| Author | Message | ||
     Torquehd |
Nice. I have yet to spend any real time in Aus or Hawaii, and never been to Guam but it's on my bucket list. All the Chamorros I've ever known are rock-solid folk. My retirement dream is to buy a blue-water worthy sailboat and sail the mighty Pacific. The Philippines and Thailand are both might fine places to visit (and great for sailing folk), plus the thousand or so islands stretched out across the Pacific. So much to see, and yet life is so short. Of all the ways I can think of to die, that sounds pretty darn good. On some isolated island in the middle of the Pacific, they'd find my cold, salty body clutching the wheel of a weather-beaten sailboat, full of rum and untold stories. yeah I think I could handle that quite well. | ||
| Aesquire |
There has never been any practicable agenda that green radicalism will actually embrace. https://issues.org/the-empty-radicalism-of-the-cli mate-apocalypse/ | ||
| Aesquire |
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/a_sho cking_scientific_discovery_winds_affect_ocean_temp eratures.html Consider that the jet streams in the upper atmosphere were basically unknown until about 1944. That's when B-29s found themselves being hurled over their targets at over 500 miles an hour, speeds and air flow changes the bomb sight computers couldn't deal with, then fighting headwinds that turned ground speeds into a crawl. Now consider that most of the oceans covering most of the planet have never been measured for currents, temperature or salinity. Then explain to me what drugs are so popular in England that Boaty McBoatface not only won a naming contest, but they keep riffing on that theme to name everything else. This from a nation that had the cojones to name ships like Indomitable, Intransigent, Dreadnought, and Warspite. Although....IIRC, their most numerous class of ships in the 20th century were the Flower class of escort Corvettes, built cheap & quick. Imagine the shame of a U-boat captain to be sunk by the HMS Buttercup. | ||
| Aesquire |
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/does_ this_settled_science_look_familiar.html | ||
| Aesquire |
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/warmi st_hysteria_over_purportedly_catastrophic_ice_melt ing_in_greenland_busted.html | ||
| Sifo |
Tampering Past The Tipping Point I must be naive. I keep being amazed every time I hear of them doing this... AGAIN! | ||
| Aesquire |
Once upon a time I worked at Statistical Process Control. Using trends in collected data to basically make good parts, and reduce bad ones, ideally, stopping & fixing the process, ( replacing a worn tool, verifying the fixture had not shifted, etc. ) BEFORE you make bad parts. What the parts were didn't matter to the idea, toothbrush or Tommy gun. And I was also at one place, the Mil-spec compliance guy. Tons of paperwork to ensure the troops in the field not get issued duds, or engine parts that break & make the turbine explode, crashing the aircraft & killing people. Faking the data like the Climate Con folk do is fraud. And in many cases, a felony. Because it gets people killed. I even had a $500 hammer. You've heard of that mythical waste of taxpayer's money, right? What the newspapers never tell you is you can buy one too. Amazon carries them now. The papers never told you that the Head of the expensive hammer is Beryllium Bronze, and won't make sparks when you hit, for example steel. You use it when you are beating the detonator out of that corroded bomb. Or freeing that stuck valve in an explosive atmosphere when the flammable gas leak has to be stopped & you are working in stocking feet so your shoes don't spark on the concrete and level the town. Reality is stranger than the fantasy. Ask me about the hyper expensive toilet seat. I had the specs on those too. ( we didn't get that contract ) | ||
| Hootowl |
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1 350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-win d-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html Clean electricity? | ||
| Hootowl |
For reasons not related to my carbon footprint, climate change, peak oil, renewable energy, or the tooth fairy, I just ordered a Tesla 3. 310 mile range, AWD, 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. My commute, round trip, is 4 miles. I think i’s going to work out well for me. | ||
| Hughlysses |
^ Very cool. Please post up pics and a review when you get it. | ||
| Sifo |
France’s new ‘hottest recorded temperature ever’ is in question – guess where it was measured? | ||
| Aesquire |
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-01/devastat ing-crop-losses-are-literally-happening-all-over-g lobe Unlike the pseudo science prophecies that warm weather causes storms, it is in fact the temperature difference that does, and that is caused by cold weather, and the increase in differences. Look up warm fronts & cold fronts. Compare. The higher differential per distance is with cold. Scale that up to temperature difference between the tropics and the upper latitudes. That gives you global storm driving forces. And, I don't remember a time when people didn't die from summer heat in Paris. There are multiple reasons for that. | ||
| Hootowl |
Realclimatescience.com did a number of youtube videos about the hottest rooftop in France a few days ago. They’re worth watching. | ||
| Sifo |
Interesting perspective on Tesla ownership. | ||
| Hootowl |
