Youtube comments of (@EbenBransome).

  1. This is the kind of video that makes YouTube worthwhile.
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  2. Hang on, offshore wind blights the countryside of his constituents? Is he representing happy British fish at this point?
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  3. Now you know why the black majority wanted people like him out of South Africa.
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  4. You might want to know that Ricardo Engineering studied bore coating (with chromium) in the 1940s, and concluded that done properly it could last 4 times as long as a steel liner. They identified that the issue was finding a way to apply the coating evenly and correctly, and suggested that when fully developed it might well be cheaper than liners. So this is hardly new.
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  5. Totally irrelevantly you remind me of this: The answer is 9W. What is the question? Do you spell your name with a V, Herr Wagner? It makes more sense than Trump.
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  6. According to a former GCHQ guy I knew, now dead, back in the 1950s the Russians used to communicate en clair, and he and his colleagues were out there listening to them in the desert with RAF cover in cause they were caught. He said after a bit they knew quite a bit about the private lives of some of the Russians, picked up some Russian jokes, and decided they were "just like us". After a few years he got bored, declined promotion to a desk job, and was found a rather well paid job in a government-friendly organisation. He didn't visit Russia till the Yeltsin era on a tour, accidentally came out with some fluent colloquial Russian in front of the tour guide, and was thereafter regarded with great suspicion and none of the Russians would talk to him. Old habits died hard.
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  7. Do you remember when Republicans were saying European-style health systems had "death panels" where they determined whether you would get treatment, and that was bad? Now the USA is slowly realising that that is exactly what their insurance companies do, but with the added incentive of maximising profit rather than staying within government budget.
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  8. "The Apprentice" was a show in which Trump pretended to be a businessman; Zelenskyy was in a show in which he played a President. The parallels are even more exact than you wrote.
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  9. And then libelled the guy who explained that the "submarine" would be a death trap, but got off because no US jury would convict a rich American against a foreigner.
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  10. It does show that the economists and game theorists who came up with "perverse incentives" were entirely correct.
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  11. The fact that the Murdoch, Rothermere, Reach and Telegraph constantly talk her down and say she's on the way out suggests that she has them worried. They don't seem to have noticed the elephant in the room - Badenoch.
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  12. The yacht builder is responding so aggressively and so quickly that one might almost think they were seeking to prejudice the police investigation. The only proper response to such a disaster is "We will await the results of the enquiry."
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  13. A lot of Italians did wonder why they were not on the side of their old ally England.
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  14. The Danes did at one point acquire half of England. They should be taken seriously.
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  15. That's interesting. As a humble (and retired) mere engineer I am very well aware that a number of engineers come up with bizarre physics ideas that they think are brilliant, basically because they don't know enough physics to see the problems. It works the other way too; some physicists come up with engineering ideas that won't work because they don't understand the limitations of materials, tribology and available energy, new IC engines being a popular direction.
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  16. We need to start referring to Reform as the "Dubai and Musk UK takeover company."
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  17. Mencken was right about the USA eventually electing a president that resembled the average voter. Unfortunately unlike Idiocracy, the average voter turns out to be nasty as well as unintelligent.
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  18. Incidentally it is an electrically powered supercharger . The Germans call it a Kompressor but the English word is supercharger. During WW2 there was a huge competition between engines with superchargers and turbochargers, or even both, with one US aircraft being basically a frame wrapped around a huge turbocharger installation. Turbochargers didn't give as much benefit as hoped for because some thrust was being generated by aiming engine exhausts backwards, and the turbocharger absorbs energy from the exhaust. One interesting approach is to have an electric supercharger and a turbocharger driving an auxiliary generator, with a battery providing power for rapid spinup. I'm very willing to be corrected, but I believe this has only been tried on ships.
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  19. Musk is such a smart businessman...like his mango idol who bankrupted casinos.
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  20. Alan Turing, a rather well known mathematician, remarked that the President of Bell Labs needed to be a "mediocre" intelligence. Before him, Ernest Rutherford was once interviewed and asked what he thought about his former lab assistant, Pye, having started a very successful company, while Rutherford was on a moderate professorial salary. To which he replied, in effect, that there were more important things in life than money. Very intelligent people are too busy thinking interesting thoughts to spend a lot of time working out how to increase sales, boost share prices or do down the competition.
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  21. How could they let a New York mob boss? Answer that one first.
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  22.  @09rja  You know Clinton can actually make sense? He can think without rambling? And the accusations against him kind of added up to one day in the life of Donald Trump. Rhodes Scholar versus someone who may have had his coursework at Wharton done for him.
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  23. Diesel engines for commercial vehicles need to be tough. I once assisted on a project with some Chinese engineers who were working on improving tractor reliability. One of them said "for people living in rural areas, the tractor is what stands between them and starvation in winter." I once worked for a company that did ring design for Cummins (apart from other things). One problem with rings is how do you test them? You make a batch of rings, they pass every dimensional and metallurgical test - but how do you know how they will do 300 000 miles down the road? Minute differences in grain and carbon distribution can have an effect on long term life. Remember the ring takes the firing load and is very thin. Wash fuel over it, stop it lubricating for a few seconds, ring overheats.
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  24. A university friend got a job oop North when he graduated and needed transport. He saw one of these advertised for £90 - he wasn't a car person but he was poor, it was low mileage and he went to take a look. It really was owned by an old lady whose husband had died and she only took it to the shops etc., always garaged. No signs of rust. He bought it and, as you do, decided to go to Scotland on holiday. Where it started to overheat. A farmer stopped to investigate and suggested it might be blocked radiator. He was lent a bucket, and started to drain and flush the system. Vast quantities of sludge came out. When it ran clear he filled it with burn water, and it then ran perfectly. He eventually sold it for a lot more than he paid for it, because the insurance was expensive and he needed to raise the deposit for a house.
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  25. Trump is still mentally in The Apprentice playing two teams one off against the other.
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  26. Farage's brilliance or the determination of the media to push someone who creates loads of clickbait?
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  27. We should send Angela Rayner to talk to him. Faced with a woman who won't back down, his ego might explode. (She'll need safety glasses and a helmet. And steel capped boots for putting in.)
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  28. The right has always been violently anti-Miliband, the attacks on him when he was Labour leader were disgusting. Miliband is a progressive who happens to be Jewish. The media are totally in favour of right wing Jews, but they still have an obsession with left wing or centrist ones. Hence the hate for Miliband and Mandelson, and the trouble they made for Freedland at the Guardian. If he was supporting more oil drilling, they'd accuse him of sacrificing the future. They have no shame at all.
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  29. The title is too long, should just be "Trump incapable of understanding".
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  30. They are doing plenty. Deep sea port on the Western side of South America, plans to build railways so goods from SA do not need to go via Panama.
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  31. The priority for manufacturers was actually to produce an engine that would last the life of the car. Only niche manufacturers like Morgan see spares as a profit centre.
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  32.  @danialhillmann5374  So you think rule of law should not apply because he got 49.9% of the vote? There's a word for that. Dictatorship.
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  33.  @peterlong2580  They'd just take on the massive debt and buy it for $1. The US has, I believe, negative net worth, and if Trump continues his economic plans its ROI may not cover it. If I was preparing the M&A documents for it, I'd tell Denmark it was too risky.
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  34. Political funding reform is urgently needed. Media ownership, advertising, party donations, donations to political organisations that are not parties like Reform and Tufton Street.
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  35. Putin's terms for the ceasefire: 1. Pennsylvania Avenue to be renamed Putinskiy Prospekt. 2. Title of US Vice President to become Malenkaya Suka Putina. 3. Tesla to be renamed Lada. 4. New Trump resort in Sevastopol, all proceeds to Putin Retirement Fund. 5. Free Amazon Prime for everybody in Kremlin. Trump says "I'd do that."
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  36.  @moviefiend44  Some of the rabbis taught that all secular knowledge was bad and this was the meaning of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. There have always been Christians who believe this too, but then they boast about it on the Internet, go figure.
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  37. Mrs. Tice just shows how far the Times has deteriorated.
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  38. He should have said "Yes, Mr. Kennedy, you don't get to be a general by being average."
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  39. Just remove the D and T keys from all the keyboards. Onal Rump sounds suggestive.
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  40. This is a serious point for all sciences, actually. After the collapse of the Soviet Union there were a lot of unemployed scientists and mathematicians. And before long they were working to make money for oligarchs who pretty much didn't care how they did it. I am sure this is the root cause of many present day problems.
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  41. Because they don't know anything either?
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  42. It won't. He is simply too weird for a Britiish audience.
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  43.  @absurdistsloth  Ireland supported more people when it wasn't using artificial fertiliser. Meanwhile Great Britain the island is only capable of supporting about 6 million people sustainably. Immigrants are not the problem, overpopulation dates back to the days of Imperial food imports. Same as Roman Empire, totally dependent on grain shipments from Egypt.
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  44. Because accountants can't install backdoors for Putin.
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  45. Perhaps interestingly, both the British Trump-lights, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, tried to avoid talking about actual policy. Farage disowned his own party manifesto. There's a common factor.
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  46. This is a very good video. A little additional background: Newcomen type engines started with wooden pistons but cast iron pistons for steam engines were around as soon as the Watt type engine appeared. There's no way wood would withstand over 100C. By the 1880s piston rings were getting very complicated indeed with internal adjustable springing to keep them in contact with the cylinder walls. There were a lot of patented designs. The spiral (actually helical) expander design was invented before 1890. There were many experiments with Diesel ring designs from quite early on, including multi-piece rings designed to exert pressure on both the cylinder and the piston land using angled springs. By the time I was involved for a few years in piston R&D, the rubbing faces of rings were profiled and hard chromed. One of my jobs was to determine efficient ways of checking the shape of the ring profile and measuring the gap in a test cylinder. We might have been the first company to apply digital optics and computing to the problem, but of course nobody else was talking about their in-house secrets. Note that for Diesel engines, things like keystone ring profiles have tended to die out as better ways of getting performance, and better oils, have been developed.
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  47. Give up? In 1945, with Germany in ruins and the Reichstag being overrun by the Red Army, it is estimated that 70% of Germans still supported Hitler. A relative remembered an English speaking German PoW saying to him, in about April 45, "You are all really for it when Hitler comes back."
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  48. Bevel gear drives were very common before and during WW2 but by the end of the war, pushrods had been made light enough to be competitive even for light racing use. As you rightly say, the eccentric drive does depend on consistent centre distance, however it can be improved by moving the driving gear off to one side and allowing for a little up and down movement in the bottom anchorage for the distance piece. Bentley used an eccentric drive with three eccentrics at 120 degrees which is just about the ideal but expensive. However, the bearings of the rods do wear and are much more expensive than replacing a chain or belt. Steam engine eccentric drives had means to adjust the centres of the straps on larger engines, quite impracticable for the enclosed straps and bearings on a car or bike engine.
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  49. Musk is a DEI hire. He's African.
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  50. Just read the long range weather forecast from the Met Office where it says "For the next few days Reform weather is expected, freezing fog and risk of dangerously icy road conditions. During the next week it will be windy and high rainfall due to 14 years of Conservative neglect of the weather, during the second half of the month there will be a turn towards more Labour weather, warmer than average with long periods of sunshine."
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  51.  @philhealey4443  It's amazing what technology was invented in WW1 but the metallurgists and machinists couldn't keep up to make it cheap to manufacture. OHC aluminium V8 aero engines? By the French. Don't tell Americans.
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  52.  @Hmmyeah2019  He hasn't really created that many jobs in the US because his biggest company is still Tesla and half of that is in China. Furthermore a lot of his jobs are "displacement" jobs - if Tesla didn't exist people would be making cars in plants belonging to other companies. The PC and phone inductries really created new jobs because they didn't displace anything, they created new markets. TV displaced live acting, but the growth in air travel created new jobs in tourism as did cruise ships. Making EVs may create some new infrastructure jobs, but not a lot. Furthermore, Tesla has run on carbon credits and tax incentives, which reduce the profitability of other US car makers and also increase the deficit by cutting tax income.
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  53. Buy a Merc. Normally they guarantee that parts will be available for 30 years after launch, even on the Smarts.
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  54. And about as run down.
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  55. The owners of the Plessey electronics company in the UK were like that. They would walk in and randomly fire people because they thought this would motivate the others. Plessey has long ceased to exist, but that kind of dysfunctional management has not. When I did my management training (not at Plessey) our lecturer said this was typical of people who were insecure and resented the fact that there were people around who knew things they did not, and even owning the company did not stop the insecurity. He said "If you work for one don't persuade yourself they will change, they won't, get out."
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  56.  @christopheroliver8762  It is, however, the "last refuge of a scoundrel", as applied to Cecil Rhodes, Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. In one of Kipling's books he describes an "ultra-patriotic" politician giving a speech at a school and the entire school and staff being disgusted.
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  57. The same people that elected Trump would have no idea of the skills needed to be a pilot.
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  58. If you're toast and you know it - Clapton sands If you're barking and you know it - clap your hands If you're barking and you know it and you really want to show it Just vote for an extremist with your hands.
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  59. At the moment, if Starmer wants to try to preserve what's left of Western democracy, as a key target he could have a word with the boys from Hereford about a certain South African supervillain (who in Ian Fleming's world would definitely qualify - though Lithiumfinger isn't much of a book title.)
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  60. More and more Musk reminds us that he only got a basic degree, just as Trump makes us suspicious as to whether he really graduated at all. Incidentally Musk is merely repeating the lies of Nigel Farage over the UK leaving the EU: admitting that things would get worse, but in some wonderful pink unicorn future things will get better.
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  61. Meanwhile in the UK, previous government roadbuilding plans have been reviewed. Oddly, most of these plans which would have involved large contracts for donors to the ruling party, turn out to have a negative return on investment. And are likely to be cancelled in short order. With any large project the question is one of "who benefits". And if it's construction companies rather than the public good, be very suspicious.
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  62.  @fonkyman  Jobs was successful because he listened to the customers, he listened to the engineers, then he made the decision, and then he released it when it was achieved. Musk has been delivering beta products to customers since he took over Tesla. He got away with it because of hype. Post-Jobs Apple too overhyped iPhones - the ridiculous cutout was just about brand image. Now Apple has big sales in the US but elsewhere it's just another phone.
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  63. Too busy arguing about whether to support Yaxley-Lennon and get money from Musk, perhaps?
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  64.  @jami7772  Except Musk wouldn't be trying to hold the steering wheel.
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  65. Interesting (to me at least) is that the Germans had exactly the same problems with their direct injection supercharged aero engines in WW2. Fuel wash + oil gumming control rings, oil gets past rings causes pre-ignition by reducing octane number, pistons and exhaust valves erode. We have better pistons these days but there's only so much you can do with valves. 80 years on and the same problems repeat with the same technology.
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  66. This story is repeated of just about every WW2 era engine being examined by another manufacturer, it's so old it has hairs on it whether it's Pratt & Whitney, RR, DB601, Merlin or whatever. Those engines were made with fixed jigs and tooling rather than CAD/CAM/CNC. Making the jigs and tools, providing the sharpening and adjustment data etc. only makes sense if you are tooling for large numbers. Bombing factories in WW2 was so imprecise that it was rare for tools and machines to be hit, and in any case there would typically be multiples on the production line. The cost of doing the metrology on a DB601 crank, then feeding it through to the program and tooling, would also be uneconomic for a single crank. Making it from billet would involve a great deal of machining, forging it would add to the tooling cost. You would also probably need to have details of the alloy in use and its heat treatment, which would involve testing the sample crank in different places for hardness, ductility and modulus. The 1940s engineering was as good as it could be but today we could easily design and make better engines - the reason we don't is that whole economy of scale thing, no new piston aero engines because the production volume wouldn't justify the sunk costs before production started.
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  67.  @difflocktwo  That's because of the low speed and user tolerance for shaking, along with the very small motor having a small mass. Scooters are distinguished from motorbikes because the entire engine and transmission pivot with the rear wheel, but because the power to weight ratio is low, it's tolerable.
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  68. A mistake I hope you will not repeat.
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  69. Nothing new. I remember "5th generation languages" and programs that would write programs. From the 1970s-80s. There are always snake oil merchants in the programming industry.
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  70. Stellantis is making EVs in Spain I believe.
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  71. George III was about as sane as Trump and lost the American colonies.
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  72. Satan on the other hand manages to stay on good terms with his lieutenants, if we believe Milton.
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  73. Actually many of them have to work very hard for poor wages. But instead of asking why, they follow any politician who claims he has a magic fix for their problems. Same in the UK.
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  74. He did learn his lesson. You can fool enough suckers all the time.
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  75. But but but he wasn't a black woman. (MAGA)
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  76. The Beano is far too left wing for Express readers.
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  77. Trump: "There were these, you know, Japanese planes on a, I think, they were just on a trip to Hawaii, and the United States shot at them. My new Kyoto golf course will be the goldenest, bigliest in Japan."
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  78. There's a lady named Esther McVey Who has nothing important to say. She has nothing to lose By upsetting some Jews But offend Big Tobacco - no way!
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  79.  @patriciamauriciakabongolem3605  While Trump has a stay out of jail degree.
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  80. If I remember the original Dorothy Parker, it ended "Love is a thing that can never go wrong, and I am Marie of Romania." Well, the love of Musk for riches and power and the love of Trump for getting back at everybody he thinks has harmed him in the slightest certainly falls in that category.
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  81. They aren't geniuses either. How's that self driving coming along?
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  82. Why do I suspect that tax avoidance is pretty high at the top of the French for tax purposes Rothermere group? Look at where the Mzil is officially based.
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  83. Hopefully between him, Farage, Tate and Yaxley-Lennon, not to mention Badenoch, all those colossal egos will fight one another to a standstill.
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  84.  @pvdogs2  They will. Now. When things change, European politicians adapt, US ones get more extreme.
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  85. The original steam turbine woudn't have been up to the job. Turbinia had many improvements, like the dummy piston system to withstand end thrust, but the rpm was impracticably high for a ship and a lot of development was needed before the torpedo destroyers really made sense. It is also believed that the Turbinia stunt was organised with the support of naval officers who saw the potential for turbines.
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  86. Sole object of exercise.
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  87. I remember a product being cancelled by a "cost reduction expert" because he said it cost too much to make and could not be reduced, and would then be too expensive. This bean counting genius did not understand that resistors and capacitors were priced by the hundred and he had overinflated component cost by many times. He was too arrogant to check. By the time I organised a check on the company BoMs for just this kind of error and found that the product was in fact quite profitable, it was too late.
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  88. Our local railway station has a platform 0, which makes me feel software engineering is vindicated.
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  89. @ But scrapping and recycling the block means the metal goes into a more advanced, more modern engine and the labour hours are less than rebuild.
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  90. @clivewilliams3661  When a company I worked for was taken over by a US one, they wanted us to source parts from their press shop in NC. I went over to take a look. The internal transfer cost of one press was $105 an hour. We were paying $45 an hour in Germany and the US press could not meet our tolerances. That's the US problem in miniature.
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  91. Actual marine architects have already analysed this, and put forward credible explanations based on the design of the yacht and conditions in the Med as to why the boat sunk and why the crew almost all survived. There's no need for conspiracy theories. So far, the only credible criticism levelled at the captain is that perhaps he should have got the passengers on deck as soon as he was aware of the storm severity - but under those conditions there may not have been time. As one sailor said, most of the time things happen on boats quite slowly but when they go wrong they can go wrong extremely fast. One of the saddest things about this for me is all the people complaining about excessive publicity being given to the sinking. They probably just have no idea how important Lynch was in the computing world. We always seem to know the names of American equivalents but not British ones. They also probably have no idea that when a San Francisco academic disappeared on his small boat in the Bay, the search and rescue attempts were also very large and were funded by the computing industry in the area. It was all over the computing and IT press - but the mass media weren't interested because there was no "exciting" background story.
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  92.  @johnarnold893  The industrial strength was quantity not performance. Individual German tanks, guns and aircraft were often better than Allied ones but could only be made in small quantities (indeed the main benefit of bombing Germany seems to have been the diversion of so much effort into producing the 88mm Flakcanone in volume.) The German joke was that one Tiger could defeat ten Shermans but the Americans always seemed to have eleven Shermans.
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  93. Well, we let Mad King George stay around to lose the American colonies. But for him, Canada and the US might be one country bordering on a Mexico that included Texas. Have stupid rulers, win stupid prizes.
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  94. He isn't, the Waltons, the Saudi and Dubai royals and the owners of LVMH have far more assets not exposed to the stock market. But Americans love hype even when it is actual lying.
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  95.  @petrolheadJJ  Porsche did not copy Tatra for his hub motor vehicle, but for the Beetle, which is not hub motor. The simple problem with wheel motors apart from unsprung mass which you mention, is where do you put the brakes? You need mechanical brakes because they can apply a lot more emergency retardation than any motor, and because regen braking doesn't work as speed approaches zero. Brakes turn energy into heat. So if you want hub motors you need inboard disc brakes (to keep the unsprung mass down and keep the heat away from the electrics), and so you need the CV joints and the drive shaft. At which point the light goes on in the engineer's head and he says "It would be better to put the brakes out in the airflow and the motor inboard, lower unsprung mass, easier heat dispersal and lower maximum torque on the drive shaft." The fact that SH's "we" couldn't find out this bit of elementary engineering suggests sloppiness. Cobbler stick to your last.
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  96. The US root economic problem is that your economy depends on low cost economies to keep it going. Without them (i.e. tariffs) everything becomes inflated US prices, and you have to accept a much lower standard of living to keep things turning over. The dollar has been a Ponzi scheme almost since WW2. Good luck telling your billionaires they have to pay tax, dismantling your insurance backed health system and putting many thousands of people with non-jobs out of work, cutting down on food waste and packaging, driving normal sized cars (by world standards), living in normal sized houses by world standards -because that is the only fix.
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  97. When Anne Applebaum gets worried about a US President, it's time to get very worried indeed.
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  98. They've already been exiled a long way from the central heating, what more do you want?
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  99. ​ @whitescar2  Electromagnetic theory deals entirely with "real" things, the "imaginary" numbers come in because the electric and magnetic vectors can be out of phase. It's a mathematical get-over, and a reminder that maths is not physics, it's an interpretation of physics.
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  100. During WW2, US manufacturing was excellent. What changed? Well, one thing was who was doing a lot of the manufacturing. It was mostly women doing the work, and they knew lives depended on doing it properly. Then after WW2 the men came back and most of the women were kicked out. You've ended up like the UK - individual craftspeople make good quality stuff but it is expensive, volume stuff not so good, eh, Ford, GM, Tesla, Boeing? You need Eisenhower 2. Tax the rich, invest in training, infrastructure and automation. Personally I'd put big taxes on advertising; there is too much advertising so people have to spend more money to be heard and so it becomes a spiral. Problem is, what you've got is Reagan 2. Tariffs are a tax on the poor as the rich don't notice them. Education is regarded as a waste except for the master class (Plato anybody?). Advertising is part of the land grab on "free speech", originally intended as ensuring you could criticise politicians and the government.
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  101. Daddy issues when you realise that you aren't nearly as good as your father.
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  102. If they are not being financed by the oil industry, it should at least pay their legal costs for them. They are excellent PR that all environmentalists are entitled middle class. They do the rest of us down.
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  103.  @SeanPat1001  It does not have to endorse them. It could have spoken out against Trump's evil speeches before the election.
