accident.. A start while in gear for example.. Or someone getting into the car as shouldn't.

Re: Case study

I walked to school alone from the age of 7 to 12 along just such a road when crumple zones were tiny gleams in BL engineers eyes. I never got hit by a car, never got jumped by a Jimmy-Saville-alike and I ACTUALLY KNOW HOW TO CROSS A ROAD.

These days the speed limit is 30mph and you can't move for mommy cretins doing le mans starts in Porsche Cayennes & X5s driven by people who think lane discipline is a boy band and double declutching is something to do with a handbag.

I'd love to know the percentage of parents who survived serious road accidents 20/30 years ago whose spaddy little brats are the ones who walk out 2 feet in front of me when it's my right of way, or expect me to stop from 60mph in 3ft (and that includes some of the adults, would you believe)...

I've never hit anyone, nor would I ever want to, but I'd have a damn sight less sympathy for them if they've just wombled out into the road without a care or braincell in the world.

I did suggest that cars be retrofitted with MK108 autocannons, badly driven 4x4 for the removal of, but the idea didn't get much traction (much like the badly driven 4x4s).

If people don't know how to cross a road or judge a cars road speed they shouldn't be out on their own. Kids should be trained - we were - and I don't know any of my generation who'd be more interested in their smartphone than the Audi that's about to turn their brains into a jackson pollack.

Re: Beesmode

Much more likely to be either European type or possibly a high F hybrid between European and African. It turns out that while F1 strains between European and African bees are still aggressive to the point of psychotic; the further you breed to European bees the calmer the resulting hives while still having a higher yield.

Kind of depressing to think that one berk removing the queen control frames (don't remember the terminology) caused all this trouble - and he didn't even get the blame.

Re: I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often

Corrected:

Dioxin is a contaminant of 2,4,5T which was mixed with 2,4D 50/50 to make Agent Orange. So called because it came in orange drums.

Re: Who keeps bees?

Also helps with keeping the hives cool. If they get too hot while sealed for transport whole hives can die. Not to mention be somewhat annoyed when they are unloaded at the other end if they're a little too warm.

Re: I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often

For the fifty millionth time. Stop. Blaming. Monsanto.

It's not Monsanto product that causes the problem - it's the generics that have crappy formulation control, and probably a fair percentage of farmers who couldn't calculate a /ph rate if their life depended on it.

There are two formulations that don't noticeably harm bees - Monsanto's and a used to be generic from eastern Europe somewhere that is now Monsantos factory for making the stuff.

It's the same problem as with 2,4D and dioxin. Make 2,4D properly and the dioxin level will be miniscule - contract it out to sub average cretins like the US military did in Vietnam and dioxin goes through the roof and babies get born looking like something out of a Steven King novel..

Oh and for the record if Glyphosate is banned I hope you like blackgrass flavoured bread because the only way to control it and other weeds... Is Glyphosate or 3x the active of other herbicides - really great for the environment.

Funny story - fluffy brained eco-whinger was sitting in a meeting at an agrochemical company, howling about how a cat had died that just *might* possibly have eaten birds contaminated with glyphosate - and how it had to be banned at once.. So one of the people there asked for her car keys and she handed them over confused. Then asked why? Well cars kill a damn sight more cats than glyphosate ever could - so enjoy your walk home. The point was duly made.

Im not advocating slathering the countryside in agrochemical and there is not a single farmer who would either but which do you want - one application of a herbicide that works - or three applications of one that probably won't with all the extra pollution, soil damage, waste of diesel, waste of resources etc etc.

Oh and before you even draw breath to blame the farmers - be aware that if all of you didn't want perfect food at bankruptcy (not to mention suicide) inducing prices and are busy supporting the RSPB and other cretin-collectives buying up excellent arable land and then promptly either flooding the f*cking lot or covering it on trees there would be less need for agrochemicals and fertilisers because there'd be more land to go round.

And a friendly warning - be careful who you spout this crap to in future because you might find that a steel toecap in the teeth often offends.

Saying it with Futurama..

