chuck kottke

Realizing The Beauty of Spring !!!:daisy::sunny::flutterby: From whence the Monarch grows on thy sustenance of milkweed, that doth appear each spring anew in the soft earth of thy garden.

It's fun if you make it fun! Consider exploring more options - after all, creativity is the spice of life!:P

Peter Schilling's Major Tom - in the mixed English / German version (either is excellent, but I like the combination): YouTube - Peter Schilling-Major Tom (12" single)

Thanks for the information on the transmission options, Dave! Interesting - I am imagining a robotic system must otherwise do the shifting, or there's a band system in the gearbox - interesting! Yes, Ricardo, I have to agree - air bags do save lives - I just wish they would put some other gas producing method in the system (all that dust in the lungs isn't good either, but it's better than taking an impact head-on!). Thought about a pressurized canister of ordinary air - might be better. But on the energy front, all the heat leaving the engine is really a big waste, and I took a look at Scuderi's site - they've got a working model showing the methods they've proposed that works - firing after top dead center. Somewhere I'll find the link - let's see....SAE 2009: Scuderi unveils cut-away of split cycle engine In the meantime, still pondering the idea of lighter vehicles - certainly safety features take up some of the weight, but I think it's just standard designs that do - instead of ultra-light designs, such as honey-comb structural materials and (preferably) bio-composites, we're still using the old chassis from the past - less retooling for the automakers, but it's truly massive, and largely unnecessary. Audi went for a steel and aluminum composite structure (properly built to avoid corrosion issues) - similar to aircraft design. I'm thinking that while the weight has a "safety" advantage in a collision (and a disadvantage for the other vehicle), it's not the only way - crumple zones, better designs for stability, and compressible-reboundable materials can bring the safety factor back to today's standards - Aptera says this is true of their vehicle, and it's a fraction of the weight of a typical auto today - essentially the moern version of the cycle-car. Anyhow, TTYL! Green Economy Links:http://www.sustainable-economy.org/ A Sustainable Economy — Oregon Environmental Council

Ah my very own elemental spam thread!! YAY!:) Silicon is the predominant element in most glasses, so we see the world looking through silicon, is a manner of thinking. If the yanomami will be listened to, it's still possible to make the changes, and keep the living systems in tact, for everyone's sake.

Contemplating the collective mass insanity of modern global culture...

I prefer an automatic - I've driven quite a few vehicles with manual transmission, but there's enough distractions on the road these days - one more thing to think about isn't helpful! I'm not sure what a 'semi-automatic' transmission is! Enlighten me here, if you will. Even an electric may need a transmission, unless we can get the torque curve to be better on the low end, and more even overall for DC electric motors. But the engine - that's where the answer is - there's a ton of energy just waiting to be saved in that department - there's the big apple, waiting to be plucked in the efficiency department. It's easy - just a little retooling on the basic design, and we can double the power output. On the other end is the need for so much instantaneous power. Vehicles are way too heavy, on average. Here I am, lugging along 3511 pounds of machinery in a small car, just to pick up some groceries! Hmm.. seems a bit more than what anyone really wants or needs, and all that takes a lot of instant power to accelerate - hence the big motor & battery - lightening the machine makes a lot of sense as well. I think it's amusing how in 1914 there were numerous small cars (called cycle cars) getting 50 miles per gallon or better! Oh, how we've almost gotten to 1914 efficiency standards. The secret was their lightness and simplicity - no need for bulky machinery to get a few sacs of groceries.. I'd be happy with such a vehicle, but the price tag for machines such as the Aptera (at roughly $29,000 last as I recall) is a bit out of my price range - wish they'd offer one for something more like $14,000 or less. I'm half tempted to just re-create a cycle-car, and use the same technology - a frame, an air-cooled engine, a simple transmission, a pulley and a long belt drive (unless front-wheel drive is better). Really, that's about all the Aptera is in it's essential form - a very sleek modern cycle-car - seems like one could just build it!