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  104. Don't you mean the President's entitlement? I'm sure Donald Musk persuaded Elon Trump this was a great idea.
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  105.  @stephenleader-s9x  In proportion to their numbers I think. Also don't forget the Czechs. Poles and Czechs are longstanding friends of the UK. Edit - yes, highest scoring single unit. Canadian and NZ pilots also well represented.
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  106. Using 1984 as a how-to manual is possibly not a good idea.
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  107. Are you suggesting Trump can remember all that? Especially as it has numbers in it. Bigly numbers like 1 and 2.
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  108. Why bother? He can have a golfing accident after he's elected.
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  109.  @ianseddon9347  And Czechs.
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  110.  @RoxyRebel  Why would a real businessman want to be in a TV programme?
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  111. Johnson got a scholarship to Eton (13+ exam). I think that was the peak of his academic success. Basically ever since he has been a bright 13 year old, which is great when you consider that puts him on a level with the average Conservative.
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  112. The latest claim about Teslas (they are being sued) is that the odometer exaggerates as the mileage approaches the warranty limit. Someone is claiming that theirs went from 27000 to 40000 miles while he drove only 6000. Add the faked range estimates on early models, bits falling off Cybertrucks, and the horrible lack of ergonomics, and the temptation is to say that anybody silly enough to buy one is in the Range Rover/Porsche Cayenne world of unrealism. However, in fairness, quite a lot of US "trucks" now have plastic sumps and are only one rock on the road away from total inability to sustain usual performance. There are YouTube videos...
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  113. This is just anecdote but: 18 houses in our road. 5 EVs. All 2022 or newer 1 Mokka (Opel) 1 Honda 1 MG4 1 Hyundai 1 BMW i40 (new last December, replaced Audi EV) No Teslas. One other guy has 2 Porsches (petrol). Saw our first BYD in town today. For our next EV in a year or so, we have a lot of choice - Renault, variety of Stellantis, Honda. I think we've seen Peak Tesla, and the Cybertruck was actually the first nail in the coffin.
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  114. Inline sixes do have a problem: they have good static balance but are prone to torsional oscillations. This is because cylinders 1 and 6 are aligned, so every 360 degrees the engine fires from the opposite end, causing twisting of the shaft. This made earlier and cheaper inline 6 engines prone to shaking apart, which was partly fixed with a harmonic damper. Now look at the size of the bearings on that shaft. The conrod eyes are nearly as big as the piston. That's a very, very rigid shaft so the vibration frequency is above the highest rpm in use. Because the shaft needs to be so rigid to avoid vibration, inline 6 engines lend themselves to turbocharging and Diesel use.
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  115. @ It isn't that people get paid too much, it is that the size of houses and cars, the length of commutes and your ridiculously expensive medical system means they need to get paid a lot. Your Chinese factory worker living in an apartment and cycling to work can save money, his US opposite number cannot. That's the important difference. It isn't wages but the cost of living.
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  116.  @MikeL-FL  Inline 5s really don't "need" a balance shaft in reasonable displacements. Inline 6s may be statically balanced but they are very prone to torsional vibration due to firing torque, meaning that they either have to be designed for the lowest critical speed to be above maximum working revs, or with an ECU that avoids the critical speeds, and may still need a harmonic damper. On an inline 6 there is a power pulse at one end of the crank and then one revolution later there is a pulse at the other end, hence that torsional vibration. An inline 5 never has two pistons at TDC at the same time, so it suffers less from this problem.
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  117. In the pockets of Thatcher's mates.
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  118.  @keriford54  Yes, but if politicians had STEM education they'd have seen it was a non-starter.
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  119. As I was walking down the stair I met a man Trump who wasn't all there. He's not all there again today It's really time he went away.
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  120. Jeresey and Guernsey, drug cartel centres, smuggling, tax avoidance and evasion...why would the Conservatives want to emulate them rather than cracking down on them?
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  121.  @highdownmartin  Now, now! How could you possibly suggest that someone who used to goose-step while at Dulwich, told people his initials were the same as the National Front, married a German, has German-speaking children, and doesn't like foreigners, could have any connection whatsoever with the Austrian corporal?
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  122. People say this about balance but it's static balance, and engines are supposed to revolve. The weakness of the inline 6 is that cylinders 1 and 6 are the same phase but fire 360 degrees apart. This means that the crank gets a kick at opposite ends every revolution, causing a reversing twisting force. At certain frequencies the crank will resonate, and if it keeps going at that speed the resonance can quickly become destructive, taking out the main bearings. It can be reduced using a harmonic damper, but the other answer is to make the crank so stiff that the first resonance is above the highest RPM. If you look at Idocars this weekend, Eric is dismantling a Lexus engine and you can see how enormous are the crank and rod bearings, since Toyota went for stiffness. Not a cheap engine. The inline 4 is less smooth but the crank is 2/3 the length which means the twisting force is less of a problem. The inline 5 has no pistons 360, or even 180, degrees apart, so management of twisting forces is easier still.
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  123. At least it's progress from the previous model of consult magic 8 ball.
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  124.  @iainherridge6253  He thought he was aristocracy because his father owned newspapers in Australia, and when he got to Oxford the aristocrats laughed at him. Ever since he has been trying to bring down the British monarchy and the traditional aristocracy. He managed to buy and dumb down The Times as part of his revenge, today it's a tabloid shadow of its former self. Someone once described him as a well balanced Australian: "He has equally big chips on both shoulders."
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  125. Sayeeda Warsi? Lisa Nandy? Dawn Butler? You are right in that a large majority are Conservative, but by no means all.
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  126. Especially if you are there with a 13 year old Merc, you're actually advertising the brand longevity.
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  127.  @andrewsimpson17  Only problem with that story is that £25k is well below the visa limit.
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  128.  @Believe-you-me-  He'd have to hold them either in Moscow or Mar-a-lago, those are the constituents he represents.
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  129.  @joshmanis9860  Honda's small industrial engines run at lower rpm (and hence gear periphery speed) than car engines. The belt is also driving the cams for only one or two cylinders. The stress is much lower.
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  130. Know what's funny? The UK exports very little steel to the US, but what there is, is mostly specialised stuff for aerospace and military use that the US cannot easily replace. Jimmy cut corn and I don't care.
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  131.  @paullee3009  He may lose with NZ. How long will they tolerate a right wing government? Better steer clear of stone adzes.
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  132.  @rogerphelps9939  The highest female UK life expectancy is in the not so impoverished area of Kensington and Chelsea. Highest male is the very well off non-rural town of Hart, Hampshire. There is in fact no general pattern in the UK, except that the richest areas tend to have the highest life expectancy and the lowest obesity rates.
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  133. Stephen Fry: "Oxford people run the country. Cambridge people don't care who runs the country so long as they have interesting jobs." Oxford gave us Rees-Mogg, Johnson and Truss. Cambridge gave us physics, geology and biochemistry.
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  134. This may be so but some European and Scandinavian countries retain a monarchy - Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands - and are not noticeably less democratic and progressive than their neighbours. The Greek monarchy was abolished by a military junta. Several countries in SE Asia are monarchies - Japan, Thailand, Bhutan. The job of the king of Bhutan is to maintain religious tolerance and uphold the Constitution, so Musk wouldn't qualify. The argument by sociologists of religion is that having a President with executive power is all too likely to lead to an autocracy (as seems to have happened in the USA). A non-political head of state who cannot be removed by party politics deflects the aura of power that surrounds presidents, so Prime Ministers can never get the same combination of political and hero-worship as presidents, avoiding autocracy.
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  135. Jobs at least did work with Wozniak, and knew which designs to promote and which to bin - mostly. Yes Jobs was a horrible man whose beliefs eventually led to his death, but he did make a success of Apple. Wozniak on his own would have been just another 6502 computer designer.
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  136.  @KindredKaye  The EU has 27 countries and a bigger population than the US, so on average countries are twice the population of US States.
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  137. The Red King is dead, long live the Red Queen.
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  138. This is a very good demonstration of how to lie with statistics. I mean, I learnt all this for A level statistics but you did it much more amusingly than our teacher did. Incidentally with things like sales, house prices etc., average is a crap way of doing it. (e.g. if one house in the street sells for a million and the other for £100000, the average is £550k but there are no houses at that price.) The correct statistic is the median, the middle value, the time at which half the cars had sold by. Using averages is already a sign of bogusity.
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  139. Spin by Trump's cheerleaders basically.
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  140. They took out the radar. Even the Leapmotor T03, one of the smallest and cheapest Chinese EVs, has both vision and radar.
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  141. Was Hoover investigated? Just as unfit.
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  142.  @squeemlives  Badenoch's mother came by plane to a private hospital, registered birth then went back to Nigeria. It was that kind of abuse of process that caused the rules to change. My grandson has US citizenship because he was born there when his father was working there, but they came back due to the 2008 slump. It will be interesting to see how this works out.
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  143. I think he's broken most of Deuteronomy and Leviticus as well.
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  144. Loomer reminds me increasingly of Morticia Addams, but without theintelligence, charm, character and family values.
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  145. He isn't a foreign agent. South Africa doesn't want him and you don't think Putin would leave traces of his channels, do you?
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  146. At this point Starmer has just repeated Blair's mistake in 2003.
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  147. In fact the engine was damaged when it encountered a P51 over Rotterdam.
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  148. More a case of a choice between a tapeworm and... another tapeworm.
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  149. Trump's exemptions do show he is starting to realise he risks upsetting Republican voters. I guess next week he will order that the trains and planes must all run to time and his picture must appear on the side of every federal building.
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  150. Kipling: "I tell you again and again, that once you have paid him the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane."
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  151. He'll just have to make a point of wearing the Clan Yusuf kilt at every opportunity, and learn to play the bagpipes.
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  152. Vance's military career reminds me of a story I was told by an RAF officer about a NATO meeting in the mid-90s when a couple of Slovenians had come as observers. At the last night party they were asked "What do you think? Could the Soviet Union have defeated NATO?" "Oh yes," said one of them, "They'd have been in Frankfurt before you'd finished showing one another PowerPoints." And then there was the guy who remarked that the reason the US lost in Vietnam was that they couldn't work out how to air condition the jungle.
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  153.  @Jbo2000  Deir Yassin. You started it and then escalated it. What the Germans did was industrialised mass murder. What Netanyahu has been doing in Gaza.
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  154. Not in England. Because we had an extremely good system for extracting information from crashed German fliers. He'd just get kicked a bit till Civil Defence turned up.
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  155. Republican Rome appointed a Dictator in time of war with a fixed time limit. But the Senate had the power to remove him. And then by degrees dictators acquired bodyguards and suddenly you had an Emperor.
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  156. He was actually running circles round it. He's a lawyer lawyering.
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  157. Thing is, with current interest rates, if you have billions under management throwing a few million at blue sky is more rational than spread betting on horse races, since there is at least a chance one blue sky project either comes good, or the share price goes up due to irrational exuberance and you get out with a profit. People are making money on shares like Trump Media by paying close attention to the election polls, even though eventually it will trade below $1.
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  158. Anyone who remembers Blashford-Snell the explorer, may also know that his father, who was rector of Twyford, and his wife, rescued two fox cubs which were brought up by their cats. Then they invited the local MFH and his wife to tea. Hilarity apparently ensued. The Rector told me this while I was in hospital recovering from pneumonia, and I laughed so hard the duty nurse was worried. Where we live now we have urban foxes and various people feed them and keep an eye on them. Faced with a choice of foxes or foxhunters, foxes get my vote every time. For one thing they keep down mice and rats - which is probably why that prime rat Farage wants foxes hunted.
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  159.  @klausbrinck2137  It's hard to get an environmental discharge licence for hard chrome is why, especially in Germany. It's also why PVD has largely taken over from many types of plating.
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  160. Aluminium expands more than steel, so just heating it to a safe temperature should make it possible to press it out. Though you might need a new stator.
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  161. You can't win. If the out and back are separate they have inductance which means any failure of cooling causes an energy dump into what is now a resistance. If the cables are coaxial they have capacitance which means the same result. And as the generator cannot turn off instantly, you now have that large spike in EMF, destructive to generator and cables. I don't like any kind of electrical infrastructure which isn't stable when current is flowing through it at room temperature.
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  162. He might have been, to tell them he was about to foreclose on their mortgage.
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  163. CNN pointed out today that that is exactly what Musk does too. Any criticism, shuts it down with a lawsuit.
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  164.  @MrDucksBill  Because the Federal government did so little towards dealing with the aftermath of the hurricanes. Puerto Rico has been badly treated both by US governments and US hedge funds. And I'm not even Puerto Rican, I've just visited.
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  165. Trump is solely appealing to working class men who can't get that kind of a job.
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  166.  @Canuck4  Yes, contrary what they seem to believe it does not stand for North American Trump Organisation. The French, being French, call it OTAN. Which reminds me of a visit to our school by a NATO general to talk about NATO and its role, back in the 1960s. He basically said "The UK doesn't really have its own nuclear deterrent, the US holds the strings. The French do - and their problem is deciding which direction to point the missiles."
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  167. It would be true, Trump would still be waiting on the ground for the person with the crayons to explain to him how to turn the engine on.
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  168. @ Were you going on about May, Johnson and Sunak who were much, much worse in that regard?
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  169. Been like that since it started. It was being attacked for lying at least as far back as the1920s, and supported Mosley in the 1930s.
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  170. John Le Carré's observation that the US lost the Vietnam war in air conditioned rooms.
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  171. The problem is that dubious management tends to be better at covering up failure and inflating the bottom line than good ones. After the merger, they make their achievements look good to shareholders. And we all know auditors never make mistakes - cough, cough, Enron, Time Warner. Intelligent people can be easily deceived because they tend to assume other people are like them rather than being twisted, devious psychopaths.
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  172. Soon to be twinned with Waterlooville and Clacton?
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  173. Reform voters have the memory of something with a very short memory.
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  174. Your wife announced she wanted a divorce and kicked you out of the house in 1993. You kept squabbling over who keeps what until 2014, when you got the garage back. She tried to block access to the garage but you constructed a path round the back. More squabbling. In 2022 you got together an army and took back the driveway to the garage You also planned to enter the kitchen and get the keys, but she stopped you. Now you're holding the drive and the garage at enormous cost. The next door neighbours don't want to be involved but then the mayor comes along and says "this fight is ridiculous, we need a compromise". Now that is not how Ukraine sees it, but it's the Russian view. Is it actually any more right or wrong?
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  175. Jolly clever as there aren't any stars 32 million miles away or we'd be in real trouble.
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  176. He has been on their side ever since the only people who would lend him money were Chabad, based in NY and St. Peterburg - and guess who grew up in Peterburg and was helped by Chabad members? V V Putin, that's who.
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  177. Many of the architects of this are either of German ancestry or in one case from Apartheid South Africa. The USA should never have let in Nazis after WW2 because they were "useful" like Von Braun.
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  178. @FranzBieberkopf I disagree. The articles referenced by Google are uniformly such as to make one despair of human stupidity.
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  179. @ It was the most successful military aircraft engine of WW1, used by the Americans and British as well as the French. As amatter of fact, props at the time were limited to about 1400rpm. You are thinking about little engines. You might want to look up the German, British and US inline engines of WW2. All around 3000 rpm with reduction gear, all OHC.
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  180. Americans will just grow lots of trees in Arizona. Problem solved.
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  181. Wrong way round. They are afraid to criticise Israel because of their own history. I think they are wrong but I understand their problem.
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  182.  @batcollins3714  My car has 8 cameras, one radar, and eight ultrasonic sensors. It can park itself, it automatically switches to showing me if I'm close to kerbs or bollards, and in London it obeys the speed limit. It isn't a Tesla. It doesn't pretend to be "self driving". You may not like technology, but in a world full of speed cameras, junction cameras and careless cyclists, I like the car trying to help keep my licence.
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  183.  @ryanwalters6184  Porsche Taycan is designed for German road conditions, Tesla for the USA. The result is that in real world conditions the Taycan goes further on a charge in Germany. But it is much more expensive because it's built to Porsche standards.
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  184. He's only 10 years late on full self driving and trying to get the law changed so that if his cars crash into other people, it's their fault for being there.
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  185. He is developing a concept of it with the help of some Indians and Africans.
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  186. The average age of a car in the US is well over 10 years, I think 12. In the EU, it's 9. The UK is heading towards US levels of inequality, and we will end up like the US, meaning big sales drops. It's pretty simple really.
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  187.  @Hmmyeah2019  Well, no. You are assuming that Tesla sales are additional sales rather than displacement sales. Car sales in the US are flat, so people moving between plants are not creating jobs, except a small amount of HR activity. You really do not understand basic economics, do you?
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  188. Since the universe is so old, it presumably runs on a mixture of FORTRAN and COBOL with a bit of assembler for the singularities. On a serious note, I'm concerned that computer scientists seem to be trying to fit reality into computing rather than vice versa. String Theory seems to have uncomfortable echoes of how hard drives work, for instance. The fact we can make a discrete model of something does not mean the something is discrete; ask Ptolemaeus, Copernicus and then Kepler.
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  189. To rephrase the Creed, Trump was "misbegotten not made".
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  190. So long as Farage also reveals the sources of all his funding over the years, I see no problem. (So long as Hansard has a few people who can write Cyrillic script, anyway.)
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  191. The members of the Conservative Party being mostly Reform supporters who don't want to be turfed out of the Conservative Club (but voted for Johnson and Truss) that isn't going to happen. Letting them vote for leader was the start of the end. Before that, MPs knew what voters were like and that they could not make rational decisions.
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  192. The US gallon is the British wine gallon, whereas the UK used the ale gallon which was larger. The US ton is a made up unit, 2000lb, smaller than the tonne (1000kg) or the British ton which is slightly larger than the tonne (about 1016kg.) It has been suggested that in the early days of the US, merchants invented the American ton and used the wine gallon to defraud people buying imports.
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  193. At the moment speculation, especially by non-experts who are not in possession of the facts, is just idle conspiracy theory of the worst kind.
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  194. Edison's DC supply system failed against the superior Westinghouse AC one. Who's Westinghouse in this? I suspect a Chinese car maker.
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  195. There were officially no women on the ships of Nelson's Navy... Actually there were. After the Battle of Trafalgar, they petitioned to get the same medals the male crew did. They were turned down because there wasn't enough spare metal to make enough medals. As well as cleaning and cooking, they ran the powder magazine during battle because they were safer at it than the men. They and the young trainees ran the powder up to the guns. When Lord St. Vincent complained that the ships were using too much water, Nelson replied that if the women did not have enough water for cleaning, the ships would soon be unusable. We know that at least one officer turned out to be transgender and there were almost certainly more. In those days "turning a blind eye" was a fact of life. Trump substitutes irrational hatred for intelligence. It has got him a long way but he is getting more exposed.
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  196. Cuba should take over Florida, Venezuela Puerto Rico, and Grenada should be given Panama as reparations for the invasion. It makes just as much sense.
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  197. Farage resembles Trump in an interesting way. They both have the ability to talk to crowds of ordinary people, but neither of them is able to talk with individuals. Trump constantly goes on about the numbers at his gatherings. He doesn't see people, he sees crowd sizes. Someone listening to Hitler for the first time commented that he seemed to be a bad speaker, but had the ability to tell the crowd what they wanted to hear. Same with Trump and Farage.
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  198. Saying what billionaires want said by someone with more charisma than a dead sheep.
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  199. The back end reminds me of one of those rear engined air cooled V8 Tatras, in a good way. (If Porsche had stolen even more of Tatra in WW2, that might have been how the 911 went.) By the way who needs a boot? Your valet is following with the luggage.
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  200. The question is surely whether it is the result of experiment or observation, and if of observation, how far away is the thing observed. If we get close enough to a BH to analyse the Hawking radiation, we have bigger problems to worry about. If you are standing next to a practical demonstration of something, like the Duke of Wellington next to Faraday's motor, asking "what use is it?" is already a pretty silly question.
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  201.  @jimsvideos7201  Doesn't matter. Navies don't build them. I do have some confidence that Rolls-Royce will crack it.
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  202.  @johnryan7932  Fortunately he cannot unless South Africa becomes part of the United States, and even then I'm not sure if it would apply retrospectively.
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  203. Only one core campaign promise remains, the one he didn't say out loud: "I will do my best to keep uppity non-white people and women in their place." And that's the one that got him elected.
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  204. You thought it was unAmerican but people in Europe have been telling you for decades that US employers treat employees like dirt in a way which is illegal in our countries. You just didn't notice or care till it was too late.
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  205.  @starstencahl8985  "American Customary Units" - because SI is actually the only Congress-ratified system. The US doesn't use Imperial, in fact.
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  206. GDP is not a complete measure of "the economy", these days it just reflects volume of transactions. For instance if gold is sold in London from A to B, the sale counts as GDP even though the same gold is still there in the same vault.
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  207. The term "crashed the economy" is not a technical one and so cannot be technically incorrect. I hope Starmer will respond by simply requiring all Labour politicians including himself not to refer to her again on the basis that she is a private citizen with no role, under the GDPR. She'd love that.
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  208. We have just signed a defence treaty with Germany. It's the start of preparations for Il Duce Mango Mussolini.
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  209.  @snowiecat456  Equal treatment for women, obviously. A deeply committed feminist.
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  210. Meanwhile Drumpf has put 25% tariff on the small quantities of special steels supplied to your aerospace and arms industries by the UK, because he and his band of idiots don't understand that steel and aluminium are a wide range of different materials, some of which the US doesn't make. Well, you gave the monkey the key to the banana plantation, and then he let in the African elephant which is currently grubbing up all the banana plants.
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  211. End of NATO. Not a bad thing in itself. Has Trump considered what happens when we stop buying US weapons and pursue an independent security policy? When co-operation stops?
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  212. This is because of the electrical potential set up between iron and 300 series nickel-chrome-iron. Aluminium corrodes more slowly because of the oxide barrier. In "ordinary" cars all the steel parts are about the same potential.
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  213. I am white middle class. I've heard so many horror stories about the Met, including from police officers in Hertfordshire and Somerset, that I really wouldn't want to live in their area. It used to be that the big gangs would ensure some of the families stayed out of trouble so their sons could join the Met, and they didn't do it out of a desire to make the streets safer. The Stephen Lawrence case is a good example. The problem for the police is that the many good and honourable officers have to stay quiet because the dishonest ones know how to fit them up if they rock the boat.
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  214.  @hifismiffy  Short may his decline continue, and precipitous. Ideally he meets our King Charles and falls over on the floor gibbering, maximum world press exposure.
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  215. Trump notoriously cheats at golf, and 80 million Americans think someone who does that is fit to be President. Would anybody be surprised if Trump's best Afro-American buddy has a complicated relationship with playing games?
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  216. In the UK we have a system independent of political parties to appoint judges. We don't use random citizens because they simply are not competent to evaluate, just as we don't have panels of random people deciding who should be consultant surgeons, generals or aircraft designers.
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  217. Fines by OFCOM should reflect the assets of the owners of media. When the EU goes for e.g. monopolists they don't just waggle their fingers. If Marshall can afford £100 million to buy The Spectator, an appropriate fine for ignoring broadcasting rules should be £millions. Because £100 000 is probably what he spends on a private jet flight to his mates in Dubai.
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  218. Surely "blowjob" doesn't rhyme with "Zuckerberg", or am I missing something here?