"Ah don't go nowhere without my mutated anthrax... Fer duck huntin'"

OK. Let me put this bluntly. Everyone is capable of murder if pushed to the limit. Most are capable of torture as well (scientifically proved using the electric shock tests in the 60s/70s in guess where…).

Or in the short version.

Giving any American a gun is like giving Jimmy Saville a 9 year old. It may not happen straight away but it'll happen eventually and it won't be good.

If it isn't deliberate it'll be accidental or just utter and sheer incompetence (which is how I personally almost got shot in Georgia).

No guns no gun shot wounds and no families losing kids or Gods forbid children like the young girl at the shooting range, having to deal with having killed someone, or a sibling or a parent.

One of the Columbine girls took 9 hits! and survived with some limited paralysis - good news, what wasn't so great was her mother suicided not long after - so not only did the teen have to deal with being in the middle of a live fire Kohima reenactment and wounds which should have killed her outright she had to deal with a parental suicide as well as a result.

Still think guns are cool.. Oh right.. Stupid question.

PS: since Donnie Dickwit isn't going to do anything useful on gun control could he at least give all the survivors Purple Hearts? After all they should get *something* out of their education. Maybe a new campaign medal for graduating high school/college students because it's starting to look a lot like Sunnydale High if you know what I mean…

*sigh*

So we ban pistols, and semi automatic handguns and those kind of cool round palm gun thingies from the 19th century - all classifiable as hand guns.. Plus the DE .50 and the .46 handcannon that's the biggest I've heard of (I forget the manufacturer) and suddenly most gun crime goes away?

Nope

Everyone goes out and gets a knock off MP40, aka the Uzi (thank you Nazi Germany and the Jews respectively - ironic much). And being the US they get it chambered for .45 so yay it's even more dangerous than the common or garden 9mm Parabellum variety (I'm sure the 9 year old girl who accidentally blew her instructors head off *will* be pleased) and go and shoot their classmates anyway.

So then you say - hmm, let's ban those, but no one would be mad enough, or for that matter strong enough to bring an M2 .50cal to school so they're OK... Until some little cretin thinks "wheelbarrow... Hmmm" and the rest (of the class, along with most of the people on the other side of the wall) is/are history. By the time your idea has got to its natural conclusion some 11 year old has turned up in the playground with a fully restored M18 hellcat, and reduced half a school to cat food (even if'n he got no ammo, he got them tracks and kids can't run at 30mph *squelch*). And they're more likely to do him for driving offences than mass slaughter..

I feel like I'm talking to a real life Early Cuyler and stuck in the "Drawn Together" universe..after all

"You can't spell Slaughter without laughter"…

.

Re: The Land of the Insane @timmyb

And I quote BBC NEWS.

"A mass shooting every 60 hours, this YEAR so far".

A day is, to my knowledge 24 hours. That means a mass shooting (ie over 3 people, once every 2.5 days). Even if I give you the benefit(s) of the doubt to the point even Jeremy Corbyn would be saying "hang on", and only count 60 hours of daylight that's 5 days.

Last I looked a week had 7 days.

It amazes me you're even arguing the point. Anywhere else in the world someone reading those statistics would be horrified to the point of stunned silence (bar possibly Brazil and Mexico) but its normal for you.

And the irony is if a Muslim kid in Sarajevo machine-guns for the exact same reasons - he'd be a terrorist. A kid machine-guns a class in Redneck, Virginia and he's a "very naughty boy".*

*and I do know that technically an AR-15 isn't a machine gun - since it has a lower rate of fire (450rpm vs 2500rpm (MG42)), doesn't have full auto and isn't belt fed. But you know, I doubt the teenage girl is all that bothered about semantics when her left hand ovary has just bounced off the opposite wall!

Re: The Land of the Insane @timmyb

Did you actually read what you just wrote? Let me translate what everyone else read.

"There are so many guns in the United States that despite the fact there's a mass shooting every single f**king *WEEK* in a US school 90% of the guns never hurt anyone.."

And you see nothing wrong with this picture. That is the scariest part.

