Comments by "" (@timogul) on "Real Engineering" channel.

I had a thought for what I think could be a really good mine clearing tool, based on a children's toy. The first step is to build a giant, mostly solid concrete cylinder, with a metal pipe in the axis, similar to a steam roller. Then, build a device that will spin up this cylinder to a high RPM, and then release it, sending it rolling forward up to hundreds of feet on stored rotational momentum. My hope would be that its large weight would set off mines that it passes over, and while it would destroy trees and damage crops and such, it wouldn't cause much permanent damage. If it did set off a mine, it wouldn't likely cause that much damage to the concrete roller, and that damage could be patched relatively cheaply. All the moving parts would stay safely back on the sidelines.
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@Makrangoncias If it's heavy enough, that shouldn't be a huge problem, but also they could use alternating layers to it to give it some play.
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Why don't they just do like in Venice or the Netherlands, and put a full barrier across the river opening, that only deploys under high-seas conditions?
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Does housing need windows? Why not maximize space by building structures where dozens of units per floor are fully "inside" the walls, with no windows, but that use more modern techniques like lensed light-wells to bring in light from the outside, and perhaps some form of projections to give the illusion of outside views. Even Disney is apparently exploring the idea of rooms with "artificial windows" for their Star Wars themed hotel.
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In a case like this, it sounds like rather than use something like batteries, they should use something like large scale water storage. Build high altitude water reservoirs, fill them using pumped water during periods of peak sunshine, and then drain them through generators during periods of weak sunshine.
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Well here's the solution that uses the "carbon neutral fuels." Stockpile carbon neutral fuels. Like the issue is that we definitely need to drastically reduce CO2 right now, immediately. Carbon neutral fuels going right back to market wouldn't really help with that. On the other hand, more traditional methods, like just planting trees, is inefficient, too slow. So what about Step 1 being building these plants and chugging down as much CO2 as possible. Make that "neutral fuel," sure, but don't sell it. Just stockpile it, build a massive lake of the stuff someplace. Let the CO2 level drop lower and lower, until it reaches a relatively safe place. Meanwhile work on other ways to reduce emissions, and naturally sequester CO2 like plating more trees, get it so that the Earth is in balance again. then they can start to sell off their carbon neutral fuels, which coincidentally would be even more valuable, since traditional fuels would be much less common than they are today. This might take decades, but governments could cover the difference, paying into producing the fuels, on the basis of getting paid back when the fuels are eventually sold. Alternately it could just be taken as a long term investment, like a Bond. Invest $1000 today in carbon neutral fuels, and expect to make $5,000 off of it in 20-40 years, as well as helping the environment.
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I was thinking, couldn't you just make a "bolo station?" Just build a station of the same size as the ISS, and similar basic size, but designed like a cone, with all the interesting stuff "floored" at the flat end. Then build another one, and put a transit tube between them that's like 300+ meters long, with a docking bay in the center. This way, you could get the thing spinning at a rate that would provide reasonable false gravity at both ends, but the total mass would be a fraction of a full ring station, probably somewhere on the order of an ISS and a half, or at most 2-3 ISSes, and most of that fairly generic tubing. There are fragility issues, a broken tether would be very dangerous, but it should work, and you could even get advantages in catching and launching objects from the endpoints for bonus speed.
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You know, you're allowed to post videos on Youtube, even if they get demonetized. Plenty of content creators do this, so you don't have to worry about "content not working for Youtube." You can just put it out anyway.
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I get that submarines and ships wouldn't want to send out active pings, because it would give away their positions, but why not employ remote "ping drones?" Just have tiny remote submersibles, just a battery, an engine, a computer, and a pinger, that is designed to travel away from the sub a good distance, then send out pings on demand, and then return to the ship when it needs to recharge. The location it takes relative to the ship could be random each time, but since the ship would know it, it could then triangulate based on those pings accurately. Since the enemy sub would not know the location of the pinger, it would not be able to make much sense of the data it offers. A large sub could operate a dozen or so of these, stuck to the outer hull like lamprey.
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If the definition of metric units is defined by physic properties, and the definition of an imperial unit is defined by a certain amount of metric units, then those imperial units are no less defined by the original physical constants, you just need to fun the conversion as to exactly how long it takes light to travel 1 yard in a vacuum. Metric might be better for engineering, but feet and inches are so much easier to work with in cases like human height than meters or centimeters. There needs to be a metric unit that is roughly one foot long.
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Just hypothetically could you get the back end to fly? I was thinking about this when you said "a front wheel drive with a spoiler." Would it be possible to take a front wheel drive car, and up a spoiler on it with aerodynamic lift properties rather than downforce, such that at high speeds the rear wheels would actually lift completely off the ground? What sort of disastrous effects might this have on steering? ;)
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