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  219. Ftrom my experience, marketing managers are as good at fooling themselves as they are the public.
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  220. I think trying to mansplain to Angela Rayner is a bit like the captain of the Titanic deciding to aim straight for the iceberg.
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  221. About the same percentage as voted Reform, funny that.
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  222. However, it is important to decide what is actual science. Curiosity about things that can in principle be answered in one's lifetime is fine; curiosity about things that are to all intents and purposes unanswerable is theology-type thinking. Trying to understand whether singularities exist or are merely artefacts of the mathematics isn't subject to experimental proof.
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  223. Cleetus will hand out engineering degrees to anyone who can fix the brakes on his Fordson tractor.
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  224.  @mrblack888  That's rubbish and you know it. Part of the problem has been CAD. In the past using slide rules and tables, at the back of engineers' minds was always the possibility of undetected error so they tended to add as much safety factor as possible and make things as generally robust as possible. With CAD and all the other computer tools you get engineers with no "feel" who rely on what's on the screen. I was seeing this all the time in this century with young white male engineers - "computer says" . I started off working with old guys coming up for retirement who had helped design the Merlin engine throughout WW2. Their "feel" for materials was astonishing. They'd say things like "Oh that needs to be 3% nickel heat treated" before they'd even started stress calculations, and they'd be right. The new ones had no depth of experience to draw on, they'd never seen a burnt valve or had to analyse an engine from a crash where the pilot had been killed. Yes CAD, CAM, CNC have made design and manufacturing better, but ridiculous ideas that, say, six sigma is a substitute for safety factor, are part of where it goes wrong.
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  225. In fact he was. Unlike most French generals he was deeply disturbed by the deaths in WW1 and did not want a repetition. The nearest Badenoch has probably come to experiencing suffering is getting a parking ticket.
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  226.  @rockets4kids  That is because the metric system is the only one officially recognised by the US Congress. All these pounds and US gallons are just "American Customary Units."
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  227. I knew someone who owned one in the 70s. He took it to Italy on holiday and an Italian pot hole caused suspension damage. The local mechanic, who apparently resembled Peppone in the Don Camillo books, fixed it right down to heat treating the bent part after correcting it, and told him what a pleasure it was to work on a proper motor car. High praise from a communist. The headlamp reflectors started to corrode so he took them to a contact in the plating industry who rhodium plated them. It gave a very slight bluish tinge to the lights.
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  228. Yes - I guess the US doesn't mind falling behind in cancer research, vaccines and disease control. It isn't as if you have a bird flu epidemic out of control, life expectancy falling behind the rest of the developed world, or a rising incidence of measles and tuberculosis with the growing risk of a poliomyelitis epidemic.
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  229.  @JurivonStolzenberg14  You have a mechanical Diesel with acetylene lamps? Modern cars are totally dependent on the ECU. Which is electronic.
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  230. My wife had a job which involved visiting farms in rural Somerset throughout the year, in the days before mobile phones. I bought her an original Panda 4x4 with winter tyres which never let her down. The old style tubed tyres meant that as well as the spare we kept an inner tube ready to go. I once drove it over ice to collect people from the station and it was the only vehicle on the road.
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  231. Musk cannot force Bluesky to sell itself to him, unless the USA goes literally fascist (i.e. government controls industry and big capitalists own the government.)
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  232. @Coconutsoldier Don't you mean не нравится это имя? To be fair, the KGB did recruit some very intelligent people, which is how they were able to get upper class Brits to spy for them. Nobody would describe GB "news" as intelligent.
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  233. Remember when Patton said that the USSR, not the Nazis, was the enemy? It's always been in the USA. And the UK, France, Germany, Poland and Russia.
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  234. "Nigel, your present from Putin has arrived."
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  235.  @andrewfrancis3591  More difficult.
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  236. You obviously have never heard of the Lebanese "Christian" militias, the IRA, the UDF, the pogroms in Eastern Europe, the genocide of the Albigensians, or Rwanda.
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  237. Social media overturned the rock and we found out what was underneath.
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  238.  @ronaldlebeck9577  Without people like you physics would still be limited to banging rocks together, though. CERN is an engineering triumph. Engineers and physicists are co-dependent.
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  239. A midlife crisis that seems to have lasted from birth to 53 so far.
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  240. I suspect a lot of it depends on where you live. If there are plenty of charging points, you have a driveway, and solar panels, it's a no-brainer. If you live in a terrace with on street parking only, street chargers that deliver about 1.4kW and you have to visit a fast charge station frequently, not a good idea. Most people are not electrical engineers and didn't understand that. Back in the 2000s boom, a lot of people bought narrowboats. They seemed to imagine they were a kind of water caravan. A lot of them lost a lot of money then, too, along with the people who bought RVs. We had an office near a place that sold them, and they were sitting in the yard in some cases for years with the asking price slowly dropping. The yard wasn't run by idiots; they didn't buy them in, they hired out a yard space to the owners. Falling prices didn't worry them. There's lots of status obsessed mugs.
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  241.  @krisradjpaul278  No, you will not. That is exactly the kind of exaggeration we do not need. If Tousi is charged then there will be a trial, at which point more may emerge. I guess you were not around in the past when people actually were being sent to prison in this country for their views.
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  242. My father fought people like Reform, both at Cable Street and in the Navy. He got paid to deal with both Nazis and Japanese. He died hoping his great grand children would not have to do it all over again. I'm glad he isn't around now to see what's going on.
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  243.  @Devasantika  He was suggesting that they cherry pick her videos. He's clearly unaware that science deniers will cherry pick anything they possibly can, it really makes no difference.
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  244.  @jermainepaki4606  Of course they don't. There is nothing novel in Teslas; far too many US patents these days are vacuous. Many EVs use Bosch technology for the controls and driver assist, Bosch motors and electronics sourced from China. Thinking Tesla has a monopoly on the technology and engineering is like thinking the entire electronics industry runs on Intel.
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  245. Remind me which government was in power when Widdecombe was an MP? Which government walked away from our international treaties (read Boris Johnson's housemaster's letter about him - it says it all)? Which government preferred to spend £700 million on Rwanda rather than have effective border controls? It is too late to have an enquiry - what we need is a properly funded effective Home Office and the operations it controls, after fourteen years of neglect. As for the national identity of villains, read up the case of the man who killed his wife for the insurance, how the criminal trial folded, and how it took a civil suit to get some sort of justice. Read what the judge said about the man involved. Psychopaths are not confined to non-Europeans.
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  246.  @EdJames-tb9oz  Exactly. The previous government did the equivalent of strewing the landscape with landmines and then preventing anybody from finding out where they were buried.
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  247. That, or Tesla is worth 11 times as much as BMW, despite it having only 3 successful models all aimed at the US market, and one complete failure.
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  248.  @martin-vv9lf  The crankshaft is a mirror image so the only way to get 100% primary balance is for the end cylinders to be aligned. So are 2 and 5 and 3 and 4. It's intrinsic to the design.
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  249. "Come and get them, Private Bonespurs."
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  250. The Badenoch is blowing in the wind, my friend, Kemi is blowing in the wind.
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  251. Has she announced as policy that there will be no land border between Austria and Australia when she comes to power?
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  252. This is true and it was also true of our former Mini-Trump Boris Johnson. Johnson too is planning a comeback. Fortunately by our next election Trump will be gone.
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  253.  @TheSupriest  She doesn't. She is specifically referring to theoreticians who come up with a theory and then expect someone to produce an experiment to confirm it, rather than experimentalists who find something new that requires changes to a theory. Climate science, for instance, is driven by people investigating ice cores, weather patterns, tree rings, geological sediments, and discovering things indicative of the climate at the time that require explanation. It doesn't start from "the sky is falling!" and look for evidence that it was higher in the past. Yet that's what actual science deniers allege.
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  254.  @denissorn  Depends what you mean by gearbox. All EVs have a reduction gear because motors are at their most efficient and lightest when they have rpm much higher than that at the wheels. The design of the reduction gear was invented by British turbine designers in the early 20th century and the Tesla one would be instantly recognised by an engineer of over a century ago. However Porsche have a two speed gearbox which allows a higher top speed with reasonable efficiency, and is why Porche have better range on the Autobahn than Teslas.
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  255. @ Scoring the titanium shouldn't be necessary as that could cause sites for crack propagation. A light chemical etch would normally do the job, having checked chemical compatibility. Ha, what am I saying? I think I've already exceeded the capacity of the late Stockton Rush to understand the technology.
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  256. That's because they wouldn't know if he was right or not. And at this point who cares? Marxism/Leninism is dead. It's like calling someone a Cathar or a Calvinist, only with less relevance.
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  257. Many people think all plugs are the same but they really were a very difficult thing to design properly and there are trade secrets. Not something to alter to save a little money.
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  258.  @plastictsubasa1390  Assuming very roughly 2000 rpm at 60 mph, that would be 2000 engine revs per mile and so per minute, 1000 cam rotations * 400 000 miles = 0.4 billion revolutions. So yes, half a billion is a lower bound, but allow in idling, traffic, acceleration and a billion might be typical.
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  259. Basically what Mandelson said - "We don't mind people getting filthy rich so long as they pay their taxes." The Conservatives just forgot about the second half.
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  260. I suspect the focus on Islam is to deflect from the brutalising effect of belonging to the American armed forces (or indeed the Israeli ones). A lot of the violent crime in the US is committed by people who have been in the US Army, you know, the one that refuses to accept the jurisidiction of the ICC, won't sign up to the UDHR, and which trains its recruits using collective punishment to turn them into near-zombies. The US is a state which maintains its power through widespread violence, and which encourages gun ownership so it has a ready supply of recuits already programmed to believe that guns are the answer to various problems. Then they are surprised when mentally ill people follow the same logic. Blaming Islam when the main cause of Islamic terrorism is US power projection in the Arab world and Iran is pretty silly.
    8
  261.  @mattipps  Of course they do, it's the hypocrisy of suggesting that insurance companies are in some way your friends rather than the friends of the shareholders and CEOs.
    8
  262. You know this is exactly what Hitler did after taking control of the government? Either replacing people with henchmen or putting them in as a parallel organisation where even he could see that removing all the management would result in chaos. And spying on everybody he could.
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  263. And in China you have to join the CPC and get an education in politics and economics before being appointed even to something like a local council, whereas here or in the USA someone with no relevant qualifications whatsoever (like Deux étages Farage or MTG) can buy his or her way into Parliament.
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  264. If only the US had a politically independent police force that could enforce judgments. But you haven't.
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  265. How can you say that? He was self-medicating with opioids related to Sackler products. How can that be wrong?
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  266. They are all oppositional narcissists except Putin, who was trained to recognise and exploit that by the KGB. Oppositional narcissists can only form groups of one. It's in the name.
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  267.  @gerardflynn7382  There were actually a lot of British and Jewish settlers as well as the Dutch, resulting in conflict at the end of the 19th century. The British tended rather to admire the Zulus, who were also colonists of Southern Africa, but after two wars the Zulus came under UK rule. Following the 1910 and 1931 Acts, South Africa became independent with the Dutch pushing Apartheid while the British were rather less keen on it and did a lot more to educate black Africans. Musk is from the Apartheid-supporting lot and it constantly dribbles out of him on Twitter. He has made racist statements which in this country could actually result in prosecution for incitement.
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  268.  @grahambuckerfield4640  You thnk she could tell the difference between socialism and military dictatorship? I think if we had a coup by the current British military, it would be to the left of Badenoch.
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  269.  @gaetanhillion8342  White South Africans did see black people every day. It's their not being servants any more would have upset him.
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  270. Trump's behaviour yesterday complete with the insulting intervention by Vance was scripted straight out of the Apprentice, I suspect that Zelenskyy went because he knew Trump was about to say "You're fired." That's it America: you are run by a game show actor who thinks that's how the real world works.
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  271.  @dennisreed3382  The USA has been buying stuff with money it hasn't got. That's the problem. If you lived within your means your standard of living would drop dramatically. You've been allowed to rack up debt and now you blame the vendors and not your greedy consumers. A USA living within its means would be a poorer but much better country, with very few billionaire oligarchs.
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  272. It's going to be more PMT than PMQ.
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  273.  @phedis  I disagree. Visiting rural parts of the US in the 1980s I, like many British abroad, was shocked at the levels of racism and sexism. The school my brother's children went to wasn't desegregated until 1974. Levels of violence, like the Kent State shooting, were always there. What has changed is that the modernisers gained more confidence when Clinton and Obama appeared, and this is the rural reaction against it.
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  274.  @smirkyshadow  You're making that up, or you have confused Keir Starmer with J K Rowling (not that I expect Americans to know anything about this country, based on quite a lot of experience.)
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  275. It had done 87000 miles. You cannot expect any car to be treated like that at that kind of mileage without careful attention to things like oil level.
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  276. Can we just say that Richard Burgon seems a thoroughly decent bloke?
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  277.  @zameion90  The OP has English as a second language, I think, and means he doesn't have a professional certification. Military engineers are something different. In this country we have electrical, mechanical, civil and structural engineers all with chartered status, but we also have Royal Engineers and Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, and they are military.
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  278. Mater certus, pater semper incertus est (old Roman saying, the mother is certain, the father never is. No DNA tests then.)
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  279.  @grahamlees4394  Harris is ten years older than Truss and looks younger. That's what keeping your sanity does for you.
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  280. Converts are always the most extreme and frequently don't see how others see them. He's rich, therefore he must be right.
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  281. You really didn't see why he chose Berlin?
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  282. For a moment I thought you said "Andrew Lilo" and thought "ah yes, full of air, floats with no sense of direction, how apt."
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  283.  @vincelardner330  They'd probably go round the Arctic route, resupplying Greenland with weapons on the way. Seriously, one summer a few years back some blue water sailing yachts apparently made it to San Francisco from Europe round the Arctic route. Sooner them than me.
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  284. Tesla sales down 50% in Europe and dropping in China? Product line old and tired and new model a flop? Buy a government, cut the budget by a couple of T$, get the government to invest heavily in your company while putting up tariffs against the cheaper and better competition. Oh, and make air travel so dangerous people want to go by car instead. Having failed to create self driving "next year" since 2014, claim you can fix all the problems of air traffic control just like that, using a "move fast and break things" model that has left a landscape with scattered remains of blown up rockets. Guaranteed success.
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  285.  @annemoncrieff3875  At least we didn't re-elect him. Yet.
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  286. Because, like Jesus, he has the power to pardon offences.
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  287.  @Hmmyeah2019  Of course the government wastes money. Every large organisation does, it's the problem with large organisations. But you get to vote for the government, and you don't get to vote for your insurers, phone carriers, cable providers etc.
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  288. Says what all? It's irrelevant. He was an academic who built up a medium sized IT company, but seems to have acquired a dodgy accountant. Not the first time. Not his fault.
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  289. In the UK, the Conservative Party was divided and worried about competition from the anti-EU party. So, they had a referendum on EU membership to destroy the anti-EU party and unite the Conservatives. The result was years of in-fighting similar to the recent US Budget fiasco, different wings of the Party fighting one another. They recently lost an election with the anti-EU Party, under another name, getting the same vote share as before the referendum. Nothing was achieved but serious economic damage to the UK. If it all plays out the same in the US you are in for an "interesting" 8 years ending with a Republican wipeout.
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  290. Didn't you know? Hitler wasn't at war with Scotland or Wales. They were neutral. Yes, I know...
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  291.  @tessalister1226  Anyone with a spare billion dollars, anyway.
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  292. That is a bit unfair to Mussolini. He wasn't too bad until he got in with the Trump-equivalent of the period, whereas since the "pedo guy" incident it's been obvious that Musk has always been like that.
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  293. He's married? You learn something new on this channel every week.
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  294.  @yttrxstein4192  No, ego driven engineering and politics got humans on the Moon. Engineering applies science to achieve a goal and engineers are pretty goal fixated. The fact that e.g. Galileo did some science in order to achieve engineering goals (getting paid for making better instruments and artillery) doesn't invalidate this.
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  295. Due to the higher temperatures in much of the USA, their "chocolate" makers, rather than add more expensive chocolate, add butyric acid to raise the melting point. This is why it is bitter and tastes funny.
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  296.  @Concern_Citizen  By 2035, EVs will be almost unrecognisable compared to what they are today. Current depreciation is like phone depreciation was a few years back - progress is so rapid that a 3 year old EV is dated. But when the industry stabilises, depreciation will normalise. I remember back in the 1970s a lot of British larger petrol cars depreciated 50% in the first year. They were rapidly being superseded by much better models from abroad including Japan and Germany.
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  297. Shorten that to SpaceX, the only bit that is worth anything. Tesla is already technically behind China in manufacturing. And SpaceX has benefited enormously from the new slogan "If it's Boeing it isn't going."
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  298. Few people care. I'm a pensioner. The loss of winter fuel payment is tiny compared to what Truss did to my pension fund, and an increase in IHT might mean the grandkids don't get their entire university costs paid off at some future date.
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  299.  @pynn1000  And not let Vance near him.
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  300.  @MichaelWinter-ss6lx  But not AC.
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  301. Correction: the MIC will find a way to get DoD funding to make a weapon out of it. It will be stupendously expensive, rather ineffective, but require all nuclear ships to have much bigger reactors and generators.
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  302.  @donnarauch8993  On the contrary, the EU and the UK both ban medical claims from "alternative" medicine that has not been properly reviewed. Mind you, they also reject some heavily pushed expensive US treatments as offering no benefit.
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  303. Asynchronous motors are not acceptably efficient as the primary drive, but as when using AWD you are not expecting efficiency, I guess they thought nobody would notice. So VW/Audi cheaped out on the AWD.
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  304.  @LillyRoessner  Perhaps Google has only changed it for red states. That would be funny.
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  305.  @clarencegreen6341  I have. Two. One became vice-chancellor of a university post-Apartheid and the other was a white covert ANC member. I don't think either of them would care for Musk.
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  306. From one person who paid attention in economics classes to another, greetings.😊
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  307.  StefanosP208  Actually the majority did not vote for Trump. In a genuine democracy like France there would have been a run-off between the two leading candidates.
    6
  308. Old Soviet era joke. A Bulgarian child and a Yugoslav child are talking across the border. Yugoslav child: "I've got a bag of sweets." Bulgarian child: "I've got a Russian friend." Yugoslav child: "If I had a Russian friend, I wouldn't have any sweets either."
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  309. @mrb692  Italian motorcycle engines used chrome lined bores in the 1950s, I fail to see your point.
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  310. Musk basically owns the Tesla board.
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  311.  @brettschermeister9389  Rag-tag vastly outnumbered? The RAF had an advanced system integrating RADAR, listening stations and radio traffic monitoring, which was how they were way ahead of the Luftwaffe. Although the Hurricanes and Spitfires were not as good as the German fighters, the Germans were at extreme range; the RAF basically had to try to keep them occupied long enough for them to have to turn back. The BoB was the victory of organisation over matériel.
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  312. Badenoch almost exactly resembles one of those megachurch "pastors" that rant on US television, except that being a woman she would not be allowed to speak in one of their churches.
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  313. Funnily enough, I knew the actual ex-SIS person on whom "Prideaux" is loosely based. He was to say the least annoyed when the book came out. But he didn't actually drive. Disapproved of foreign cars, though.
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  314. Tesla has its own problems. BMW in Europe and BYD in China are both proving very successful EV makers. One is cheaper than Tesla and the other is better. And they have lots of competition. Musk bought Twitter because he wanted to be a media baron and all the other successful options were not for sale. He is not a financial genius. He is however a very naughty boy.
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  315. Before WW2, the British motorcycle industry tended to use bevel drive OHC for the sports models. After the war they went back to pushrods. Development of pushrod designs had improved a lot whereas bevel gears were expensive. Engines like the Velocette used pushrod tubes that resembled the prewar bevel drive covers, though some makers like BSA and Norton used holes through the block. Vincent used a design that looked like a WW2 radial engine with 2 pushrod tubes per cylinder. But the most produced 4 stroke engine in the world has never been flathead. The Honda 50 (to 110) cc engine started as pushrod and changed to Morse chain OHC - where it stayed.
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  316. I've worked with lithium batteries and electrical safety and I think that was something other than a battery fire. The batteries would have vented downwards, not out backwards, and not so explosively.
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  317. Bayes's theorem states that the probability of an event A given an event B is true is equal to the probability of B if A is true, multiplied by the probability of A and divided by the probability of B. P(A|B) = P(B|A)*P(A)/P(B). - Bayes's Theorem is of great importance in the fields of medical trials, experiment design and testing. An example is this: Suppose you have a group of people one in a hundred of whom are criminals. You have a lie detector which is correct 90% of the time. So most people think that if you tested 100 people, you would have a 90% chance of detecting the criminal. Wrong. The one time in 10 that the test is wrong could well be an equal chance of a false negative (guilty person found innocent) or a false positive (innocent person found guilty). Therefore if you run the lie detector on 100 people, you will find 5 people guilty who were not - i.e. 1 in 20. This is relevant to both the Post Office scandal and the Lucy Letby case.
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  318. "What's this sheet of black paper?" "Your redacted weekly report, Sir."
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  319.  @martin-vv9lf  I know how it works, my grandfather had a clock with one in the 1960s. It is not relevant in this case for the reason I tried to explain.
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  320. Including Badenoch.
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  321. I visited South Africa in 1980, when Musk was a kid there. It was like a time warp, going back 30 years into the past. I guess Musk's idea of the future is a South African future, thirty years behind the times.
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  322. You expect him to remember something from more than a week ago?
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  323. I could replace the one on a Citröen 2CV or GSA in less than a second.
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  324. Or to put it another way, he opposes taking social housing off the market, which many consider a good thing.
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  325. Why should our friendly bin people have to put up with him?
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  326.  @jonekone3769  You mean like the US does?
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  327. It hasn't.
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  328. Nothing to do with net zero, simply foolish people buying expensive cars from a startup. There have been lots of examples in the petrol world. In the bike world there was Hesketh and Silk in this country alone, both expensive failures. If you don't buy from a well known manufacturer, expect problems.
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  329.  @joseteixeira5900  Cylinder temperature is fixable by correct design of water passages. The i6 crank needs to be more substantial than the V6 crank to reduce torsional oscillation, but against that is the weight reduction due to the total length of the i6 being less than the total length of the two V6 rows. Then there's the reduction in cooling problems due to having more room for the exhaust (and turbo if fitted). The reasons for going V6 are basically to make for a shorter front end and a bigger crumple zone.
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  330.  @johnmurray5573  Taken you off reinterpreting Syria duties? Never mind, perhaps there'll be an extra vodka ration.
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  331. Braverman, Badenoch and Patel think they are the Eumenides, but they are just the Graeae for today.
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  332. Musk's desire to replace people with robots is, I suspect, related to his apparent autism which makes human interaction difficult. I'm not totally sure I want a future in which people are replaced with things.
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  333. His problem is that his cars are falling behind the Chinese, with the new Honda-Nissan merger Tesla is a relatively small maker. And while his rockets to the ISS work just fine, the ISS itself has a very limited life left and Musk's Moon project is failing. He must know his businesses are on the verge of failure even as Wall Street pretends they are not. He needs a new income stream.
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  334.  @Brenda-bk1mq  Does Vance have any contacts with names like "Grassy" Knoll?