In the collective conscious of humanity exists many facets of thought, interacting at different rates, moments in time, and among various groups, to bring us the humming of all the neural networks - at times independent, at times interconnected, and often linked by the common threads of ordinary human experiences. But anyway you slice it, life is what you put into it, and the reverberations of what pebbles of thought we choose to toss into the pool of human consciousness. And thus, I OM.:sultan:

The other issue is the need for Diesels. Not the way we think of Diesels - smelly engines that burn fuel oil, but rather Diesels as engines that burn alcohol or bio-diesel, and have newer designs for injectors. I'm thinking of an injector design that allows the injector to be at the normal pressure of the cylinder, so less energy is expended in trying to inject fuel into a cylinder at high pressure. Something of a side-saddle solenoid driven injector, where a "charge" of fuel is loaded into an injector at low pressure (piston at lowest point of travel), and then normalized with the cylinder's internal pressure, to be injected by a solenoid pump where the internal pressure surrounds the pump, thus allowing for less power consumption by the injector pump (and less wear). Diesels smell because of the "cold spots" in the swirling combustion gasses - maybe a more uniform injection manifold built into the engine head would help? Also, with high compression comes the production of nitrous oxides - which can be easily neutralized, and carried away with water. Diesels also make a bit of a rattle when they run - the sound of the actual burning fuel charge as I am told - which is really not all that unpleasant a noise, but sounds like an engine with unadjusted lifters. Perhaps engine noise dampers can reduce this to inaudible? I'm just trying to make the Diesel actually appeal more, as it is the future engine; it offers near-perfect combustion timing, and has the highest efficiency potential for a piston internal combustion engine...

I prefer an infinitely variable transmission - friction disk with drive wheel.. I think while standard designs are nice, it's good to look ahead - a small, efficient, power plant and large battery and capacitor storage, plus an electric with a computer/solenoid shifting transmission for efficiency makes sense. But the engine; for long distance, the engine will be with us - and that's where the big wheel of cheese is!:P Perhaps one cylinder makes balancing difficult, even though it can be done - less moving parts is always better for wear and reliability, but perhaps two cylinders opposed offers perfect balance if the crankshaft and push rods fit neatly like a boot in a stirrup. Still some counterweights required to get it just right, but close to perfect. Power pulses - the whole reason we went to the multi-cylinder engines was to get the smoother power output, and quickly increase engine power - 1900 thinking. But if the engine is dedicated as a generator, then who cares if the mechanical power output is "smooth"? Electronics obsoletes this requirement. The other questions are with stronger cylinder walls and pistons, where higher compression makes heads hotter and pressures soar. The reason we go with cast iron is the graphite lubrication provided; aluminum is soft enough to seat the rings as well. But it seems to me that this whole business of "seating" is really a "fitting" by wearing one metal object into another (rings into cylinder walls), and if the cylinders, pistons, and rings were very, very close tolerances (perfect round and cylindrical), then very hard, smooth materials would be ideal. And I still think gold plating, especially the head, upper cylinder walls, and piston top would add enough to recoup the cost quickly. A few microns of gold is miniscule, but being the best heat-reflective metal, worth the effort. Combining all the advantages of these things, plus full expansion travel, and the engine could be upwards of 60% efficient, while outputting the same power. Since acceleration and top speed are related more to vehicle weight and instantaneous power, capacitor boosted motors and lower drag/profile issues should get the car to outperform current sports models (except for the ones in the bathing suits.:P). One of the biggest challenges is to get the change to happen more naturally, which I think can be done if a very well designed and well executed machine goes into production that really changes attitudes about our automoblies. The Prius, Insight, Focus, Impact, Volt, Aptera, and Tesla are doing that, but if there was more of a combining of the best designs, perhaps public acceptance would shift dramatically. What's really slowing the adopting of the new technologies??

Among silicon's other uses is for steel alloys - sold as ferro-silicon, and useful for making tougher metal, and rust-resistant alloys.

Neat!!:) I wish I had one too - someday something like it. 45 is pretty good, but you can get even better with an added solar panel (I have seen one or two after-market units that attach to the roof). I'm still thinking all auto engines need redesigning, though. At 25% thermal efficiency, there's room to double or even triple the efficiency. A thought had occurred to me - with proper balancing and all, why not just use a large single-cylinder engine, and eliminate the complexity and added friction of a multi-cylinder power plant, if it's used for charging storage devices? What was wrong with single cylinder engines used in cars was the lack of uniform power output, so the cars would kinda chug & 'lurch', they needed big flywheels, and since the engines were small and low-compression, didn't offer much power. Seems that if it's hooked to a generator, and balanced properly, a really big single cylinder engine would be advantageous, and with today's balancing and engine vibration-absorbing systems, not a problem. Power pulses could be timed with the generator's power output, and then rectified for a smooth output electronically. Maybe combustion gasses wouldn't be uniformly mixed in a large single-cylinder?? Hmm.. an interesting idea, and no doubt someone else has already thought of it.. I like the idea of a reciprocating generator free piston engine as well - less linkages, and direct power generation, but perhaps tricky to regulate..:thinking:

There are more stars in the universe than sand covering all the world's beaches, and the ultimate source of all this sand is the supernovae condensed matter that formed the Earth and the other planets.. So in a roundabout way, silicon is a product of nuclear fusion, and the sun is a reactor.. But an interesting thought - silicon solar cells are very responsive in the infra-red. Would they work well as a direct method of converting heat into electricity?