Saw that a few days ago. Sounds like a crappy shop. Someone bumped the side of my jetta a few months after I bought it. Dented the rear door, and pushed the B pillar in just a touch. $16,000 repair. New cars are expensive to fix. Depends on what damage is done under the skin. All their other videos have nothing but good things to say about the car. So while I appreciate their honesty, knowing that an expensive car is expensive to fix neither surprises nor deters me. | ||
| Hootowl |
On the plus side, if a motor goes, it’s less than a grand. And there’s an 8 year 120,000 mile warranty on the battery. | ||
| Sifo |
No, it's not necessarily a reason to not purchase one. There used to be similar problems with Japanese cars decades ago. Tesla does seem to be a quirky company to deal with. Kind of like owning an I-phone on steroids. I know they were having build quality issues a while back on the Model 3. Hopefully those have been addressed as promised. Personally, I have moments where I consider looking for a used Leaf. They can be found fairly cheaply and you don't deal with the quirks of Musk. The fact that they can be found cheap points out the heavy depreciation though. I think that's kind of expected when they keep telling us that new battery technology is just around the corner (true or not, it's what we're being told), and the electrical systems in the car are very specific to a battery technology. Do you know if the battery warranty is prorated over time? Just wondering. | ||
| Sifo |
Good video on some of the quality issues from about 6 months ago. | ||
| Sifo |
He did like it enough to quickly upgrade to the performance model... | ||
| Hootowl |
If the battery fails to hold 70% of its rated charge, it will be replaced under warranty. There is no mention of prorating. | ||
| Hootowl |
I didn’t think the extra 10 mph and ~1 second off the 0-60 time was worth an extra 10 grand. Four and a half seconds is fast enough. I did get dual motors and the extended range option, as well as larger wheels and the full computer option. Basically everything but the performance package. | ||
| Sifo |
Can't wait till you have some seat time and share some opinions. | ||
| Gregtonn |
Awhile back there was a debate on this board about how clean electric cars and motorcycles are. Primarily it centered around cheap electricity in Iceland. Do yourself a favor, search rare earth mining in China (China produces about 90% of the worlds' supply). Then consider how many tons of these rare earths a used to make motors for electric vehicles. Even worse consider how many tons are used in a single "clean" wind turbine. This is one site. https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewab le/wind/big-winds-dirty-little-secret-rare-earth-m inerals/ G | ||
| Hootowl |
I agree that windmills are essentially worthless. I understand that electric cars use external combustion engines. I didn’t buy it to be green, I bought it because I wanted it. The US is about to produce a whole lot more Lithium once the mine opens near Tesla’s gigafactory. It’s not an accident that they built it in close proximity to a Lithium deposit. Transporting raw materials and finished batteries adds cost. They build the batteries in the same plant where they build subassemblies for the cars. Like spacex, which builds every component of their rockets in house to minimize cost, Tesla plans to kick Panasonic to the curb and produce their own batteries too. No middleman. (Message edited by hootowl on July 02, 2019) | ||
| Hootowl |
They just bought Maxwell Technologies too. www.maxwell.com Ultracapacitors, I believe, will extend battery life by taking the hit on rapid charge and discharge under braking and acceleration. Been reading interesting things on graphene and how it can be used to radically increase the energy density of capacitors. Fascinating stuff. | ||
| Zac4mac |
Might just be the right time to start a "rare earth" recycling program. Magnets are worth dollars... Z | ||
| Gregtonn |
No criticism intended. I understand the allure. The use of super/ultra capacitor tech is especially interesting to me because I was one of the primary engineers who developed it back in the early 1990's. I kind of lost connection with it after I left the Space Station program. G | ||
| Aesquire |
I'm waiting on the next jump in power storage. Fast charging super caps would be nice. We Need to upgrade the electric grid to handle electric vehicles. For sake of argument, I'll assume Thorium reactors or other safe, rational sources will be built. But the Grid? Needs to handle a huge jump in current demand. The power to move our cars & trucks is basically the same if it's internal combustion, electric, or steam. Aerodynamic drag & rolling resistance aren't going to change much. Oh, there's several percent reduction in drag possible, but the box size & shape we streamline has fixed size, more or less. It's hard to compare numbers because of efficiency variation, etc. But assume every gallon of gas not burned has to be replaced by your local power plant in electricity. | ||
| Gregtonn |
Fast charging of super caps is not a problem. Controlling the discharge rate to make them a viable power source is the more challenging issue. For the record, the Maxwell "ultra capacitor" falls well shy of the capacity and voltage of the super caps we built and they are heavier. G | ||
| Sifo |
Science: Growing up Near Nature Produces Saner Adults And we are at a point where urban populations pretty much control the country. |