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  335. What is killing pubs, as so many things, is the land price asset bubble raising rents, and the takeover by property development companies masquerading as pub operators. Poverty in this country is almost entirely caused by the offshoring of wealth and the inflation of land prices. In 1955 my father bought a decent sized semi in a London suburb for twice his net annual income. That house would now cost ten times his comparable income. That is where all the money is going. People in London spending 50% of their income in rent; I thought I was doing badly in the 1970s spending 25% on my flat rent.
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  336.  @AdastraRecordings  Yes, he said they should have ignored the Fire Brigade.
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  337. Wasn't it found by a survey that 1/3 of Americans asked thought 1/4 was bigger than 1/3 because 4 is bigger than 3? I wonder what the result would be over here.
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  338. He cannot cash it in without collapsing the share prices. He isn't really worth that much. It's not like having saleable assets all around the world, like LVMH.
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  339. Common factor is that Rupert Murdoch has a big hand in their media.
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  340. Obviously. One of my kids worked in Woolworths as a 6th former and now they're a KC which is about as working class as you can get.
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  341. Someone regulating? 14 years of the Conservatives abolishing or ignoring regulations gave us sewage in rivers and the import of dangerous goods, why do you think e-bike companies would be different?
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  342. Did you know that actual Roger Bacon was a big fan of Islamic learning and said all educated men should learn Arabic?
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  343. Trump shares are falling very slowly given their actual worth - about $0.01. The real research needs to be into how they are staying so high, and why the SEC is not investigating how a company making large losses continues to have such a valuation.
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  344. ​ @spaceranger3728  I knew someone who was chief engineer on a US nuclear sub. He was the one you would want in an emergency. The prop shaft joint broke on his yacht while we were mooring. He just said "Here, you take the helm and try to keep the heading." We were jerry rigged in five minutes.
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  345.  @tjroelsma  Musk has always depended on state handouts. Carbon credits, tax incentives. The USA gets away with protectionism for its industries, funded by external debt.
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  346. The German engines, BMW, Jumo and DB, all had very well engineered roller cam followers. They also experimented with disc valves to try and get the cross-section down. RR used crappy non-rotating flat cam followers in the Merlin. They wore out but were cheap to replace, and minimised the cross section. The engineering that wins wars is the good enough, not the expensive best.
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  347.  @JSmith19858  There's been a change in government, and the oligarchs don't donate to the new one.
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  348. Let's not mention Turkiye, Indonesia or Malaysia. Why always Afghanistan?
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  349. Plasma coating machines are never going to be cheap. Look at technologies like gamma ray and ultrasonic inspection (NDT), or oil analysers. How many machine shops have those? There isn't enough work to give an acceptable ROI for a small business.
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  350. It's polyurethane with added organic fibres to improve the strength. Its big advantage over leather is that it is consistent and lends itself to automation. Using actual leather is expensive because different parts of the animal are different thickness and stiffness, so a lot of selection and hand work is needed for a product which in the end isn't really any better. And polyurethane lasts - we have polyurethane jugs which are now over 40 year old without apparent degradation.
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  351. As a non-US person I am a little confused here. Between Facebook and Twitter, which one is Pravda and which one is Der Stürmer?
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  352.  @limpethead  That's what is technically called a lie.
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  353. @ Not a guarantee, but try having one without. Why was ancient Egypt, not to mention Assyria or China, so much more successful than tribal areas around it?
    6
  354. H'e like my mother was about three months before she had to go into a care home. And she was 90.
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  355.  @TassieLorenzo  Edward Turner and Val Page agree with you. The 500cc Triumph engine that really started it all was more compact than a 500 single and produced more power for a given cylinder and head design. It just went on from there.
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  356. Definitely sounds like a member of the criminal classes. Should have refunded the money less the DVLA costs and said see you in small claims if you don't like it.
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  357. Not many gold plated carriages in the Dark Ages. And have you ever seen a Trump motorcade? It's like the Russian May Day without the tanks and missiles.
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  358. It is over-represented on the US Supreme Court, in the UK Parliament and elsewhere. It is not wrong to say that since before official records began the Church actually founded by Saul of Tarsus has been trying to take over governments. It has repeatedly tried to take over the English government - four times in the 16th century. It has to be taken seriously because as religion declines in the West, its efforts to stay relevant will become more desperate.
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  359. Ketamine.
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  360. He was a Democrat till they stopped bankrolling Tesla via carbon credits and tax relief when it was almost the only US EV maker. Then he realised Trump would do anything for money (except grow up) and was his best bet to stay in business, as Tesla without government support is losing market share.
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  361. How fast do you think these boats travel? And when a storm location is unpredictable, where do you go?
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  362. Newton was raised by a single parent on a smallholding. At Cambridge he had to take jobs as a servant to richer students to pay his way. He didn't inherit the proceeds of an emerald mine.
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  363. The warlord is already filling the void - Trump.
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  364. I don't. It amuses me that a song written to attack the Scots is still the National Anthem.
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  365.  @brandonderrick006  So do electric Mercs and BMWs, only they do it better. I gather BYD and SAIC are pretty good too though I don't see them every day (other than the odd MG badged.)
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  366.  @raylopez99  Actually hitting the oil production plants and storage tanks was more effective than the entire strategic bombing campaign. Germany with its lack of resources did not have "multiple vendors", they were short of just about all strategic materials. Nickel, manganese, molybdenum, indium, rubber. The RAF even developed papier maché drop tanks so that the Germans wouldn't be able to use the aluminium ones of the earlier design, and Göring raged over how the English, with plenty of aluminium, sent wooden Mosquitos over Germany.
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  367. Trump did it by taking all the money out for himself, saddling them with debt, and leaving the creditors nothing because they were limited liability. Our accountant in NY explained it. He walked away from a Big 4 job because that was what they were helping people like Trump do all the time, and started his own business. He said he liked to sleep at night.
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  368. @ I'm sorry, you are wrong. Miliband was at Harvard for 18 months as a visiting scholar, equivalent to a junior lecturer. This is not to knock him, just setting the facts straight. It's Ed Balls who was a senior fellow at Harvard, one step below a professor, and then has on and off been a professor at KCL. Balls is simply too intelligent to be allowed to be Chancellor or PM. Both of them are way out of the league of Hunt, Sunak or whatever total numpty is Badenoch's Shadow Chancellor.
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  369. You sold it. You don't get to demand it back. You have to hope the people who were not sheep, take action. And if they do, you won't deserve it if they succeed.
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  370. If there is an agency you really, really do not want disrupted unless you are a raving psychopath, or in the pay of Russia, it's the FAA.
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  371. Trump just cannot leave women alone. The slightest criticism from them and his bile and hatred spew out. For him there is a constant need to be attacking somebody. He reminds me of those characters who Dante finds already in Hell while their bodies on earth are animated by demons, a rather apt metaphor.
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  372. The answer is blowing in the wind, my friend, the answer is blowing in the wind.
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  373. Whiskey distilleries require a great deal of knowledge and experience to operate, otherwise you will produce undrinkable whiskey or kill a number of your customers. I think he should stick to road testing the products.
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  374. Technically, the guy he insulted wasn't one of the divers. He was the technical expert analysing the problems that would be faced. He dared to point out that Musk's coffin wouldn't be able to get round the corners. Musk doesn't like being proven wrong.
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  375.  @danialhillmann5374  Yes, and Athenian pure democracy was a disaster and resulting in losing the wars with Sparta. That's why nowadays we have democracies with checks and safeguards on unfettered power. The USA is supposed to be a Republican democracy with a Constitution that can only be changed by a large majority in both Houses. Trump is ignoring that and it is not democracy.
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  376. The Senate could stop this tomorrow, but they are afraid. It is exactly the same situation as under Caligula, though with a car maker rather than a horse for Consul.
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  377. Badenoch is obviously intelligent (though not actually an engineer - an engineering degree just means you are capable of training to be a C Eng or Eur Ing, and she seems to have been a systems analyst.) However, she is mainly a politician and a lawyer, both of which occupations are uninterested in truth, just what arguments they can deploy to get what they want.
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  378.  @Stepbystep74  Highly intelligent people tend to be engaged in very difficult things that present a lot of obstacles. But while some have imposter syndrome (like Jocelyn Bell-Burnell), there's no evidence that either Richard Feynman or Alan Turing suffered from self-doubt. I cannot, however, think of a single mathematician, scientist or real engineer who posts such rubbish as Musk does.
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  379. @Qnexus7  He got covert support in tax credits for vehicles and carbon credits he could sell to other makers.
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  380. He has a bit of a habit of overpaying for things.
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  381.  @Noel-ji8nm  They didnt; they voted for Biden with rather a big majority. Four years is enough to forget. In fact for the average voter, make that four months.
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  382.  @MisterMakerNL  No - titanium is ductile.
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  383. Following his logic we need to defend against the USA.
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  384. I live in a "leafy suburb" and we have 5 EVs in a street of 18 houses. Your anecdote is as good as my anecdote. The most recent addition is a 74 reg BMW i40.
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  385. Er, no, the brushes definitely do not run on a layer of electrons. Graphite was chosen because of its good lubrication properties on hard copper. If no current flows, oil buildup (from mist) on the commutator eventually causes the brushes not to make electrical contact. The current causes micro sparking (in well designed generators) which creates local heat at any point of poor contact and burns off any oil traces.
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  386.  @danmeyer114  And much, much better mannered.
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  387. All Johnson's peerages were trouser department - either filling pockets or satisfying what goes between them. Cherchez la femme ou cherchez l'argent, il s'agit de la même chose.
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  388. You cannot, because there is no clutch. If you were to try to change the ratio while stationary, the output would have to start to move.
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  389. I wonder if under Trump/Meta's new policies you're allowed to say that Jews should not be allowed to own social media?
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  390. That's actually a very good point, e.g. the Covid fast-track aka Insider Alley.
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  391. You've rediscovered Mencken: To every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, obvious and wrong. Mencken also said that the problem with letting the general public vote for someone who they think is like them means that eventually they will elect a complete and utter могоn. He did not foresee an oppositional malignant narcissist because deep down inside he was an optimist.
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  392.  @MegaRagingBunny  There are many things that cannot be explained in "easier terms" like, say, quantum entanglement or the dynamic effects of climate change. That's why we have supposedly representative government in which highly intelligent people like Obama choose the best qualified people to advise them via committees.
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  393. The French idea of far right is some way to the left of Reform and Maga.
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  394. In this situation: Do the work at home on your own equipment. (Very important). Find a friend who sounds like he knows about computers. (He doesn't need to really, the management won't have a clue.) Set up a limited company with the pair of you as equal shareholders. Get friend to approach Head Office and tell them he has a product that will greatly improve productivity, can he explain it to the Finance Director (NOT the Sales Director, the person who can actually spend money.) Find a way to be chosen to "evaluate" it. Share the proceeds. This is legal. I knew someone who did something very similar though it was a hardware box he designed, it made him a lot of money.
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  395.  @bobthebomb1596  It wasn't poorly designed, it was run outside its design envelope. Olympia didn't sink, but was the same design.
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  396. To be a successful engineer, you need to understand return on investment. And to understand that, you need to understand basic economics.
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  397. Is this partly because people are going off excessively large cars if they aren't company funded? Polestars, Teslas and the like are pretty big, and "small" EVs like the MG4 are the size of the tall Golfs. What's the depreciation like on the bigger petrol Fords, Peugeots etc.? (I'm not arguing that big EVs are a good idea.) Now look at the price of secondhand automatic Smarts and blink, because new young drivers want automatics with low insurance that are easy to park.
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  398. Napier were pretty crap at sleeve valves. It was Bristol who perfected them and made them in volume, they had to help Napier with the sleeve design and manufacturing. The Bristol Centaurus produced about as much power as the double Daimler engine, from 18 cylinders. But by the time they were fully developed they were heading for obsolescence.
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  399.  @mckessa17  Greater Canada and Greater Mexico with Texas in the middle.
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  400. Back in 2007 we were so desperate to recruit, which was limiting expansion, that I actually suggested setting up a subsidiary in Estonia where there were really good IT people in our field.
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  401. I disagree. We had this nonsense with the 2005 SI that made it illegal for actual electrical engineers to rewire their houses, but apprentices were allowed to do it! Electrical fires in this country are actually rather rare, whereas gas explosions destroy houses from time to time and a faulty Range Rover caused millions in damage at Luton Airport. Batteries and chargers should be regulated at the point of import. Trading Standards needs to be returned to pre-Cameron levels to do it. Battery packs need proper over-temperature and over-charge provision. Several years ago I did an e-Bike conversion. One of the first things I did was to dismantle the battery pack to verify its condition. The arrangements for stopping the cells shaking around and for getting rid of heat were totally inadequate, so I rebuilt it right down to fitting adequate ventilation and a heatsink for the battery management. Your typical bike shop is never going to get assessed ISO 9000 certification.
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  402. I am sure Mary Archer will find a new post commensurate with her abilities. Given her judicially approved fragrance, perhaps she could be the new spokesperson for Paco Rabanne. God knows the Conservatives could use something to conceal their stink.
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  403. Do second order differential equations involve adding and subtracting and other hard maths? Asking on behalf of J Gullis.
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  404. That isn't going to happen for maybe 20 years. In the meantime the Tesla ergonomics are poor and you can't get around it. Meanwhile other manufacturers will refine themir interiors as progress is made in driver assist.
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  405. If this had been a new Soviet leader behaving like this, Voice of America would be all over it picking it apart and saying how crazy he was.
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  406. Being an armed robber in the days of CCTV cameras is an error of judgement too, but they don't let you off because of it.
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  407. He isn't in America, we use English here. If he was he'd probably be Trump's VP pick.
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  408. I knew someone with industry connections who bought a 6 year S class for silly money, had it restored basically to new condition, and enjoyed telling people it has cost as much as a new 1.6 litre Escort. He put 60 000 trouble free miles on it in 18 months, paid for by his company.
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  409. I filled it in. My third priority for the NHS was "Get US for-profit companies out of the NHS".
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  410.  @ayaderg  That's taken care of simply by feeding the torque reading back into the ECU that ensures all wheels have equal torque in a straight line by slight changes to the drive frequency. But having four hub motors and all the complexity it entails seems to be about bragging rights - like having the tallest sloop mast in the world - which are not perhaps a good idea.
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  411.  @difflocktwo  The consumer does care about frequent punctures or other tyre damage due to lack of suspension compliance, though.
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  412. Americans are brought up to present themselves and boast about their achievements, but I suspect deep down most of them know they exaggerate. To them being a good showman is as good as being a real achiever, and they will throw money at them. I had a US colleague who bagged my UK job when I decided to leave so his kids could get a British education.
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  413.  @kimwit1307  We need a system by which the UK has dual government - anti-EU people should live under a Reform government and the rest of us could become part of France. Or Ireland.
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  414.  @youtubasoarus  You can't be effectively vaporised by a 40MPa water blast. I can't even get a figure for the boiling point of water at that pressure but it's over 400C.
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  415.  @solareclipsetimer  Very big vacuum chamber. Many years ago our project group tried to design self supporting coils for a military project that were held together with epoxy. We managed it in the end with a rather complex and expensive fixture so we could actually wind the coils and add epoxy during the winding - in vacuum. It was a bit expensive but, you know, military budgets. The thought of a vacuum chamber and fibre winding machine big enough for a Titan hull is interesting, I suspect it would have cost more than the entire project.
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  416. People keep referring to lithium battery "explosions". They have no idea what an explosion is like! They catch fire, which is different. Our house backup batteries are in the garage (where we don't keep a car) with a simple but effective sprinkler system - if they catch fire water will be pouring on them before the Fire Brigade arrives, and there is nothing flammable near them. But then I have had safety responsibility for actual factories with compressed air, 400V electricity and hazardous chemicals. Most people have not. How many people have fire extinguishers in their cars, or even fire blankets their kitchens? A boat of any size requires at least 3 extinguishers, yet many houses have none. I would say the problem isn't so much lithium batteries as general ignorance and carelessness around fire safety.
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  417.  @MrHugemoth  Thing is, if they are properly maintained and driven, they will never need reboring. Now if only someone could teach drivers about not flooring cold engines, idling for excessive periods or doing lots of short journeys, failures would be rare.
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  418. Actually the IQ level to join Mensa used to be around 130 S-B. It's typical of someone as trivial and lacking in depth as Vance to throw IQs around, when what really matters is the ability for sustained thought applied to a complex subject - what gets you a PhD rather than a law degree, which tends to emphasise short term thinking, appeal to the emotions and nitpicking. Stewart's record speaks for itself. I have an IQ in the 140s and I reckon Stewart's at the top end of the range. Vance probably has a very high IQ but of the garbage in, garbage out variety. A test you do in an hour or so is no evidence that you can weigh the pros and cons of different theories of government, it's the difference between being fast at arithmetic and being able to pick up a company's strength and weaknesses from a set of accounts.
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  419.  @DarthAzabrush  That is not genocide and trivialises it. Assisted dying of people with untreatable terminal conditions is different from a failure of the social care system. When my father's life was prolonged against his will for a month, he was in an extremely good care home. He wanted me to help him to die and I had to explain that if I did not only would I go to prison but the care home might get closed down.
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  420. It's already decided whether it is going to happen or not going to happen, so no point asking. (I am a disbeliever in determinism on information complexity grounds, regardless of whether or not free will exists, which I atill consider to be moot.)
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  421. Nobody will be buying wheelbarrows for the dollars because of the tariffs on them.
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  422.  @ragingmonk6080  We don't go picking wars with every country that suggests we are less than perfect.
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  423.  @mikeguilmette776  Didn't you know that all the people who invented perpetual motion machines died mysteriously? No, I didn't either. And I still don't. But there's still a ready supply of nutters who don't understand thermodynamics.
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  424. Back in the days when I did this stuff the rule was that the longer the patent was, the less meat there was to it. This is an enormously long patent with very unclear claims, suggesting that the object is to prevent anyone else from creating a design based on existing technology.
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  425. The S&P is a bubble. It isn't that UK is undervalued, it's that companies like Tesla and Meta have ridiculous valuations. Is Tesla really worth 11 times as much as BMW? Really?
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  426. The BoE did know, so she ignored it. In fact she's what a former RAF type I used to work with called a TXO - transmit only.
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  427. However Trump attacks someone else, it's always for something he himself does.
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  428. Banning people from blowing smoke in my face is an improvement to my civil liberty, just as is getting high emission vehicles out of London so you can walk or ride there without respiratory issues. Protecting people from other people's bad behaviour is the exact opposite of an assault on civil liberties. I guess, to pursue the McVey analogy, you'd argue that if Hitler had banned assaults on Jews that would have infringed the liberties of the SA?
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  429. I'm not sure if he regards 1930s Germany as a threat or an example to pursue.
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  430.  @mattipps  As a retired engineer, I detest people who don't understand that perfect is actually the enemy of the practical best. Perfect never happens, better can happen every single day (continuous improvement). Your post is devoid of useful meaning.
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  431. Not wrong. Calling everything not white supremacist "communist" was pretty much what the Afrikaners did.
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  432. Nothing to do with EVs. Would you buy an expensive sports car from a new company with no real backing? It was never more than a vanity product.
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  433.  @dlevi67  Johnson got away with it because of media protection, they don't eat their own. He managed to stay on the right side of the Barclays, Dacre and Murdoch. Jenrick doesn't have that.
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  434.  @sonicmastersword8080 Explain thst observation; it makes no sense. Why?
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  435. Every champagne and cigar type with billionaire friends and a £3 million farm is a down to earth hardworking man, I'm sure.
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  436. The problem for them with 45 degree winding would be the extra length needed at each end of the tube so that the thinner parts could be cut off. It would make the tube a lot more expensive.
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  437.  @kencurtis2403  Nor does Musk, obviously, since he never seems to be there.
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  438.  @Somewhereintime7  Yankees (people from New England) didn't vote in Trump. That was the Flyover States. The ones that will be most hit by his actions.
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  439. The simple fact is that brain function is so complex that developing medicines is enormously difficult. One of my supervisors would remark that antidepressants do not treat depression, they mask some of the symptoms. I believe in the last year or so biochemists are finally starting to get to the biological cause of depression, which means a "scientific" as distinct from symptomatic relief treatment is still probably decades off. A lot of "mental health treatment" is in essence fraudulent - Freud invented what was in essence an untestable money making scam which is still treated seriously in the USA, whereas CBT does have some degree of success.
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  440. One of our children has a 2009 Honda Insight and keep saying they'll replace it when it goes wrong - it just doesn't. Before we went EV we had two Toyotas with CVT - no problems. Are you saying nobody has ever made a bad manual or slushbox transmission?
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  441. Who to believe? Your conspiracy theory, or the UN and the CIA? What I think is certainly true is that there are about 400 million economically visible people in China. The emerging peasantry just don't appear in the economic statistics. It's very similar with India except that the middle class population is smaller.
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  442. You may not have noticed but nobody in their right mind is buying any Jaguar right now.
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  443. The problem is that Catholics are supposed to confess their sins regularly, so if priests are attracted to other men they are required to confess it even if they do nothing about it.
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  444.  @robynandrews4384  South Africans called it the "chicken run".
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  445. Being in the Army was risky enough anyway. In WW2, as an example, despite their low speed, Swordfish pilots made what were basically suicide attacks on German ships. It isn't dissimilar.
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  446. Россия такая демократичная и миролюбивая. А я царь Петр Великий.
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  447. To be fair, if there are Americans about the safest place to be is somewhere else. Just ask the British Army. It was probably just a typical friendly exchange of views by a couple of drug dealers half a mile away.
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  448.  @mjouwbuis  Peugeot was plagued with belts snapping on the XUD engines. Dry belts, 8 valves.
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  449. Static balance only. Engines rotate.
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  450.  @ivanl.y.272  If we are going to get seriously technical: The inline 6 has a mirror symmetry about the centre crank bearing, and in each half, ignoring effects due to conrod length, the sums of horizontal and vertical forces cancel, the end to end rocking couple of one half being counteracted by the equal and opposite couple on the other. Can we agree on that? A single or a 360 degree twin cannot be statically balanced without balance masses. Engines with larger cylinder counts can. The six has perfect balance so long as it has infinitely long connecting rods and is rotating at constant speed without firing. As soon as it starts to fire, torsional vibration starts to occur, causing small crankshaft deflections which affect the balance. The connecting rod length is important because in a real engine the point of maximum rod angle is not at 90 degrees from TDC but some smaller number. This means that in practice the centres of the rods do not describe SHM, and so the force vectors do not exactly cancel. Where do you disagree with that?
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  451. Perhaps Musk could refuse to sell Teslas in the UK, to the enormous disappointment of Nissan, Toyota, Hyundai and Stellantis.
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  452. Of course they do, you don't think the air goes over the radiators by itself when they are stationary? Same for petrol and Diesel cars.
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  453.  @dlevi67  That is so good I am pinching it to edit my post.
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  454. Move fast and break things. Not the nest slogan for a car company.
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  455. The Cadbury family, like the Clarks, sold out long ago. Oddly enough I once had an interesting conversation with Matthew Clark in which he more or less said that the company made a huge mistake in going corporate; too many of the family chased the short term money rather than the long term.
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  456.  @thoughtfortheday7811  Ukraine does not. Their oligarchs do.
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  457. It was much more likely a water spout (as described by Dante in The Inferno , they have long existed in the Med.) They can move fast, arise quickly and do immense damage due to the extremely concentrated energy at sea level.