Perhaps so, but the future may also lay with pure electrics, or with hybrids that employ supercapacitors instead of batteries. And I favor a resurgence in the bicycle myself..:P Thinking about where the energy goes, hot exhaust manifolds = huge losses in engine efficiency. But also, a lighter vehicle requires less energy to accelerate and less heating of brakes during deceleration. So, to make vehicles both light and safe is the challenge - I think we have the answers, it's the implementing that lags. Auto makers drag their feet because it requires risk (newer designs) and retooling (a big expense), but it's worth it. Honeycomb materials, composites with less environmentally damaging polymer "resins", and smarter cooling for cars is in the works.

What if they're limited in their view of how the Universe truly is? M theory, W theory, ....

----> Gleetings Laura:) <----

Since we are all part of this magnificent universe, and since we have a sense of humor, thus any unity of all collected consciousness in essence does, as we are all part of that interwoven fabric.

Well, that's all pretty and everything:laugh3: - I suppose, one wouldn't need much of a light then to work on the engine... What I'm getting at is a problem with thermodynamics - which is at the heart of engine efficiency. Since 30% is a long ways from ideal, there's a lot of space for improvement in this department. Gold is the best heat reflector I know of (hence it's use as a heat shield for spacecraft), and I thought maybe if the cylinder walls were heavily gold plated, then the engine would gain dramatically in efficieny. Trouble is the gold would wear off! Unless it were either hardened (nitride ion bombardment?) or impregnated with graphite. Still, this would require a fair amount of gold, and add to vehicle expense; still, it's just plating, so even heavy plating might run roughly 30 USD - not that much of a price increase. Question is: how long before the plating wears off, and what would be the energy savings?? There was a time when some US auto makers tried hard chrome piston rings, but they were hard to seat, so the idea lost favor.. Not an area I am fully aware of, but it seems to me that if one were to use a gold-chromium alloy & heavy, heavy plating on the cylinder walls, and fairly hard rings, and then machine things to a higher level of precision, the better fit would reduce wear, and the hardness prevent wear, and also reflect heat back into the cylinder where it belongs.. maybe get more lubricant to the top of the bore, so when the cylinder 'fires' then the expanding rings would have a more slippery surface to slide down.. what if the rings were made up of hard outer metal, but filled with a graphite alloy core; maybe a porus alloy, so oil could be soaked up near the bottom of the piston travel, and then used to lubricate near the top? Perhaps a minor point compared to compression ratio or piston travel for better thermodynamic efficiency..

Someday, YES! Today, I just want to get the garden in.:) They're great for places where that design works, but I think for my situation, I would be better off getting ordinary panels, and installing them on the edge of the field (not enough sun hits the house). Do you plan on putting any up, Carla??

Lore, are the strawberries ready in Chile??:)

Welcome to the one and only Coldplaying! You're reward will be administered by Ian the Magnificent.

Greetings!:)

Just finished watching Frontline's 'Inside the Financial Meltdown' and thinking how the whole notion of pure market solutions is all a bunch of BS. They (Paulson & the Bush Team) forgot the human factor routinely - people react out of what they sense, not strictly out of rational thinking. And if the money didn't flow like honey from Wall Street to K Street & Election campaigns, then the whole house of cards wouldn't have been allowed to happen in the first place. It's like wondering why there's congestive heart failure with the system after decades of eating pork... And that's what triggered the global crash - it only took days for the panic to spread. So much for neo-con economic thinking - Ray McGovern was right - they're all nuts!

YAY!! Problem solved then. Anyhow, good music from another era - worthy of the Gods.:angel::drummer:

As long as that person's not sneezing or coughing where mists or droplets in the air might reach you, there's little chance of catching it. But door knobs, counters, any surfaces touched by someone with the flu can spread it; also, you're immune system can handle it, if you get plenty of rest, eat right, exercise, and stay on top of things to avoid excessive stress.;) Plus, being exposed to it, but not catching it actually strengthens your immune system, so if you're exposed again, your immune system will latch onto the virus particles and gobble them up.:)