You see precisely nothing wrong with the paragraph above.

If I recall correctly at least one president of the United States was a out and proud member of the KKK. A man by the name of Harry S Truman (the one after Roosevelt (so you don't have to look it up on Wikipedia)). So I wonder how many senators and government employees and the like are members of the NRA?

I think that might be some premium information right there!

PS : Is it just me, or is the US government in general taking its policy from episodes of Futurama?

Re: The Land of the Insane

Yup, but you're expecting common sense and an understanding of reality here...

To put it in context.

"Common sense in America is like build quality in British Leyland"

It very rarely happens and when it does is swamped by all the dross.

So you are suggesting a special offer on Glaser Safety Rounds for "spree shooters"? A round specially designed to break up in the body and cause maximum damage while not hitting anyone else?!

Fantastic, way to raise the lethality. I'm sure therefore you'll love my new product - the .223 mamba venom hollow point "the gift that keeps on giving" guaranteed to kill everyone it even grazes or your money back. Best of all Mamba venom contains a morphine like painkiller so it won't even hurt her while you're slaughtering your ex among the 20 others. I'm sure her mother will be much happier about that... Might even send you a thank you card..

Try and understand this concept, it's not hard. IF PEOPLE DON'T HAVE GUNS, PEOPLE WON'T GET SHOT. Ban guns completely, no shootings, accidental, psychopathic or in the case of one idiot - wanting to see if heaven exists (it was Mexico...).

The rest of the world is getting sick of this like we got sick of Irish Americans funding the IRA, the CIA funding Bin Laden and Co and every other bit of sh*t stirring the US has been up to.

In fact technically, the USA qualifies as a "failed state" under international law. If I was living there, and I forever thank pitchforks and pointy ears that I'm not, I'd be playing nice in case someone noticed. We know after all what happens to "failed states". Don't we.

"The Coalition of the just f*cking tired of it all".

Has a nice ring don't you think?

Umm, hate to burst your bubble but an AR-15 is a perfect "assault rifle" when you are walking into a *school* with entirely unsuspecting students who are also unarmed, have no training or experience of being shot at, or how fatal certain wounds actually are (it was proven in the Vietnam War that a person who saw someone else with a lower torso gsw survive, tended to survive better and much longer themselves) not to mention dealing with the shock of getting hit (even a nlt wound can kill a person if that's their expectation).

Boycotts like this are a good idea but I doubt they'll have much effect - especially when there's videos (see YouTube) of idiotic teenage girls no less making pretty rainbows using burst fire from rifles.

As for the NRA here's an idea. Every time some little psycho goes Platoon on his or her (it'll happen eventually) school, collect a analogous set of NRA members kids, and have the parents watch while they're given a dose of what the innocent kids in school got and stick the footage on as an advert (like those "splat-a-kid" road safety adverts they used to do here - little Jenny 0 Wolseley 18-85 1).

Zero to total ban in 24 hours, or civil war II.

I almost got shot by accident visiting a friend in the US, someone left a handgun on the drivers seat of the car they lent me..

Re: No issues with the sentencing, but...

No chance, he's far too left wing..

Re: No issues with the sentencing, but...

For a given value of safe.., I wouldn't want to do a garden makeover show there (although we had a live grenade waiting for us when we moved into a new build bungalow when I was around 10)..

Anthrax is nasty stuff, as a Russian gentleman by the name of Boris Yeltsin found out..

Re: Ironic

It would have been slightly more ironic if the majority of names in Christian states didn't derive from the Bible.. Still there are more incongruous possibilities..

I think it was the double barrelled surname that predicted the fact of what this little twerp would become. Some people should really think about changing their names before they have kids, there's probably some poor kid called Belle Enderby rattling around somewhere in Yorkshire (and you can guarantee her parents won't see the issue)... (or the poor kid who's mum named him Taliesin, and sent him to a C of E school..).

To paraphrase monkey dust:

"Where's Taliesin?"

"He's face down in the toilet Miss, with a curtain rod jammed up his arse"

Flying monkeys...

"Fly, my Stupids, Fly"