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  458.  @GERntleMAN  Second this, but he is unintentionally funny.
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  459. China does have elections but you have to join the Communist Party to take part in politics. Proportionally more Chinese people belong to the Communist Party than there are, say, members of all the UK political parties put together. The current leader of the Conservative Party was elected by 65000 people, 0.1% of the population.
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  460.  @MadAntz970  I can remember when depreciation was so high that companies only kept cars for a year, and the one year depreciation on a 3.5 litre Rover was around 50%. I can also remember a friend trying to part exchange a Jaguar. He was offered so little that he said "It isn't a Reliant Robin", and the dealer looked in Glass's Guide and said "No, you're right, I could give you £20 more on a Robin that age" - because Reliants were glass fibre and galvanised steel, they didn't rust.
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  461.  @zolikoff  There was a bit of a crisis at Plymouth when a nuke in dry dock had a cooling problem. I was told (you can disbelieve it as much as you like) that staff were sent out to every hire shop in the region to hire any pumps and generators going so they could keep the heat under control while the thing was fixed. No Chyernobyl, though. Crisis averted.
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  462. In Warminster one of the banks closed. They got protests, and the protesters were told that under 40 people used the branch regularly so, if they didn't all mind paying £4000 a year each to keep it open...
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  463.  @Creepus_Explodus  This is actually wrong. Many cars are leased out to corporations and the leasing company wants good residuals, which means that they must not be perceived as being unreliable when sold second hand. Modern cars are expected to be reliable for 6 years, i.e. twice the typical lease. Over here Mercedes dealers will buy cars under 6 years old. Go over...well, I know someone who foolishly bought an Audi TT when she retired intending to keep it. After 6 years it started to get expensive and she then found out what the value was. No more Audis, the trade in didn't cover a used Polo.
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  464. I bought one for my wife after a business trip to Italy when I saw one perched on top of a mountain where the only visible road was a winding dirt track.
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  465. @klausbrinck2137  We have a cheap Small Claims Court where you do not need a lawyer.
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  466. Trump was right about lawfare. He was right because it has been his modus operandi since he started in business, and he knows how it works.
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  467. Not necessarily, it could be infrequent oil changes. As carbon builds up in oil, the risk increases of carbon deposits on valve or piston which get very hot under high load conditions and are not adequately scavenged, so they reach the stage at which they initiate premature combustion - knock. If the build up is bad enough, octane rating ceases to matter, it would even ignite kerosene. Perhaps the lining up of the rings caused more oil in the cylinder and it all went pear shaped from there. This was a big problem before WW2 and was why engines needed frequent decarbonisation. Generally speaking, lugging a turbocharged engine is not a good idea.
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  468. "Never get a citation correct on the Internet, it confuses people" - Albert Einstein.
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  469. BMWs and Kias are just better, and that's what are turning up with 74 plates around here.
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  470. It doesn't take a weatherman to see which way the wind blows.
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  471.  @EvelynNdenial  Yes, torque ripple applies to every motor that isn't a full entry turbine, the biggest being in single cylinder Diesel engines. It can be minimised in wave wound commutated motors but those are no good for space. It's also important that bearing friction is constant and any gears are extremely accurate. People don't think about that kind of engineering in the context of spacecraft. I came across it in the context of stabilising tank guns.
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  472. No, you get to elect your representatives and then you let them get on with the job till the next election. It isn't like being a customer service rep. Excessive micromanagement is a sign of a defective company, not a good one.
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  473. The shocking thing is evangelicals who claim to be Bible literalists - because if they were, they would sell their wealth and give the proceeds to the poor, tear down their churches and only meet in one another's houses, and do what they are told to do by the government. Fortunately for me the God I don't believe in is the Jewish god, but what's their excuse?
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  474.  @Donnirononon  We've already had the UV catastrophe avoided by uncertainty - the electron doesn't radiate and crash into the nucleus because of position and momentum uncertainty, the same might apply to very small black holes - they can't radiate because they are smaller than the single photon needed to account for their energy.
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  475. I turned down a job that would have meant truck testing in Europe. Fun for a while but a constant grind of being driven from England to Greece and back again over the odd mountain while monitoring the instruments would have got tedious rather quickly. The EU takes this stuff seriously.
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  476.  @martin-vv9lf  Pendulums do not have cenrres at ech end, one end is free to swing. Eccentric straps do, that is the problem; variation of distance between centres. Also, there is nowhere in an eccentric drive to accommodate taper rollers. The width would be excessive. That's why plain journals are used.
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  477. Do you even know what the adjutant does? It's an admin role.
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  478. Small but powerful waterspouts have been known in the area for a long time. Dante actually describes one in The Inferno which "struck the forepart of the ship and the prow went down", showing how small it was at sea level.
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  479. Indeed. I noted that ravens were put on a "level 2", but how do you define something so fuzzy in distinct levels? It's like the arguments over chimpanzee language; the antis seem to have absorbed the Abrahamic religious idea that we are somehow fundamentally different from other animals, another offshoot of anthropocentrism.
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  480. What makes anybody think Farage will still be around in 2029?
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  481.  @petert3355  It could if he loses and then refuses to pay up or do what the court requires. The most likely way to get Musk is on contempt of court.
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  482. If we're going to be that pointlessly pedantic, Sol is actually the name of the Sun God, not the Sun. And we have in English a way of dealing with this: the Solar system - our special one. a Solar system - any star with planets. the Sun - our local star that shines on people a Sun - some other star taht shines on people A star called The Sun - book by George Gamow.
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  483. You are responsible for Murdoch, who is a significant part of the reason.
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  484. You in 1890 looking at a printing press: "Remind me what you are going to use in place of coal and steam? You are not printing this newspaper without coal powered steam engines."
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  485.  @stevenbreach2561  So there we are on Salisbury Plain doing some R&D testing, and there's some artillery going some way away. It sounds as if it's getting closer. Major: "Sergeant, nip over on your bike and see who it is." Sergeant comes back at considerable speed. "Sir, it's the Yanks!" In short order we collect everything up and depart...
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  486. TSLA has not crashed - it had an irrational surge when Musk took over the government, which is slowly correcting. Even a year ago it was massively overpriced - VW is now technically ahead on full self driving (testing vehicles in Norway rather than benign semi-deserts), Waymo ahead on robotaxis, and there is no evidence that there is anything special about Musk's AI. The only vehicle Musk had a hand in is a flop, and a cheaper Tesla will be up against Stellantis, VW, Renault, Hyundai, Leapmotor and others. Despite hiccups, TO3s and Renault 5s are in production and the new smaller VW is in the hands of a few journalists. The only things holding up the share price are low transaction volume (low market testing) and Wall Street's fear of contagion.
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  487. A few cars in the past had that problem, some Volvos ended up with headlamp wipers. If Musk had employed some legacy car designers they'd have told him, but no, just like Rush and Titan, details like that come last.
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  488.  @davidschaftenaar6530  Actually, engineering is applied physics, chemistry, biology and economics. Note how the Titan disaster was an engineering failure involving every single one of those fields.
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  489. I've known two extremely nice South Africans, both real engineers. One of them helped provide electricity to the townships. One of them involved himself in getting technical training to black South Africans that the government didn't want them to have. They are both, sadly, no longer with us. But at least they haven't had to find out about Musk.
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  490. War - Tugendhat Death - Badenoch Famine - Cleverly Pestilence - Jenrick. Any variations suggested?
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  491. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from one MD I worked for who said "Never let management accountants run the company." Truss is a management accountant and it showed. It's the financial director's job to deal with borrowing, and she never reached that level.
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  492.  @josekanucee1428  He was well paid for it.
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  493. He's a rich, greedy sociopath from Apartheid South Africa. Don't slur autistic people.
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  494. "Je ne regrette rien" - Edith Piaf. "The only thing I regret is when I was unable to avoid doing the right thing" - A B de P Johnson.
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  495. A lot of ships were sunk for insurance scams.
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  496. Since Farage's only occupation was an unsuccessful small LME trader, how would he know? His input in fisheries was nonexistent.
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  497.  @BigBlueGuy  Try filling a bath when the plug is out and the plughole is much bigger than the faucets, that's how.
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  498.  @Ragebait01  It depends what you mean by "stronger". Impact resistance, energy absorption during deformation, hardness, Young's modulus, a whole host of materials properties. The BMW i3 has a carbon fibre cabin with no B pillar and is much lighter than a steel equivalent. In the end they abandoned the concept, only after making a quarter million of them. So by that metric - making a car - carbon * is* stronger than steel.
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  499. The Madness of King George Donald.
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  500.  @Boudica234  China is the future, the US is the past. And weakening US influence would weaken Reform and the Conservatives. I suspect the British government will tell Trump where to go and what to do when he gets there, in two words one of which is off.
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  501.  @jarodnorth7134  You do not know that. ATC is not responsible if pilots provide wrong informtion, disobey instructions etc. At the end of the day responsibility is with the *pilot*. Just like if the light is green for you at the intersection, you see someone going through on red, do you crash into them because the lights told you it was OK to go?
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  502.  @JoelAntoinette  Many boats have the engines in what is effectively a w/t compartment. Flooding it may stop the engines but it won't sink anything. Incidentally, in the Miracle on the Hudson, the only mistake Sullenberger made was to forget to close the cabin exhaust, which caused water to enter and the plane to sink slowly. In such circumstances I think he can be excused. As I said, we need to wait for the enquiry. All this speculation is going nowhere and encouraging conspiracy theories. My only axe to grind in this is that one of the leading lights of my former profession has died so unnecessarily along with his daughter.
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  503.  @macpduff2119  He should have taken legal advice before making a statement. I have no idea who was responsible, I was just making an observation that his remarks were perhaps unwise. If anybody is naive it is you, who seem to have little understanding that immediately making accusations directed at somebody else in advance of the facts will not impress an examining magistrate.
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  504. And the chain looks loose and has no tensioner. Running in oil the wear should not be heavy, but with a loose chain, the chain whip as each roller comes off a sprocket eventually causes wear of the sprocket. And metal particles in the oil are worse than aramid particles. Tensioners are made of plastics and they too produce particles just like a belt. Obviously it matters what flexible polymer you use with the aramid belt, but a correct formula in the correct oil should not degrade. Gears are the only really long term answer. Don't forget to indium plate them if you don't want to risk any oil dilution corroding the loadbearing faces.
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  505. My mother used to buy her cothes at Harrods, when it was merely a solid department store and before the Egyptian con-men took over. I don't think she'd be going there now, it's a place where people think in millions, not pounds.
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  506. This policy was popular with Reagan-era politicians in the USA, so I guess the ones not currently worshipping at Mar-a-Lago will be leaning on Badenoch et al.
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  507. Even worse than that; it's actually "Hold my glass of £750 a bottle plonk and my Villar y Villar while I pretend to support the working classes."
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  508.  @Mark4Jesus  You do your case no good at all with such assertions. I'm reporting for misinformation. Slovenia was never part of the Soviet Union. It was part of Yugoslavia, which was even otside the Warsaw Pact. Slovenia became independent in the early 1990s, fought a very brief war of independence, and since then has been the most successful part of the former Soviet sphere of influence. A Slovenian communist would probably fit right into the British Labour Party of the period. The 233 people who upvoted you are obviously equally ignorant. I hold not brief at all for Trump of his family, but lying is his method and it should not be ours.
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  509.  @britishrocklovingyank3491  Excellent. You're sure you didn't have a walk on part in Catch-22?
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  510. That is not communism but authoritarianism. Under communism the State is supposed to "wither way" as its interference ceases to be necessary for people to behave properly. (I know this was a totally unrealistic idea. Karl was good at economic analysis but terrible at finding solutions.)
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  511.  @richjones5432  In my line of work I had to run projects that could last years and attend periodical conferences. A typical week would be answered letters, sent memos, held meetings. Occasionally it would be major project milestone, proposal for standard approved, but certainly not every week. It was decided that senior staff had to write up the year annually, it stopped a lot of time wasted on space filler.
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  512. What was it, 17% Reform voters? Even 5 million people signing an online petition doesn't exhaust the number of people silly enough to support Farmer Farage.
    4
  513.  @Joeblogs999  He wouldn't. He uses the Twitter controls to promote people who agree with him and make people who do not invisible.
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  514.  @Joeblogs999  And nobody will see them.
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  515.  @emm_arr  Cameron? Lie? Oh, he's an Old Etonian PR man. Carry on.
    4
  516. Not fit to be spoken of in the same sentence as Cromwell.
    4
  517. Sauron? Wormtongue more like.
    4
  518.  @dmitriykashitsyn3383  Just to be clear, I'm not criticising the scientists but the lousy running of the Soviet Union during and after Brezhnev.
    4
  519. Really given our history we should offer to reunite with Denmark. We could have Sandi Toksvig as President and C3 as king.
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  520. He doesn't have the senators to change the Constitution.
    4
  521. He isn't a professor. Alan Turing, who left academia in order to help defeat Germany and so never became one, used to tell people not to call him professor. I ignore videos and articles by anybody who claims an academic title they do not actually possess.
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  522. When the Germans and the Allies tried liquid oxygen to increase aircraft engine power in WW2, it had to be dispensed to the aircraft on the runway because it evaporated so fast. To keep liquid air liquid you would need an awful lot of insulation - and an electric refrigerator to deal with the ineviable heat loss.
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  523. Slightly OT but I once went to an HP event promoting their latest oscilloscope where it became very apparent that the sales people understood neither the Nyquist limit or the statistical limits of extracting informtion from noisy signals. I asked a couple of questions and was never asked back again.
    4
  524.  @DissociatedWomenIncorporated  I've been 42 for decades, in my head only, unfortunately.
    4
  525. The reason? Scottish universities were interested in "Natural philosophy" aka science in the 19th century and produced people like Lord Kelvin and Maxwell. At Oxford and Cambridge the high status subjects were still Latin, Greek, Mathematics and History (though Cambridge had an important geology department, partly because of consultancy fees looking for coal and iron fields.) As a result Scotland was ahead on theoretical engineering, which spread to the North of England. Scotland had electric light before England. Southern English engineering was too trade based and so missed developments like turbines which needed a sound theoretical basis.
    4
  526.  @erikkeever3504  Back in the 1980s I was involved for a bit in MBT R&D. Several people commented that the NATO doctrine of going nuclear the moment Soviet tranks crossed the German border ws ridiculous: just wait till they'd got far enough to break down and then deal with them conventionally. In the 1990s we discovered that the USSR was expecting to be invaded by the US from Germany, so their tanks were designed for a defensive role, on the assumption that when they broke down they would be static artillery, if they survived that long. By the time the USSR was invading Germany the T34 engine and transmission was a lot more reliable because even if the tank was destroyed the engines might be salvageable, as when you are taking territory you can recover them. All about logistics.
    4
  527. UK PMs do not attend inaugurations, it's just the conservative media pretending as usual. Thatcher, Major, Cameron etc. did not go to inaugurations. You see, the US President is the Head of State. Our Head of State is the king. And you may remember there was some trouble about that in the 18th century, so kings and queens don't go either.
    4
  528.  @mostbased  I've had the misfortune to work with people who think that. Anybody that capable will quickly find a more profitable career. Unless you mean adjusting the color of buttons on a webpage?
    4
  529.  @SomeOne_86  80% generator to wheel is still better than an average of 30% for an ICE car. If you take a typical gas fuelled generator as around 35% efficient, the EV is slightly less efficient. But add wind, solar and nuclear into the mix and it does better quickly. Since our solar plant supplies both our house and car with a net export to the grid, I really don't care about battery and electronics losses.
    4
  530.  @BillDavies-ej6ye  It depends on the school and its position in the HMMC pecking order. Upper rank independent schools in London can pay enough to attract people with good degrees and experience. That isn't likely to change. But some independent schools really shouldn't exist, they cater to parents with peculiar social or religious ideas who don't want their little dears getting too many new ones. These are the ones most likely to disappear.
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  531.  @DarthAzabrush  I'm sorry, you are either ignorant or lying. The UN ruled that the last UK government was in violation of international law on UNCRDP. They did not describe this as "genocide", first because it wasn't in terms of numbers involved. second, because being disabled is not a matter of belonging to an ethnic or religious group and third, because it was not intentional - it was simply the general contempt of the last government for everybody who was not rich. I have a long term disability but I know when not to make stuff up and exaggerate wildly.
    4
  532. When Huawei was blocked it was said they would take 15 years to catch up. Now they are less than 5 years behind. And my 4 year old phone is perfectly good enough.
    4
  533. Oxford is famously the Home of Lost Causes and the University for the Seventeenth Century, so I fail to see the problem. It's just living up to its reputation.
    4
  534. "If the American people do not emerge victorious from my campaign against government waste, they do not deserve to survive" - Elon Hitler, probably.
    4
  535.  @xpusostomos  how do Teslas self drive then? Badly in countries that have weather.
    4
  536. Whoever thought that running a tensioned chain over plastic guides was a good idea? The fact is that all three methods - wet belt, dry belt and chain with guides and tensioners - have a plastic problem. The only real long term answer is to go back to gear driven OHV, and there are other reasons not to do that. The plastic is there to reduce vibration and for lower wear on sprockets. It isn't inherently a bad idea. I suspect a lot of the problems relate to not using the correct oil.
    4
  537. Rich descendants of slave owners, to be more precise.
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  538.  @dalecrocker3213  The world free to do what the US says of course. What other kind of freedom is there?
    4
  539. As a matter of fact home chargers do record energy supplied to vehicles already. My charger talks to my solar system and can tell you how much solar energy went into the car, as well. Given the enormous levels of pollution produced by oil central heating, which doesn't have emission control, you should be paying more for your heating oil, though. A really fair system would charge for fuel based on the vehicle emission class, with Euro 6 paying the least tax, and pre-Euro Diesels and oil fired CH paying the most.
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  540. @ Splashbacks are usually 304, this is a cheaper alloy (more impurities I think) that will stain quickly.
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  541. Tesla stocks are like modern art or antique cars. They are trading tokens for very well off gamblers. Their intrinsic value (i.e. the return likely to be realised in dividends long term) is smaller than many other car companies.
    4
  542.  @danboyd2725  He behaves like one though.
    4
  543.  @leejones4757  That's a Latin rule not English.
    4
  544.  @digidol52  The clown criticising the OP for pointing out the obvious about Republican policy on education is a very much more serious problem.
    4
  545. No intellectual ever thought joining the USA in Afghanistan was a good idea.
    3
  546.  @maccaVC  But the situation is very different. Austria and Poland were not part of Germany until, say, 1918.
    3
  547.  @spid34  I didn't say Russia was right, I was just commenting on how they spin it.
    3
  548. Which from the video it did not. Stuff sprayed out through the back and rear windows.
    3
  549.  @HaydenCyclist  I detest the term "Oxbridge". Oxford is very different from the (largely science and engineering) universities that do belong together - Cambridge, Bristol, Manchester, Imperial, UCL and KCL. You rarely find people from those in the media, but for example Cambridge is worth an estimated £30 billion a year to the UK economy with all its spinoffs. Oxford gave us Brexit.
    3
  550. So, in his mind, he won. They lost.
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  551. @ I don't think the multimillionaire Conservative owners of the hotels are too worried about high street bank closures, frankly.
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  552. We've moved from Somerset to near London. The move has been an eye opener about how the West Country has deteriorated. NHS, public transport, services. We had to downsize quite a bit to make the move, but it has been worth it. The people around us voted Leave. One of them said before we moved that they never imagined that they would have to go through passport control to visit their house in Spain and not stay there more than 90 days.
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  553.  @philhawley1219  Yes, I keep making that mistake because I worked with an Ernest Turner for some time. Edward.
    3
  554. Jaguar in the UK is being widely criticised for its "DEI" policies, but the owners know they need to stop the nepotism and recruit the best people for the job. A lot of the UK's skills shortage has been due to only people with the right connections being considered for jobs.
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  555. "The nitrogen can easily be extracted from the air." Well it could be if water and carbon dioxide, as well as oxygen, did not have somewhat higher freezing points. They lost me at that point. (One of the reasons fuel cell powered vehicles haven't succeeded yet is that the air supply is contaminated with carbon dioxide and the other products of combustion from vehicles, which poisons catalysts.)
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  556. For the USA and its clients, yes. For China, no. Sending back immigrants to South America will cause economic problems, and the Chinese will come in and offer to help. Monroe Doctrine doesn't apply, and if it did, too bad anyway. Chinese railways from Peru to the mines and food growing areas of South America, connecting with a huge container port? Can't close the Panama Canal to China now. The Pacific Rim will extend from Washington State to Cape Horn.
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  557. @ I believe the problems were caused by the alloy heads combined with high chrome cast iron block, leading to electrolysis. I don't recall much at this point but I strongly suspect he would have put in antifreeze/corrosion inhibiter once back in civilisation.
    3
  558.  @Bruce45456  That is deliberate misinformation. French tax on the largest most polluting vehicles is €70 000 at first registration. For a small car it's about €210.
    3
  559. Musk thinks he's a Roman emperor. You know, the sort who after the battle is won by other people, leads the big parade. He needs the downside: the slave repeating in his ear "Remember, Caesar, you are only human." (Memento, Caesar, te mortalem esse). It might help his mental health.
    3
  560.  @robertoskoka  Oh it does. He has threatened two NATO members with invasion, under Article 5 everybody should defend them from the USA.
    3
  561. A local council election with a tiny turnout, and he got 546 votes. About 8% of the electorate bothered to vote for him, which hardly shows much interest.
    3
  562. The Venetian one lasted centuries.
    3
  563.  @smeltned  Use a synchronous separately excited motor, which when not in use just has the small resistance of the slip rings.
    3
  564. The fleet buyers and leasers care about residual value which depends on second buyer perception. They determine longevity.
    3
  565.  @aluisious  You Americans are so full of insults these days. Is it because deep down you know you've done something very silly and want to hit out?
    3
  566. All prisoners are political prisoners. No government, no laws, no prisons.
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  567. "Farage wouldn't know integrity if it kicked him in the behind, and then he'd run away from it."
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  568. I well remember having a H&S inspector going round our site, where we had some processes using radioisotopes, a nickel plating plant, vacuum brazing and we handled a lot of lead, copper and zinc. The inspector said to me "You don't use cadmium or mercury then?" "Not at all." "Well, you've got nothing to worry about."
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  569. Amber Rudd just put the boot in on "not safe in a taxi" Johnson; I guess they want to protect their expensive columnist.
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  570. Tousi has yet to do anything brilliant.
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  571. For those who may not remember him, before WW2 the British politician Edward Heath spent a lot of time warning about Nazi Germany and asking the government to support the Republicans in Spain. Later as PM, he would sack Enoch Powell for stirring up anti-immigrant sentiment. As I was told it, and by a Liberal politician no less, the argument between Heath and Wilson really was that Heath thought Wilson compromised too many moral principles in his negotiations. Heath was awkward in front of the media but when he came and spoke to the Cambridge Union I remember someone saying afterwards "Was that really Heath?" because he made an impassioned and articulate argument for joining the Common Market. He also expressed the view that Margaret Thatcher was "raving bonkers" because of her Randian right wing ideas and meanness (like stopping school milk, intended to protect poor children from rickets without singling them out.) Heath was a Left Conservative, and he was sabotaged by the unions and the right of his own party.
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  572. I used to work with an ex-RAF type who was prone to describing certain people as "TXO" - transmit only. Truss is very obviously one of them.
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  573. Exactly the kind of snide attack on the dead who cannot be libelled that we could do without. Your cursory analysis versus an in depth trial is the basis for that post? Just another pot-stirring Scheissposter.
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  574. You have nothing to fear from AI, puny mortals. Carry on about your pitiful daily business and do not worry.
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  575. FT, Guardian.
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  576. Weird as he is, Cummings is far, far more intelligent than Musk.
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  577. Look up the ME262, German engineering has form. Fast, cheap, reliable, choose one.
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  578. In 1570 Pope Pius V issued a bull equivalent to a fatwa, allowing Catholics to resist the Queen of England. In effect, he encouraged revolution and regicide. England survived because the Queen allied with the Muslim Ottoman Empire. Popes have constantly interfered in European politics right up to the present day. Popes were pro Franco and pro Salazar. Blair's conversion was seen as a triumph for the Church, which is also massively over-represented on the US Supreme Court. Catholic bashing is periodically necessary.
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  579. You've swallowed the Munro oofle dust. The "Octovalve" has rightly been avoided by other manufacturers because the slightest fault requires replacement of the whole expensive assembly. Munro laughed at Ford for having lots of pipes and valves - but they are all easily replaceable individually. $5 pipe or $50 valve versus $1000 octovalve. Which is made of plastic. Munro's schtick is ease and cost of assembly. He doesn't think at all about maintenance. In fact I would say he is part of what is wrong with the modern industry. But then I worked in a part of the industry where things were designed for maintenance.
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  580. That was actually included. It's lower now in many countries because of increased electricity generation from renewables.
    3
  581. But is she an Imperialist capitalist running dog paper tiger? Asking on behalf of Maoists everywhere.
    3
  582.  @Krytern  The origins of left and right wing were the French assembly where the aristocracy sat on the right. Their view was that nobody was allowed to disagree with them or challenge their viewpoint. That's why the surviving French aristocracy keep a low profile.
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  583. ICEVs are much more economical than horses, steam trains or foot power, though less so than a bicycle, whether or not electric. It has been claimed that Ford decided to go into cars because horse dung was already making cities almost uninhabitable. But joggers don't emit NOx and carbon particles, so in towns EVs are good for people's lungs.
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  584. India buys about £25 billion a year from the UK, and companies like Tata invest. After what we did to India under the EIC and the Raj, we need to stay friends with them. As for Rwanda, that was a Conservative scam.
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  585. Because it is actually weak, Jewish population not much bigger than Scotland. Israel has advanced weapons but a limited number of people who can operate them, who cannot easily be replaced. This is why the worst soldiers are invading Gaza; they cannot afford to use the good ones. Terrorism actually involves the least risk to Israeli forces.
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  586. @ He isn't even a chartered engineer.
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  587. Like the Buddhist monks who used to self immolate to protest against the Vietnam war.
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  588. Someone needs to check on Musk's interest in extinct volcanoes. Access to rockets, nuclear weapons, what could possibly go wrong?
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  589. I remember a farmer who had two tractors - HOR120N and HOR150N. Now those were worth the bother.
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  590. @ Wikipedia says "Her mother had travelled from Nigeria to the UK to give birth in St Teresa's private hospital, and then returned to Nigeria shortly after Badenoch was born." If that is wrong, why has it not been corrected?
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  591. Note - IRS refund is only for the people who pay federal tax, i.e. about half. Guess which half?
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  592.  @tim3172  You're going suddenly to find half a million white collar workers who can start doing the job from day 1, just like that? Don't be ridiculous.
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  593. Ship fires are a growing problem as container ships get ever bigger. We may just have to get used to paying higher transport costs for less densely packed ships and better control of manifests. The reason the Titanic was trying to cross the Atlantic so fast may have been that there was a serious fire in a coal bunker. Fire is still perhaps the biggest hazard for ships.
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  594. Dulwich. I suspect that Dulwich is about as proud of Farage as UCS is of Paul Dacre and Eton is of Kwasi Kwarteng.
    3
  595. Recent computer science graduates who didn't get into Harvard or Yale because of too little general knowledge, I suspect.
    3
  596.  @magister343  However, since 1688 he can be sacked by Parliament, so "technically" is pretty weak.
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  597. Why does Andrew need security? What threats does he face exactly?
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  598. By the way, rapeseed is a member of the brassica family which includes cabbages, broccoli and Brussels Sprouts. It most definitely is vegetable oil. This entire video is a series of misrepresentations for clicks. I don't even work in the food industry, but I did know someone involved in research into better rapeseed varieties for food use. You owe her a lot of apologies.
    3
  599. Pteron wing, helix something twisted, hence twisting wing. A spiral is different from a helix.
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  600. Too late too for a cheaper Tesla. The Renault 4 and 5 have arrived, though they won't reach the US. Stellantis even has a mini electric Jeep using the same platform that brands not sold in the US use. Even without China, Musk has lost the smaller EV market.
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  601. "Very narrow motorcycle with reduced drag" - shows view which huge clutch(?) bulge on one side. (When Benelli developed their Sei, they moved the alternator off the end of the crankshaft which meant the engine was no wider than a Honda 750 4.)
    3
  602. My electricity pricing is decoupled - except when I export and import. About 3500 of my units each year are consumed internally. I know many people cannot have solar PV, but its existence is a very strong argument for decoupling.
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  603. What does Putin want from both Cummings and Musk?
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  604. Drinking too much and talking to strangers is very definitely a tradition of MPs. The late Simon Hoggart said Westminster ran on alcohol, though nowadays Columbia's favourite product seems more common. As for talking to strangers on the street, there's a story about Churchill being told of a Conservative MP being caught with a Guardsman in Hyde Park, and Churchill commenting that it showed how tough his MPs were, to be doing that in winter.
    3
  605.  @digitalimager4946  I suspect Murdoch of actually being an animatronic robot like the one in the Tom Sharpe book. (The Throwback).
    3
  606. Napoleon, eh? I think we Brits still own St. Helena, you may need it on a short lease. Arsenic loaded wallpaper optional.
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  607.  @eagle_and_the_dragon  Nuclear power is about 38% thermally efficient using a rather expensive fuel source (a nuclear reactor). Solar and wind turbines - the fuel is free. I don't follow your argument. What matters is actually the total amortised operating cost per unit, not the absolute input to output efficiency. According to ourworldindata (look it up) solar, nuclear and wind are about equally safe. However we can build solar plants much faster than we can build nuclear ones, so we can displace gas and oil faster that way. I agree with anybody who says we need to get on with building nuclear plants, but we don't need to make up reasons. What we do need is small nuclear reactors which can ramp up and down faster than existing ones.
    3
  608.  @Sally4th_  Wouldn't be the first time that happened. Get someone else, a rich mug, to pay all the debt.
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  609. A two seat Prius replica
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  610. This is ingenious but it is extremely complex and has many points of failure. The ratchets (freewheels) of the outer gears have to resist the entire torque, OK for a bicycle but not for anything bigger. The prototype is extremely heavy and has a lot of bearings and gears, and elliptic gears are extremely expensive to make (they turned up in analog computers where designs like this were used for analog multipliers, but as they were used in things like mechanical fire control systems, they were classified, so designers think they have rediscovered them.) They are also all futureless even if they can be got to work, because the future of the IC engine is in countries without good electrical distribution, where cheap vehicles are needed, or in heavy plant. Porsche have shown that a sports EV only really needs two gear ratios which can easily be met with a single planetary stage.
    3
  611.  @pavlinggeorgiev  It means a scholar or academic who does not confine themselves to specialist publications. Would you call the late Umberto Eco a propagandist? (If you haven't read him, you can't comment. But you should. Start with Travels in Hyperreality.) Noam Chomsky, Jordan Peterson and so on are not public intellectuals because they have agenda, they seek confirming instances of what they wish to sell. Harari doesn't.
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  612. Trump surrounds himself with people rich enough to do bad things and mostly escape consequences. Stanley Baldwin would call them harlots - power without responsibility - along with Murdoch. Giuliani is there as a horrible example, and might give some of Trump's less sociopathic joculators a little cause for reflection. The ladies who must not be named have certainly caught up with him.
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  613. Ho, ho, ho. Can you spell "supine Senate"? The history of the Roman Empire includes the transition from Republic to tyranny. It happened gradually because of what happened to Julius Caesar. Do you think any of your current Senators have the strength of character of Brutus and Cassius?
    3
  614. "astronomical cost of energy in EU" Mutes poster.
    3
  615.  @geraldwagner8739  Tell that to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish area I drive through periodically, where they've been supporting the people of Gaza.
    3
  616. Wait till you see the funding proposal for the Moon helium mine to supply it.
    3
  617.  @superspeeder  The example I know of is the Velocette motorcycle crank which ran in taper roller bearings. Slightly higher initial friction was balanced by vastly better bearing life compared to straight rollers or balls, due to the preload taking up wear.
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  618.  @DwaynePipes  ICEV never break down and never run out of fuel. Did you not get the memo? The problem in California is failure to clear undergrowth and maintain fire breaks. If you have to run away because your house is burning, it's the result of some bad decisions you and your neighbors made. Buying an EV is not the only one.
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  619. You mean we're turning into Cuba but without the weather and the beaches?
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  620. These engines were designed for German servicing.
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  621. You're being sarcastic of course. Israel reports civilian casualties but not military ones, officially for reasons of security, for reasons of propaganda to present Israel as having its civilians targeted.
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  622. She thought it was C4, not ITV. Whoever made her Culture Secretary was thinking Petri dishes.
    3
  623.  @siogbeagbideach  No worries, I just like keeping on giving that story full publicity. The Skumurine would probably have killed the kids and the divers.
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  624. Tariff describes the tax on a class of product, import duty is the amount paid for a specific item.
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  625. The exhaust ports look about 5mm. That's a total port area of about 200 sq mm, equivalent to a single port of about 16mm diameter - very rough I know. The stroke on these engines is about 18mm and the total is around 50cc IIRC. Now 18mm stroke is about half that of a 50cc single, so 8000 rpm is equivalent to a 50cc single turning over at 4000 rpm, which is quite low. The usual calculations show that, allowing for the total piston area, the engine should be equivalent to a 50cc single turning over at about 5000 rpm. This means that with all the complexity this engine is quite a bit worse than a single cylinder 50cc engine like the ones produced in millions by Honda, and that isn't all friction. The total port area is adequate for well over 4BHP. The conclusion is that the valve train is probably very poorly designed.
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  626.  @GMbowtie350  Oil analysis is far from bull. It's a very important tool when developing engines. It can even tell you what part of the engine is wearing, whether it's guides, bearings, piston surfaces, chains or belts. It's a cheap way of telling you whether a problem is top or bottom end, whether the head gasket is developing a breach, and all before it gets really expensive to fix.
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  627. Needs more upvotes.
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  628.  @TomFranklinX  (a) he didn't. Other people designed and built it and (b) it's only the bestselling model because other manufacturers spread their products over a much wider range. BMW is about as big as Tesla but vastly more diversified, VAG and Toyota are both much bigger, and BYD is overtaking Tesla, especially where it matters - lower cost EVs that will sell well outside the US market. Mercedes has about 7 different body types including 4x4, taxi, minibus and 4 car sizes, plus 3 of its cheaper Smart brand. (c) Tesla failed to produce an entry level car while Stellantis and Renault are doing so. The new Renault 5 looks as though it is likely to be extremely successful in Europe, for instance.
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  629. The Wankel is just another example of a theoretically better engine that failed for thermodynamic reasons + seals. The piston engine just happens to be a genius design in terms of containing the working fluid and minimising the combustion chamber, at the expense of reciprocating parts. The Wankel turns out to have virtually insoluble seal problems plus a terrible and unfixable combustion chamber, plus the need to add oil to the working fluid, If the concept had come up this century with all the engineering tools we now have, nobody would have tried it because it was so obviously bad. When it was invented, a whole lot of stuff engineers now take for granted just wasn't understood. It nearly bankrupted Citroen and NSU and cost RR a lot of wasted money, destroyed Norton and weakened Mazda. Just proof that because something is feasible, does not mean it is good.
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  630. It would help if we could define intelligence. Is Musk intelligent? Do we want to select for that? In Brave New World , Huxley's managed society has 5 social classes, from alpha to epsilon. Because reproduction is separated from sex, it doesn't matter who has sex with whom. But why bother with 5 social classes? Huxley argues that people - especially the upper classes - need an hierarchical society to feel comfortable, and an all-alpha society would just fight.
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  631. I still remember a lecture by Enid Lakeman of the Electoral Reform Society in which she explained this in 1968. The advantages have been known for a long time.
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  632.  @CuriousVelociiraptor  Well, if climate change is happening slowly, nobody needs to buy Teslas.
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  633. I guess that compared to their proprietors she is.
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  634.  @ZweiZwolf  France is being extremely foolish in my view, trying to prop up Stellantis and Renault. The Germans had more sense. Smart is now the entry-level Mercedes brand and is made in China. If they bring out a new small Smart to compete with the Renault 5 and the small Stellantis platform, you're looking at a bit of a trade war between France and Germany. Europe could end up like the US, which for years was behind Europe and Japan technically and in quality terms, and did not sell outside North America.
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  635. I do think that fuel consumption and emissions aside, the two valve pushrod engine was about the ultimate in cost, longevity and reliability for small engines. Every improvement since has added cost, complexity and number of exciting things to go wrong.
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  636. Nouveau riche people like Giuliani and Trump often have terrible taste and buy based on bling and price. Vendors see them coming. A friend of my father's who was interested in watches and clocks built up a collection buying what he realised were good if worn ones at auction and then getting them restored. They were worth millions when he died. It's the difference between someone who wants to flash their money, and a true collector. I think Jay Leno does this for cars and bikes, his collection is immensely valuable and I doubt any of them were owned by porn actresses.
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  637. Badenoch has a degree in computer systems engineering. There is not much opportunity for any kind of creative thinking in it. It's like computer science; all the low hanging fruit have been picked. And it's the kind of subject very popular with pushy immigrant parents because it seems to have a clear path to a job: lawyer, accountant, engineer, doctor, banker, all nice straightforward promotion paths from clearly defined degrees.
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  638. Nearest modern equivalent was the last Smart Forfour, also RWD, only fastest version was 108BHP. The electric version was surprising fun to drive with a nice control layout.
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  639. @ Charging at 1mw would take rather a long time. However, there would not be very many places where there were 1MW chargers and you have to factor driving time into using them. In my case the nearest motorway size service station is a half hour round trip, whereas the nearest 50kW charger is 5 minutes away should I need it.
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  640.  @piperg6179  Rush could not afford the needed buoyancy volume of glass microsphere embedded in epoxy that Cameron used to permit the use of a steel hull. A titanium hull would be feasible but the resulting vehicle would be very large. And with ROVs being so good, there would be no point.
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  641. J D Vance. Madder than Trump and less likely to die on the job.
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  642.  @JK-hm1sd  I see you know only dates of British history. QE1 was subject to constant attacks, not only directly by Spain but by British aristocrats who had been bought by the Spanish. She had to appoint Drake (a commoner) as her admiral because none of the aristocrats could be trusted.A bit like the UK now with "Reform". QE1, in effect, spent much of her reign fighting a war of independence from Catholic Europe.
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  643. We had Mosley, but the people of London defended the Jews and his movement failed.
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  644.  @UtubeRwokeLefties  I vote for the most competent candidate who has a chance of getting in. I think I've voted Labour once in 55 years.
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  645.  @LudwigVaanArthans  Was his middle name Ahab? Similar personality.
    3
  646. No. Karma is the Buddhist concept of the accretion of the world-illusion (maya) preventing liberation from the Wheel of being. There is no good or bad karma, there is just karma. It's a concept totally misunderstood by most Westerners. Your comment is actually pretty disgusting.
    3
  647. Just remember that Rolls-Royce dodged a bullet by not launching a Silver Mist in Germany (mist=dung, as in BMW, Bayerische Mist Wagen, Bavarian dung cart), and then Audi launched the etron - which means dung in French. Oh, and ChatGPT said in French sounds like "Cat, I have farted."
    3
  648.  @Zeem4  I had to have all the discs dismantled and cleaned out on a Prius due to having to drive a lot down slow country roads - brakes hardly ever used but collected crud.
    3
  649.  @realZyphyr  One of my ancestors was a judge in England who went to prison for accepting gifts. He claimed it hadn't affected his judgments, unfortunately for him the King didn't accept it.
    3
  650.  @davidmcculloch8490  In theory their system is only an elective dictatorship if one party controls all 4 parts of the government - like it does this time. We are more likely to be an elective dictatorship, and if the Conservatives had dared abolish the independence of the Supreme Court we would have been. As it was, they put down Rees-Mogg, though omitting the stake and the crossroads was a big error.
    3
  651. Sad story though. My father was 2ic on a minesweeper for part of WW2 then got transferred to Combined Ops. First, he told me from an early age that the NCOs are the backbone of the Navy and secondly, he died at over 100 just starting with dementia, and in his last months he reverted to WW2 mode. 62 is too young to go for that generation.
    3
  652.  @DJWESG1  What £10k for driving a VW? Do explain.
    3
  653. @PeterPete You'd be surprised. Tank crews often end up able to converse in several languages and deal with complex border paperwork, which is why they are in demand as international HGV drivers.
    3
  654. @PeterPete I believe tuition fees had come in when she went to Sussex, though I might be wrong. Sussex and Birkbeck are not that career beneficial, and the added value of a degree there is in the tens of thousands, not millions.
    3
  655. California and New England will be asserting all those States Rights. The breakup of Yugoslavia may be instructive. Most of the univerity graduates were in Slovenia. Which part of former Yugoslavia is now the most prosperous? (Hint: not Serbia.)
    3
  656.  @drewfleming7065  In Europe there must be a mechanical connection for the steering unless the vehicle is limited to 40kph (farm tractors).
    3
  657.  @KryptonitetoallBS  Long ago admittedly, our college chaplain said of a rather obnoxious student "It isn't his fault, he comes from Solihull. Two Jags in the garage, empty gin bottles in the dustbin."
    3
  658. My daughter's 09 Insight refuses to die, CVT and all. It lives outside in London, it tours France and Scotland, two years ago she said she'd replace it when it gave up. Coming up to 16th birthday.
    3
  659. It would be almost impossible to drive one through the restrictions in many cities. Having to use a truck satnav would be the least of it.
    3
  660.  @Walt_G  Vance takes over, that's the job. Truman took over when Roosevelt died.
    3
  661. The UK nearly did starve before the Atlantic Gap was closed, and if Germany made fewer tanks, they could make more submarines.
    3
  662. Water injection has been tried and failed repeatedly since the 1920s. WW2 piston engines tended to use methanol/water injection but the water adds large amounts of weight and doesn't improve fuel economy much. OK for defensive short range fighters, but once nitrous oxide injection came along it was pretty much game over. Lighter and a big power boost from the added oxygen.
    3
  663. No, it's because the Catholic Church is the union of Pauline sects and Roman paganism, and gets hugely tangled up with things like Cybele-worship. The Eastern church avoided that and its regular priests can marry but bishops can't.
    3
  664. That's why the gasoline car never took off; range anxiety for decades from 1886 to the 1920s due to lack of fuel distribution. And of course Diesel ships never replaced steam because of the lack of oil storage at ports. And we're still on dial up modems due to the lack of fibre.
    3
  665. Short answer? I object to Musk trying to change the future without a democratic mandate. Would you be so happy if it was a communist billionaire trying to chang the future, I wonder?
    3
  666. Couldn't it be persuaded to move off the coast of Clacton? Farage is Putin-approved and a detonation could hardly make the place worse, provided all sentient life is previously evacuated.
    3
  667. I wasn't aware that Reagan was black.
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  668. Javascript bots aren't people.
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  669. According to Wikipedia Badenoch's A levels were B in Biology, a B in Chemistry and a D in Maths. Starmer got a B in maths and physics, so he wins that one comfortably. And be careful about lawyers; my kid who is a lawyer got A* in both maths and further maths, and from a State chool at that. Some lawyers are mathematically devoid of clue, some are extremely sharp. And some engineers are hopeless at maths, but once they reach the stage of being engineering managers it ceases to matter. She did "computer systems engineering" at Sussex, a degree which no longer exists. However, I do not think much maths would be required compared to, say, actual computer science (which is heavily mathematical). I once had the misfortune to be working with a CS graduate of a university I won't name, whose grasp of statistics and data analysis was almost nonexistent. When I probed a bit he said "I missed most of those lectures". Conclude from that what you will.
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  670. I agree. People with autism do not, in my experience, behave like Musk. They try to fit in. But these days high functioning autism gets treated as code for "good with numbers and science", so claiming to be autistic rather than an overprivileged brat from a dysfunctional home with a level of entitlement that almost amounts to narcissistic psychopathy, doesn't sound so innocent.
    3
  671.  @diamondthree  It is the rate of change of acceleration, and without it your rockets won't go where you want.
    3
  672.  @samulis8275  You are thinking, I guess, of the Stephenson link for the valves. Steam engines do not have CVT because the stroke of the piston is fixed and the piston rod operates on a crosshead which drives a crank; the crank radius is therefore fixed at half the stroke of the piston. The valves, however, admit more or less steam according to how far they move from centre, and that can be controlled by the sliding link.
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  673. Some people have to lie on their CVs. One friend had to put himself down as having been an aircraft mechanic in the RAF for a number of years. It was his GCHQ cover story. Years later his employer wanted him to go to Russia on a contract, and he had to ask them to phone the Foreign Office - who said "No way and don't ever refer to this conversation in future."
    3
  674. I guess they can be cooks, cleaners and provide special services for the Ubermenschen.
    3
  675.  @philipwebb8297  He hasn't even got out of low Earth orbit yet. Stick to subjects you know something about.
    3
  676.  @TheEulerID  Your explanation is correct. I deleted rather than editing my original post for better clarity. I do take some issue with your other statements. Because of the greater viscosity of glycol, attention has to be paid to the flow paths especially in the cylinder head. But also high glycol mixtures have more wall adhesion in heat exchangers than straight water, so more circulating power is needed.
    3
  677. Ja, and the American Empire will be a Thousand Year Reich. Hitler said in 1934 the democracies were weak, it is exactly the same story. Just remember that the root cause of the war in Ukraine is the Cold War, when the USSR and the USA used Europe and SE Asia as proxies for an ideological conflict that the US started after WW2. In the same way Israel was a US colonial project. The entire USA has an obsession with wealth, guns and power. But as it has only 5% of world population, it can never win with boots on the ground.
    3
  678.  @ADifferentBias  Most of Musk's cars do not qualify for incentives any more, he wants to pull up the ladder.
    3
  679.  @BronzeDragon133  I would say, as a (retired) non-medical data science that the problems are likely to be much more with sampling methodology and question phrasing. These are the usual problems with political polls. You can't really do a double blind trial. It is also very difficult to measure probability of actually voting. In an election like this one, with one candidate manifestly unfit, people will actually be voting on a number of factors really related to whether the government is likely to be Republican or Democrat. So in independent voters you have the simply lazy who may well not vote, the ones waiting to see which side will offer benefits to them (foolishly believing it's going to happen like that) and the ones who don't know why a random person phoned them (or whatever) and just want them off the line. If the polling is by the same company that owns the British YouGov, the methodology is probably about as reliable as trying to forecast tomorrow's WSJ headline by a chemical analysis of Rupert Murdoch's farts.
    3
  680. The chain looks very loose indeed, and that can cause rapid wear of the sprockets and so metal particles in the oil.
    3
  681. A lot of his rockets go off prematurely. Perhaps that's why he never sounds very happy.
    3
  682. Jenrick wants to become Farage.
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  683.  @r0x0r-p4t  That was in 1926. Was that a joke?
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  684. But what if you can't find a trade buyer?
    3
  685.  @bobthebomb1596  All ships are a tradeoff between safety, practicality and cost. I suggest one day you get out Lloyds and a few textbooks and start designing a small cabin cruiser. You can argue that the double bottom on Titanic should have been extended up the bilges, but it was never intended to stray into icefields.
    3
  686. There is a joke among Cambridge graduates that the difference between Oxford and Cambridge is that people who go to Oxford want to run the country, and people who go to Cambridge don't care who runs the country so long as they have interesting jobs. (Sorry about Kwarteng). There is a bit of truth in it though. Politicians head for Oxford and the Union to play at being in Parliament, with enough cramming to get in but not enough to be a success later on. It's an historic bottleneck that came to a crisis point in 2010 with the Cameron government of Eton and Oxford incapables. The new government is much less Oxford dominated and people like Starmer had proper jobs before going into politics, so there is hope, but it sings far away in the distance.
    3
  687. @Globaldave1970  *We" are? I don't remember seeing your name in Hansard.
    3
  688.  @Ragebait01  You can if you like, but that isn't how engineers work and think. And no, I don't find you even mildly irritating.
    3
  689.  @MikeHoncho0811  Crank speed superchargers are positive displacement and are heavy, plus driving them is difficult. But also you lose the big benefit of this design which is you only need to use it occasionally. Belt or gear driven superchargers lose power all the time and cannot give increased boost at low revs without a big waste gate for overrun.
    3
  690. @gabrielv.4358  Not entirely. A supercharger is a compressor intended to supply air to an ICE. The compressor used to inflate tyres or work a heat pump is not a supercharger. I know this seems like nitpicking but in engineering words tend to have precise meaning.
    3
  691. I imagine it would be the same if you bought a petrol car from a company circling the drain.
    3
  692.  @henrikbunkenborg6743  I had a company Scorpio with the 16V 2 litre 4: the sales director had one of the V6 variants. The fleet manager told me I was getting over 20% more MPG and at the time that involved a lot of Autobahn. Those V6s drank like a sailor just come off a nuclear sub cruise.
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  693. "Russian propaganda TV" - what do you think US TV is? Re-read Marshall McLuhan. On a scale of 0 to Fox News, Russian TV is around the half way mark. The short form of "dedushka", grandad, is "ded".
    3
  694. I used to know someone who bought an aircooled Porsche in the 1970s and maintained it himself. He was still commuting in it in 2010. OK you had to stay on top of the rust, but that was about it. Those things are made to last if you look after them.
    3
  695. Full self driving is a decade late.
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  696. Pretend not to be racist party. Also, easily manipulated emotional zero brainer.
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  697. People like Musk cannot be wrong and e erybody who works for them must agree with them, so it won't happen.
    3
  698.  @DreadX10  There used to be a management consultancy in the UK that charged half the first year's savings from taking their advice.
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  699. Can actually, though I imagine there's someone on the staff with marketing knowledge who makes the suggestions. The butcher in Sandringham used to have a big Royal Warrant sign, and QE2 sometimes went there in her Morris Traveller to deliver the shopping list.
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  700. They aren't confused about it at all. Pump money to the shareholders (it's 80% foreign owned), job done.
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  701. People like Johnson, Farage, Yaxley-Lennon, Peterson, Tousi and Tate are enemies of civilised discourse and of objective truth. They seek to wind up the gullible and easily led, and try to create division. Dante had a special section of Hell for them, the sowers of discord. I annot agree with you. If someone has a strong case that they can reinforce with facts rather than anecdotes, hyperbole and distortion, there should be no need for confrontation - except against the people like them who are determined for it to happen. Two things worry me these days: first, that my grandchildren will find themselves in a war against authoritarian nationalism once again. And second and worse: that a future government led by those forces of disruption will conscipt them - on the wrong side.
    3
  702. We've been driving EVs for two years, and have yet to need to charge away from home. We don't do a high mileage, and in fact we are a net exporter to the grid from our solar panels.
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  703. Gets Youtube clicks from conspiracy theorists though.
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  704. Scripted based on The Apprentice. It's what Trump understands. Zelenskyy exited before Trump could say "You're fired" as he intended.
    3
  705. And start off with a craft knife, scalpel or even a single sided razor blade to help get the knife in. There's a very similar tool for removing phone backs.
    3
  706.  @Rose-zw2oe  Cromwell was a highly intelligent man who post Civil War put a lot of effort into trying to improve government. Farage left school at 16 and shows no sign of being able to organise anything other than being a 'celebrity' - which is how Trump got himself elected.
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  707. As I understand it the Chinese government etched a permanent QR code on certain sharp objects and keyed them to the person buying them. It's actually not a bad idea, no different from recording gun serial numbers against owners or car VINs against registered keepers. Incidentally YouTube is getting very twitchy. I wrote a post explaining to someone what a particular term for a particular white ethnic minority meant - just in plain English, no judgement or insults - and was threatened with a ban leading me to suspect that members of the said group had complained in numbers. I've deleted my account and created a new one, but this is a warning to people - the Right is on the defensive at the moment and it seems if you have a record of dissing them enough for them to notice, they may try to shut you up. High on my list of suspects is the subject of this video. Possibly best to ignore, ban without comment, and pass on.
    3
  708. He should be with Musk on the first Mars flight.
    3
  709.  @simonelliott5956  The last De Dion I've seen was on a late model Smart. It wasn't much different from this in power and weight (108BHP) and yes, they handle. The sight of that vast tube enveloping the motor at the back is quite something.
    3
  710. I believe Chrysler invented it, back in the days when plugs needed more frequent replacement.
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  711. I once worked with a guy who had a double First in English from Cambridge and several published novels. His spelling was atrocious because he knew how words sounded, he knew what they meant, but he recognised them by shape not individual letters. He was apparently reading before he was three, but already in whole words. This was in the days before everybody learned to type; I still am amazed to recall that in 1980-86 the engineering departments I worked for had secretarial staff because engineers were not expected to be able to type. He struggled with English O levels because of his spelling and terrible handwriting, but if Cambridge made you an offer in those days you only needed two grade E at A level, which he was able to get, and they recognised his talent.
    3
  712.  @HedgehogsAreBetterThanYou  Exactly. In fact it was shown after the referendum that the nearer you were to a Russell Group university the more likely you were to vote Remain. And proximity to a good university is associated with more business activity.
    3
  713.  @amezcuaist  Presidents are not in Parliament.
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  714.  @Professionalcynicalist  That's what Thatcher said, and why it took Major, Blair and Clinton to get the GFA.
    3
  715. Musk and six recent graduates understand the strategic picture as it affects the US and can analyse weapons systems, tactics, defense and offense doctrines? Better than the actual Pentagon? How are they going to do it? Oh, I know: "DeepSeek, please give me an analysis of the optimum defense strategy for the USA". (More seriously, Musk's hubris must be the bigliest hubris in the world, bigger even than Trump's.)
    3
  716.  @neodimium  For a very short period.
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  717. Which is doubtless why most camshafts run straight in aluminium journal bearings.
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  718. Most of them have been scrapped long before. Unlike "real" Porsches, vehicles like this will never have value in the future, so they tend to get scrapped when beyond economical repair.
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  719. Even so - in that demo the police were about to charge one place and a girl shouted "My father's the Chief Constable of X-shire and he's going to hear about this." And they stopped, fortunately. Definitely a two tier thing then.
    3
  720.  @joannemcvey6874  But not all religions are misogynistic, just the Abrahamic ones. Kali and Parvati are high up in the Hindu pantheon.
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  721. The Civil Service is not and should not be Special Branch or part of the Armed Forces. That is not what it is for. The word "Civil" is a clue. What is the Head of the Civil Service supposed to do on a Sunday? It isn't like a company that operates oil rigs or 24/7 process plant.
    3
  722.  @Mcfreddo  Not for V engines, but twin cam pushrod engines have been constructed and one example - the Triumph twins - was rather successful. In theory you could have fitted them with VVT.
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  723. Rabelais as well as being a satirist was a medical doctor, and you could say it was his stock in trade since in those days the main internal diagnostics available to the medical profession were pee and poo. I have the two volume Motteux translation (I was only able to find the original in a large library). The simple fact is that Rabelais is totally unembarrassed about any bodily functions. It's a reminder of What the Victorians Did for Us, along with the Americans for whom even a boob is a step too far in mass media.
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  724.  @SomeOne_86  I am not your buddy and you are wrong. That 65% loss is overall efficiency including the inefficiency of the gas turbine, coal station or whatever. Grid losses are small in comparison. Source: Electrical engineers I met while serving on an IEC committee. I did state that correctly in my original post, perhaps you aren't an electrical engineer or equivalent? The overall efficiency of the US grid relative to fossil fuel generation is about 33%, which is considerably better than the average US car (around 20%).
    3
  725.  @camo68  14% is not "the British people".
    3
  726.  @The1trueDave  It should persist, since most white Europeans and Americans originated in European Russia. They got to the Bronze Age first and spread out rapidly, as far as Cornwall, Scotland and Scandinavia. If we are Europeans, so are European Russians.
    3
  727. Buy an EV from a company with a poor record on recalls and servicing which is only kept in business by US boondoggles (selling carbon credits)? Buy Chinese from a company that has little infrastructure in the UK? Or, I don't know, buy from a Korean, Japanese or European manufacturer that actually has a significant UK presence and isn't about to disappear, like Hyundai, VAG, BMW/Mini, Mercedes, Renault, Nissan...you get the picture.
    3
  728. Something tells me that but for the General Election result this would never have come to light.
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  729. It doesn't matter, though, does it? You will still be able to drive a petrol car till at least 2045 if you want, ssuming sales stop in 2030. And in 20 years time who knows what things will look like? In 1900 people had to buy petrol from pharmacies and frequently it wasn't the right stuff. With the technology of the day this meant a practical range of around 50 miles. In 1919 the first pumped petrol station opened. Four years later there were 7000 pumps in Great Britain.
    3
  730.  @marcuschiong306  The problem is that physics today is nothing like it was in Nobel's time.
    3
  731. Literally power of the evil or bad (kakos). Cacophony, bad sounds.
    3
  732. Also a "low light sensitivity camera" what's that? You would need a high sensitivity camera for low light conditions, but you also have to deal with sun glare. Musk is so file-system-checking ignorant of the things he writes about that he seems not to know that a standard method of attack when you can is to do it out of the sunward direction!
    3
  733. You know that since Monty Python most scriptwriters have been to top universities? There's a reason for that. The average pefson can't even tell someone else's joke properly.
    3
  734. And are they colouring books?
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  735. @ As Eric keeps pointing out on his Idocars channel, Americans simply don't bother with maintenance. They still think they are driving 2500 rpm flathead V8s with splash lubrication.
    3
  736. Krushchev on capitalism: "We will be present at your funeral." Putin: "Can someone arrange a black suit and a top hat? I may need it earlier than expected."
    3
  737.  @hereandthere4763  My grandfather was posted to Lincolnshire after WW1 to fix some signal boxes on the railway, and spent the next three years going mad with boredom till he managed to get back to London, which he never left till he retired.
    3
  738. If the lubrication is good enough, staggering the gap is not terribly effective because the rings do rotate - which is why the rings on two strokes had to be pinned. It's just very rare for all three gaps to line up, but obviously you don't want them to start off like that.
    3
  739. They aren't jobs. Farage just wants a share of the brown envelopes.
    3
  740. That is exacty what Hitler did. He said what he would do in Mein Kampf and he got about the same percentage of the eligible electorate as Trump.
    3
  741. Unfortunately you have the problem of a wiring harness that has to move up and down with the suspension and is liable to damage from stones, unsprung weight, and the need for an inboard disc brake as otherwise the heat from the brake will damage the motor and its electronics. Hub motors are like the Wankel, people keep thinking it makes sense and then run into the real world problems.
    3
  742.  @kylereese4822  He grew up there.
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  743. Which is exactly what he wants.
    3
  744. He seems to be getting some respect, yes.
    3
  745.  @stewie7338  Relevance? Labour-supporting academics were largely opposed to both Afghanistan and Iraq. Nobody supposes the Labour leadership consists of intellectuals. Do you know what the term means?
    2
  746. To misquote Tennyson, "Better fifty years of Europe than a Trump for USA".
    2
  747.  @syiridium703  Pickups were briefly popular in the UK leading up to the 2008 crisis. An electrician we know was getting mocked because he drove a van while the other tradesmen had Ford Rangers and the like. Then came the recession and they found out that they couldn't afford the repayments and were getting into negative equity. Today that electrician has a sizeable company and employs a few of the people who laughed at him.
    2
  748. Farage briefly forgot the old saying about devils and long spoons.
    2
  749. @ Really? I think the supermarkets have done that. If planning consent has been refused in the past, they have threatened councils with litigation that could bankrupt them.
    2
  750.  @fanfeck2844  And your solution is? Supermarkets were OK till they started building big out of town business parks. Ask a retired planner, they'll tell you.
    2
  751. Freedom of speech is so censored you can't make rubbish videos like...er...this one. Showing people saying things they say they are not allowed to while showing their faces. Do none of you have the slightest insight into your cognitive dissonance?
    2
  752. I doubted this too but looked it up. The missiles are actually ballistic until they enter a fin-steered terminal phase when they can manoeuvre to a degree, becoming subsonic when they reach the target. So technically they are just about hypersonic missiles and as such difficult to intercept. However, militarily and economically these missiles only make sense with nuclear warheads. Israel estimates the CEP as 10-25 metres which won't help too much with hardened military targets, the conventional warhead is V-2 comparable. Iran is saying "Guess whether Russia has sent us any nukes?" in a very dangerous gme of chicken.
    2
  753. @ Ultrasonic testing in a medium like carbon loaded epoxy is more than challenging. At that thickness it's almost impossible. To get the penetration you would need longer wavelengths which makes small flaws hard to detect. The scatter is tremendous.
    2
  754. @ During the pandemic I amused myself building a carbon fibre/aramid kayak and paddle, using real 45 degree wound carbon fibre tubing, not the fake patterned stuff with a glass interior. The tube was 1mm thick and quite astonishingly strong, the hull was 2mm thick and survived bashing into rocks. There's no doubt, I think, that you could design and build a submersible with a hull that thick to survive a practical number of dives, using very carefully selected materials, proper construction and design. However, this one met none of the criteria (and you wouldn't get me in one, I get claustrophobia in the Blackwall Tunnel under the Thames.)
    2
  755. @Idk_about_anything  early 1970s
    2
  756. @ Certainly for a V8 Daimler in good nick versus a small house in Lancashire.
    2
  757.  @shawngoldsberry747  A burn is a small stream. Basically the same word as bourne in English (there is a town Broxburn in Scotland and a Broxbourne in England). Some streams contain peat acids, some are very soft water. Either is fine for filling a car cooling system in summer, in the absence of the official stuff.
    2
  758. Johnson got exactly what he wanted - publicity.
    2
  759. In the past places like explosive plants used steam engines which had hot water tanks but no boiler. Water was fed in at high temperature and pressure, and then as the valves were opened it produced steam which powered the locomotive with no flames or sparks. As I child I saw them in action at the local gas works. This is actually much higher power density than compressed air, but they required frequent recharging (like every half hour).
    2
  760. Dealers. Same reason British car companies did it; badge engineering to keep the dealers on board.
    2
  761. Look, the possible explanation is very simple. That isn't Cleverly's wife. It's his very similar looking mistress who he detests but can't stop seeing, so not spouse, family or friend.
    2
  762. Only problem is, the term "motor" was used for Diesels to distinguish them from steam engines. They were called "motor ships", and "electric motors" had to be so called to distinguish them from Diesel and gasoline motors. The magazine Motor Sport is not about electric cars, and we still talk about motorbikes and motorcycles, not enginecycles. It's a distinction without meaning.
    2
  763.  @bobbysmith270  How do you ensure that the people are where the work is? That's usually the problem.
    2
  764. Ah yes. We had someone at my first job whose rich mummy bought him a Lotus. He got a flat so he tried to jack up the car and put the jack through an aluminium suspension arm. Then he discovered it was cold in winter (no insulation) and had the bright idea of filling the doors and a few other places with expanding foam. After which, of course, it was a firetrap and the windows wouldn't work. I believe he had to sell it for parts at little more than a year old. Chapman's cars needed to be owned by people with degree level automotive engineering to be trouble free.
    2
  765. @MissFlight-q8f And when he finds out he has to do some work? Previous BNP councillors have faded into the background pretty quick when they discovered they have to work with other people or get ignored.
    2
  766. He said it would take 50 years to know whether it was good or bad. This from a politician tied to a 5 year election cycle.
    2
  767.  @DropdudeJohn  Oh, just go to Dover and look at the traffic.
    2
  768.  @nicholasbethell2921  Yes but it isn't 2066 yet, he might still be right by then.
    2
  769. That would be very low depreciation. A few years ago the AA were estimating average £3500 a year, roughly £300 a month.
    2
  770. So appropriate. "If the rockets go up who cares where they come down? That's not my department, says Elon von Braun" - Tom Lehrer, almost. And it was Poland, so doubly appropriate.
    2
  771. " the gormless trollop from Benefitsville, straight from Snouts in the Trough City. Who is tipped to be the next Labour leader. Labour today should be re-badged Islington Labour, nowt to do with working class and just sneer at us." You were doing all right until you embarked on that unpleasant rant. You mentioned past Labour and Conservatives who came from middle (or even upper class cf Benn) backgrounds and then describe some Labour MP as a "gormless trollop from Benefitsville". Make up your mind, because you just showed your own contempt for working class people.
    2
  772.  @ComplicatedStuff  As I keep explaining, synchronous motors also have near zero resistance when the field coils are turned off. I'm not surprised Musk got away with boasting about supposedly superior tesla technology, hrdly anybody seems to understand AC motor despite their being established technology for over a century.
    2
  773. Mental problems too great for anyone to ignore? Oh about 70 million will.
    2
  774. Well, they worked for Reform, and as a Reform misgovernment would make almost everybody poorer, they are just getting what they worked for earlier than the rest of us. I want both sides to lose. I want anybody foolish enough to work for Reform to know Farage will throw them under a Rolls-Royce (he'd abolish public transport) and there will be no compensation. And I want a Labour MP or two to be able to refer to Reform losing in Parliament.
    2
  775.  @TavistockLiesBrainwashing  Interesting comment except that the Church did not found either university, in fact Cambridge was founded by scholars at Oxford who didn't like it and went off to start their own. Roger Bacon, one of the most famous early scholars at Oxford, introduced Islamic science to England and was fluent in Arabic.
    2
  776. Department Of Gains for Elon.
    2
  777. Just like Wikipedia, in fact, which is probably where he gets most of his ideas.
    2
  778. I don't think he forgot, he just thought that Japanese was higher status than Chinese.
    2
  779.  @jontheodore8450  No, I'm a mere R&D engineer (retired) with a particular interest in engine thermodynamics. Petrol engined vehicles - the maximum range depends on how much fuel is used to drive ancillaries like A/C (less if the journey takes less time) versus increase in consumption due to friction and wind resistance. For all cars the maximum range tends to be in the region of 20-30mph (32-48kph). Motorway consumption is also affected by wind direction.
    2
  780. @ Also I did not mean to come over as rude, I have edited the post slightly.
    2
  781. He'll just add another zero to the bottom line. Thirty billion, three hundred billion...
    2
  782. Answer to the question "what's brown and sounds like a bell?"
    2
  783. Mainly Benjamin Franklins, I think.
    2
  784.  @fredarcher7264  A mixed bag. I had a high regard for my supervisor on Newton but a number of them seemed at times on the verge of saying "Of course what His Holiness meant was..." followed by the precise opposite of what he said. Their excuses for the house arrest of Galileo were tortuous to say the least.
    2
  785. So you're saying the US has the right to tell other Western countries which governments to choose? Very democratic.
    2
  786. There won't be another Federal election?
    2
  787.  @danika9448  Musk censors Twitter all the time, promotes his own posts, buries those of people he disagrees with. Now he's talking about extraditing UK MPs who criticise him for it. For some reason you don't see that as censorship.
    2
  788.  @eulalia3446  Musk is on the side of him being able to say what he wants and if it is illegal (his attacks on government employees), Trump will pardon him. You really do not know what you are writing about.
    2
  789.  @Ryan-ff2db  Shows how rarely they update the standards.
    2
  790. Unfortunately Trump is the face of a third of the USA. You won't get rid of him and them easily.
    2
  791. Farage will never democratise. He threw a complete wobbly when UKIP actually came up with a manifesto. Nobody must have different ideas from whatever The Leader has been told by Trump to think during his last US visit.
    2
  792. Exactly. In China you don't have a vote but you can join the Communist Party and take part in policy discussions. In the US you have a vote but it doesn't work for anything that makes your life better.
    2
  793. There are two major strands of Judaism: the Judaism of the Prophets and the religion of the City. Netanyahu represents the City which the Prophets saw as corrupt and money grabbing - all the way from Elisha to Jesus. We are seeing a tragedy in which young Israelis turn to the religion of the City as young Jews abroad turn to the Prophetic tradition, driving a wedge that, in the longer run, is far bigger a threat to the existence of Israel than the Palestinians.
    2
  794. I'm guessing this is all a short scheme. Trump's inauguration will cause a stock market crash on a massive scale. Short sellers will make the first profits then buy cheap and invest. Perhaps this is why Buffett is collecting cash. I am liquidating all the short term stock linked assets I can for cash and no, I am not some fake scammer financial adviser, just someone who thinks if Buffett is divesting Apple he is expecting a big correction.
    2
  795.  @beatricecowley4307  Like the main character in Beerbohm's The Happy Hypocrite, I suspect he has worn the mask so long it has become reality.
    2
  796. A small technical note: British warships had steam turbines with reduction gears, which are a bit more efficient and considerably more compact than electric drive. Those single reduction gears, despite being efficient, create a lot of heat. They are lubricated by large volumes of oil being pumped straight into where the gears mesh. That oil needs a lot of cooling, and it is difficult to cool oil because it's a poor conductor of heat. Then there's the thrust blocks which also require pressure lubrication and cooling. Speculating a bit, but the turbines wouldn't be the problem. In fact pouring cold water on the casings would be a recipe for total disaster as the metal experienced shrinkage and possibly impacted the turbine blades or even split. Cooling the gear cases and the Mitchell blocks with external water, however, would make a difference. Incidentally, the reduction gears of warships are just big versions of the reduction gears used between motor and differential in EVs. Good technology tends to have a long life. In the turbines and depending on the design, steam leaks could well be an issue due to the higher pressure. There were problems in the 1970s with oil tankers being allowed to develop excess steam leaks meaning crew couldn't enter the turbine compartment under power - not a good idea.
    2
  797. In the escalating runup to WW3 it is important to get the steps right. An ICBM has a range over 5000km and usually has multiple warheads. The ATACMS supplied by the US is a short range missile which releases cluster bombs, effectively a minelayer. The Russian IRBM is intermediate range, fast and ballistic (from Gk. ballein, to throw) i.e. unguided till it slows and aims close to the target. The Iranians have similar weapons and so too, we assume, does Israel. The US tends to depend on overwhelming firepower and reducing the target to a big hole, which has been their tactical approach since about 1917. So you can read it like this: ATACMS attack - see, we can cause destruction and deny areas inside Russia and our mobile platform means you can't stop us. And we have bigger, longer range drones than the ones we've been using to disrupt you. Russian response - well, we have a precision missile beyond the range of your ATACMS, so if you don't want holes in Kiev, think again. And by the way we laugh at your crappy Watchkeepers. In the arithmetic of death and destruction it's perfectly rational, a kind of chess game.
    2
  798.  @StoutShako  Musk has no qualifications in engineering. He has a BA in Physics from UPenn, which is not a research qualification, and he turned down a PhD program. It really isn't surprising that he doesn't seem to understand engineering. He was basically involved with software. And in the real world you can't just fix the bug and reboot before anybody notices.
    2
  799.  @youllfloat2pennywise344  "Doctors without borders" was renamed from Médecins sans Frontières to keep you people happy. It's French.
    2
  800.  @markwelch3564  Really? Understanding the law of supply and demand and Ricardo's Law along with Adam Smith makes you stupider? The point is surely that they are all well above Trump's pay grade, and Musk's understanding of the first one is "I demand and you pay me."
    2
  801. Agree as I know at least two of them. One of them crossed the Black Sea in a fishing boat. If Ukraine wins, neither of them will ever be able to go home.
    2
  802. What do you mean? They bought it, didn't they?
    2
  803. You already have zone pricing for food and jobs. Wages vary around the country, and food prices are higher in expensive areas.
    2
  804. @ Я тоже читала «Мастера и Маргариту».
    2
  805. Kung Fu-Tse I think. He also said when asked by a ruler how to keep power "Deal with the woes of the people if you would sit firmly on your throne."
    2
  806. As Musk gets older he seems to be reverting to full on Apartheid Afrikaner mode. High testosterone white men running everything? Bleck (note pronunciation) people being unfit to hold responsible jobs?
    2
  807. Also heart attacks mainly affect older people and prior to 1900 in the West, life expectancy was a lot lower.
    2
  808. And no aircraft, military or shipbuilding company? Leave Boeing to sink?
    2
  809. Russia has been about to collapse since the invasion two and a half years ago. We have to distinguish wishful thinking from reality, which on the whole means ignoring politicians and media owners.
    2
  810. Thanks to Trump we now know what the USA is really like in private, there is that. I suspect it has been like that all the time, but no President till Trump has sought to boost their narcissistic vanity by saying things out loud - though Nixon nearly did.
    2
  811.  @davidlaw9686  FOB means "free on board" (it's an Incoterm). That means that the buyer has to deal with ship or aircraft costs, insurance and customs. The worst case would be DDP (Delivered duty paid) when the seller would be out for the entire amount including tariffs, and have to recover the cost from the customer. The worst case of all is if the supplier has agreed a contract before the tariffs DDP with irrevocable letter of credit - which means that they are only guaranteed to get the amount specified before the tariffs, but still have to pay them. Trump's moronic irresponsibility will have caused a lot of trade disruption. But I think his entire business knowledge is "nice little business you got here, sell it to me for less than it's worth or it might have an accident."
    2
  812. I have been to conferences, I have been to meetings, I have never been served up burgers. What is it with Trump and junk food? A pretence of being like his supporters?
    2
  813. Ever been to France? That's a cultural difference that doesn't tell you anything. I've had American colleagues complain about the rudeness of the French because they will not take a little time to understand France and expect everybody in the world to be an American. Then people like Karzai get what they want out of the US by acting American.
    2
  814. A relative worked for British Aerospace and then went to work for what he called McDonald Duck. The bean counter culture worried him so much he rapidly left, telling us that perhaps they could design to those safety margins but you couldn't operate an aircraft to them (guess which one, this is last century). He then went to work on the Shuttle - but not, let me add, the boosters.
    2
  815.  @verystripeyzebra  I think that requires interpersonal skills, manual dexterity and entrepreneurial flair, so no.
    2
  816. Oh, they are a solution all right. A solution to the problem of US world domination.
    2
  817.  @ProfessorTimWilson  Doesn't alter the fact that it is part of the original. Though I guess you could argue that Germany dropping the first verse of Deutschland über Alles is similar. Maybe we should adopt the German anthem in English. Unity and Justice and Freedom is a good first line.
    2
  818. His US counterpart is part of a government that is trying to "destroy industry, increase insecurity and impoverish the country." I'm not sure nowadays is the right time to listen to the US on anything. Chairman Xi on the other hand reassured the rest of the world that China will continue to push hard towards net zero. I make no comment on whether Miliband is right or not, just that I would not trust an American these days as far as I could throw a Cybertruck.
    2
  819.  @jon-kp2rq  Your local library may point you in the direction of remedial English classes. Has it occurred to you that people of limited literacy being anti-EV may not project the image you want?
    2
  820. Handbrakes - ah yes. If you stop with the brakes hot and apply a handbrake, if it is a disc it shrinks as it cools, reducing the compression of the pads, whereas a drum shrinks more as it cools and increases the force on the pads. That's why.
    2
  821. Incidentally the Swordfish was an obsolete biplane - that later in the war and equipped with radar was a stopgap for the helicopter role in ASW. Fog of war.
    2
  822.  @49commander  Why would you get hydrogen embrittlement? Normally this is a problem associated with cadmium plating or corrosion, neither of which would be expected in the cam bolt.
    2
  823. It seems extremely hard for many Americans to understand that words as well as actions have consequences, and that's how you got Trump.
    2
  824. Your vocabulary is far above Gullis's pay grade and I doubt he has such clearly articulated views. He just saw a bandwagon that got a job much better paid than teaching, and now he's fallen off it. What Head is going to offer a job to someone who basically says "I'm going to argue with my colleagues about matters irrelevant to their subjects?"
    2
  825. Jules Verne, De la Terre à la Lune. Describes a lunar gun operated by the "Baltimore rocket club". In the same book he says that perhaps one day a gigantic boiler wil blow up the world "and I imagine an American will have a hand in it."
    2
  826. Nobody is trying to sell an expensive drug to make Black Holes go away.
    2
  827. @ In fact fast recall is a sign of efficient memory and hence intelligence. I prefer to distinguish between short term pattern recognition (IQ tests) and the ability to formulate complex ideas and develop them over a period of time. You can have the first without the second.
    2
  828.  @QALibrary  Fidelity wrote down their investment by about three quarters.
    2
  829. The male Ukrainian refugees I know will probably never be able to go back because they would be arrested. You need to be well off to afford the bribes to get on the boat to Turkey, several thousand dollars or Euros. And then the air fare to this country. The mid 1990s were after independence and in the middle of the misgovernment of Yeltsin; it isn't surprising people were not having children. And Zelensky is still the face of an oligarch, just a different one from the ones before.
    2
  830. Once upon a time I was working late in the office when I was phoned up by an irate Irish customer. Their account had been put on hold as they had returned an item which proved to be in perfect condition, so their next order hadn't been shipped, nor had they been charged. I was subjected to quite unpleasant abuse by a woman, a complete stranger. She then demanded to speak to the manager (!) at which point I left the phone, came back and said "Hello, commercial director here, can I help?" More abuse followed till I said "Would you say that to an Irish supplier?" "What do you mean?" "Are you having a go at me because I'm English?" She couldn't process it, blew her top some more and put the phone down. I realise as an inhabitant of a country with a terrible colonial record (though not a fraction as bad as the US, Belgium or perhaps even France) that this sort of thing is going to happen. Get over it, move on. Just (in this case) cancel the order. We didn't need customers like that.
    2
  831. I am sure Musk was boasting about it, but not perhaps on Twitter.
    2
  832.  @3chordGrifter-et4qe  Fair enough since the reason for the entire Israel fustercluck was that the US right hoped all the Jews would take themselves off to Israel and stop voting Dem in the US.
    2
  833.  @jondarbyshire-s7k  Ultra Orthodox I would say. I notice the people in Stamford Hill don't seem wildly keen on going to Israel either.
    2
  834. My daughter just replaced theirs with an ID5 as the ID3 was just too limiting.
    2
  835. Farage has copied a trick from the USA. Representatives and Senators will make speeches in an empty house aimed at their constituents, then it gets turned into a video with cut shots of a full house. Farage will do the same but omitting the bits where he gets laughed at. My own suggestion is that a media honesty law needs to be passed that any reporting or recordings from Parliament that include questions must also include the full answers, in one cut with no omissions or additions, and OFCOM will have powers to regulate anyone breaking the rule, as being contempt of Parliament. This would shut up Farage, Tice and Anderson for starters.
    2
  836. @ Trump certainly has a bot problem, theough it Depends who you talk to.
    2
  837.  @chrisgrahma5064  How do you lie to a Javascript bot posting from a scraped email list and a number of locations? They are not real people.
    2
  838. Have you any evidence for that? The two stroke engine was hardly used before WW1.There was a lot of confusion about rotary engines as the fuel/air mixture was admitted, along with lubricant, through the crankcase, like a two stroke - but no they did not use crankcase compression and they ran on a 4 stroke cycle. Even so this has led to people thinking they were two strokes.
    2
  839. The stories going around in 2007/8 about management excess in banking shows you to be wrong.
    2
  840. @ Or Eastern Siberia.
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  841. The Major government lost just about every by-election despite being a vast improvement on Thatcher. It's the GE that matters.
    2
  842. @ Apart from the difference in money, the main difference between Musk and me is that I know what a Chief Engineer does, and he very obviously does not.
    2
  843. The metal hydride batteries used on some hybrids actually use the hydride to store hydrogen. The only difference is that the hydrogen is formed when charging.
    2
  844. Yes, though the case might need to be initiated by the Office of the Public Guardian.
    2
  845. Why do I think the people funding Reform - they obviously had a lot of money - in Kent are the landowners hoping to profit from this scheme, just as the "hotels" were mostly unprofitable ones that the Con-servative party were renting as if they were new? Sadly Kent has an awful lot of very badly informed voters except in some of the richer areas. The ones to the East are now going to find out what FAFO stands for.
    2
  846. Doesn't Trump's pitch sound like something he would say to potential investors? He seems to have reached the point of demential at which he is reliving the past, either in trying to sell property schemes or on The Apprentice , and any connection with today's reality is tangential. It's sad in a way. When my mother developed dementia, she told everybody in the care home that my brother was coming to bring her back to the USA, so convincingly that I had to keep telling the manager it wasn't happening. She was in fact living thirty years in the past when they had discussed it at length. Trump reminds me of this.
    2
  847. Lynch's work has provided well paid employment to a lot of people in this country.
    2
  848. Well of course. You're either miserable because of Brexit, or you're miserable because St. Nigel isn't PM.
    2
  849. Well, Putin has a daughter so Johnson was half right. As for being an id10t, the ISW and other independent bodies show Putin still holding onto Donbas, Crimea and all those lovely mineral deposits. If I had a £ for every article I've seen that says Russia is on the verge of collapse, in the last couple of years, it would make up for the Winter Fuel Allowance several times over. And Trump's demand that the rest of NATO spend lots and lots of money on buying US weapons (which is what it's really about) does suggest that supporting Ukraine is not a priority for him. Whereas Johnson is a washed up ex-PM. Who is the id10t here? The fact that Alexander Johnson has a complicated relationship with the truth is neither here nor there. His assessment is no such thing, it's just headline grabbing. And it works. Clickbait, that's all the Conservative Party is good for these days. Seniors in Clacton are using this one weird trick to get an appointment with their absent MP. Ian Duncan Smith reveals this secret way to destabilise the economy. You won't believe what Boris said about Putin. Fifty politicians we're glad are out of Parliament.
    2
  850. But enough about Rees-Mogg.
    2
  851. Rules are only rules until enough people decide to break them.
    2
  852. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah are properly Yahwist, not Jewish, because Judaism wasn't documented till the Exile. Israel and Judah were interrupted by the Omrid dynasty of Ba'al worshippers. The Assyrians noted in their records the arrival of Moses and his tribe from Egypt, around 1000-1200BCE, they antedated the Hebrews.
    2
  853.  @CraftyGrandmaDem  You are going to need ethical US marshals.
    2
  854. The traffic became ridiculous while my daughter was there, visits went from parking near college to the multistorey to the park and ride. It isn't "change for the sake of change", it's the inevitable effect of economic success. From the days when Boris Johnson's subject was prestigious to the modern day when it's a joke and medicine, science and engineering are the status subjects, Oxford has become much richer (as has Cambridge). Cameron, Johnson and Truss wrecked the British economy - so much for PPE and Classics - while the Jenner Institute developed a very cheap vaccine that saved millions of lives around the world in countries that couldn't afford mRNA. Change for the sake of change? To reverse your argument, only if you are Telegraph-reading would be upper class.
    2
  855. He went to Yale. Look up "Skull and Bones".
    2
  856.  @catherinehall4862  Shortage of competent English speakers in St. Petersburg or just another victim of the US education system?
    2
  857.  @tubaman66  Also Ricardo invented the squish head which isn't actually as flat as the old US ones were.
    2
  858.  @IslaSprollie  Front wheel drive unfortunately. Something to think about in 2026, but the ridiculously small turning circle of the e in car parks is something you don't want to give up.
    2
  859.  @theheadone  If you've actually worked with hydrogen, however, you know hydrogen embrittlement doesn't apply - you just need to ensure that the actual combustion chamber and spark plug use the correct alloys. Hydrogen embrittlement is a problem of nascent hydrogen (e.g. in plating) or of very hot metals, and doesn't apply to internal combustion engines in the normal thermal cycle. Ordinary chrome/moly steel can withstand hydrogen at 600°C indefinitely, as can the stellite coating on exhaust valves. There are sound reasons not to use hydrogen in a car or truck, but anyone citing embrittlement doesn't know what they are talking about.
    2
  860. My director of studies at U said "if you do philosophy of science (as a side subject) you'll never be a scientist, because science doesn't work like that." He wasn't wrong but not for the reason he thought. He was a metallurgist, and fraud in metallurgy is just a bit difficult as people tend to notice if things break, corrode or fall down. Also, results have to be reproducible because otherwise they are useless. The more applied and hard nosed a science is, the harder fraud becomes. And oddly, to many scientists the more that's true, the more it's just "engineering", not real science.
    2
  861. Lord Nelson looks pretty good on his column but I still wouldn't want him in charge of the Navy.
    2
  862. You must be one of those Brexiters who think the UK is the entire world.
    2
  863. Wasn't it Gödel who married a dancer, and his colleagues thought it a huge mistake till they realised that she brought to the marriage the bit about being a functional member of society and being able to tie your own shoelaces?
    2
  864. That looked like an actual explosion. AIUI a Cybertruck battery can burn, but shouldn't explode. The battery pack is so designed that a rapid gas build up should occur underneath the vehicle. We can see gas escaping from the underside via the wheel arches, but then it seems to explode from the rear end both below and above the battery pack. Was this sabotage or was it an actual design fail? One thing about the Tesla design unlike others, is that it uses lots of hand grenade size metal cells. I suppose it is possible that there is a failure mode of these causing an actual explosion. At the very least Tesla should release details of the testing they have done on cell failure. In an earlier incarnation I had technical responsibility for a safety critical product, and the testing and verification he had to do was severe - including releasing performance and testing methodology in a standard. I would like to think there are ISO or IEC standards for Tesla's cells and batteries, as well as the pouch design used by other companies.
    2
  865. Er no, he did not found Tesla. In fact, it was dug out of bankruptcy by Daimler, who thought it would be good for another company to take all the risk of trying to popularise EVs while they quietly got on with development. It was a good investment, IIRC about the same as Microsoft gave Apple so as to avoid a monopoly investigation into office software. Musk persuaded the US government to support Tesla, it was a brilliant sales job but his one attempt at design is a joke.
    2
  866. Has anyone seen John Honey and Piers Morgan in the same room at the same time?
    2
  867. You need to do something about the spam, 20 posts plus already.
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  868. Of course they don't. Upwards of 500 engineers designed that car. They could tell you why your modification is not actually a good idea but no, some guy with no engineering degree in a shed knows better than all those PhDs, MEngs and EurIngs. And then there's the false warranty claim when the mod goes pear shaped and is hastily removed before contacting the dealer.
    2
  869. The final versions of the Merlin and Griffon did more with less. The German problem was their eternal one - complicate, don't develop as such.
    2
  870.  @josephstabile9154  I think it was Daimler wanted to build a V-16 but the shortage of advanced bearing materials meant they would have had to use very large radius ball or roller bearings for the mains. Apaert from the cost, the Allies kept trying to bomb Schweinfurt, not perhaps very successfully but still risking interruption of production.
    2
  871. That wasn't the batteries, that was an actual explosion. The batteries are on the bottom of the vehicle and vent downwards. The explosion came out of the back. Much as I detest the Cybertruck, something funny was going on there.
    2
  872.  @denofpigs2575  Better not use salt then (sodium chloride). As for "compete with iodine" that's just nonsense. Fluoride at drinking levels is harmless.
    2
  873.  @lurklingX  Let's not try and start conspiracy theories, shall we?
    2
  874. As a British person the last British vehicle I bought was a Land Rover. In 1981...
    2
  875.  @simonwatson2399  Ah, I missed the 2013 Act.
    2
  876. No, he's just creating more people who will be miserable but excuse him.
    2
  877. No, far too adult. The kid, I mean.
    2
  878. It was to allow for the creation of militias to capture runaway slaves or prevent slave revolts, and to put down Native Americans.
    2
  879. We all know it's China, Mexico and Canada that are totally responsible for the drug trade, no Americans involved. Also the Sacklers are lovely people.
    2
  880. If history repeats itself, we've got 11 more years to go before the Allies defeat the United States.
    2
  881. Censuses show that the UK is now minority Christian and the current King has said on more than one occasion that he regards himself as representing all religions. American government is supposedly secular (hollow laugh) but people are in theory free to follow whatever religion they like (also hollow laugh).
    2
  882. @francismcdonnell8149  Though technically he is chosen by Parliament since 1688.
    2
  883. My wife was talking to someone today who thought Johnson was lovely and couldn't really remember what all the fuss had been about.
    2
  884.  @rioriggs3568  Exactly, as my banker S-I-L says, share prices have nothing to do with the real economy.
    2
  885.  @discordia013  Enough to put any kid off mechanical engineering for life.
    2
  886. Nadine Dorries was briefly the Minister for Kulchur, Meedja and Sport till the proofreader intervened. Writing a book doesn't qualify you to manage anything or become an expert on subjects outside your scope (does it, Rowling?), but it seems they don't teach that at Eton.
    2
  887. W B Yeats: "My brother Mavroun is all worn out/ with [helping] his big brawling lout/and I am running to Paradise/A poor life, do what he can/and though he keep a dog and a gun/a serving maid and a serving man."
    2
  888. @MeshugaMatch-z6z  Who believes Mossad?
    2
  889. One of the most technically important areas of engineering involves varying fractional powers - adiabatic expansion and compression of real gases. It's a consequence of the different degrees of freedom of different molecules, along with different gas mixtures and dissociation.
    2
  890. Given that my own ancestry includes Sephardic Jews, I think I'm entitled to say that given the time it was written and the context, MoV is actually progressive. Marlowe wrote a play in which a Jew was wicked, well, because he was Jewish. Shakespeare wrote a play in which a Jewish businessman has been driven crazy by anti-Semitism and the death of his wife, with an ending necessary to get past the censor. Antonio is an anti-Semite, all the other male Christians are at least as avaricious as Shylock, only the women come out with any credit. That things are very different today is partly down to people like Shakespeare (and Joyce of course, who subtly undermined anti-Semitism in Ulysses, affecting the views of a lot of educated people in the 1920s.)
    2
  891. Why? Because Teslas are as fast as Porsches and so in the same insurance bracket, and someone in his 80s will have the same problems insuring a 911 turbo. My EV with a mere 150BHP on the outskirts of London has perfectly reasonable insurance and the oldest driver is late 70s.
    2
  892. @ Gears are so 19th century... No, TRBs are far from obsolete.
    2
  893.  @lowelldueck3096  Assuming an ICE taht only runs on hydrogen and so doesn't have to be compromised with the low compression ratio of a spark ignition engine, and assuming a hybrid system, the efficiency could probably be got to around 35%. However your value for the electric motor is low, and with a single reduction versus a gearbox, the fuel cell could end up closer to 45-50%. Having said which I don't think either approach makes sense. Using fossil hydrogen in a suitably designed gas turbine to generate grid electricity looks the most effective way forward.
    2
  894.  @lowelldueck3096  Exactly, and the fuel cell plus batteries is heavier and much more expensive. On a displacement boat, batteries are good because they can replace ballast, on a planing boat they are a nuisance.
    2
  895. As Calum Douglas explains in his book, it was a lot more complicated than that. German direct injection was good but ahead of available fuel, injector and piston ring technology, which caused numerous problems. Both the RR Merlins and the Packard Merlins were well ahead of the Allison, and the P-51 was actually commissioned at North American by the RAF. Mistakes in supercharger design and pursuing sleeve valve engines meant that the Tornado was never as good as it could have been. The restrictor invented by Beatrice Shilling was an important stopgap.
    2
  896.  @Grassington2  RR did experiment with single point injection into the supercharger - possibly the best solution for WW2 technology, but I believe that the Bendix pressurised carb was used in production. It's interesting that today's car makers still have the same trouble with DI that Germany did in WW2, like oil dilution, bore wear and piston burning.
    2
  897.  @Kallon-r3b  Now drive it in London for £12.50 a day, £3000 a year.
    2
  898.  @Georgie-G58  Just helping Tousi spread his lies.
    2
  899. Perhaps. My wife had a Panda 4x4 for years which periodically developed a fault which came and went but nobody could diagnose it. I decided the carb needed replacing but before I did that, I took it completely to pieces myself and found the tiny piece of stone that had somehow got in the bowl. It was periodically blocking the idle jet. Once gone the fault never reappeared. Even simple things like carbs and contact breakers can develop odd faults and they don't have an ODB2 port to communicate with.
    2
  900.  @Liz_for_PM_again  Um...that isn't Frodo, it's Gollum. Easy mistake to make when you're permanently high on...your own verbiage.
    2
  901. And the USA out of the Near East.
    2
  902. Funny thing is, when Opel was owned by GM it was by far the most reliable division of GM. German Opel engineers were proud of their products, and referred to BMWs as "Bayerische MistWagen" - Bavarian dungcarts.
    2
  903. Replacing lubricant with high melting point grease doesn't really count as a modification, more an experiment.
    2
  904.  @chrishooge3442  First: UK Second: Italy Third: France Fourth: Ukraine. If we include all countries which are at least partly in Europe, it's Russia, UK, Türkiye, Italy, France, Ukraine, Germany, Spain & Poland joint 8th.
    2
  905.  @jonevansauthor  "pushing the boundaries of science and engineering forward" Rubbish. In fact his big cylindrical cell idea is not being used by others, the powertrains are nothing special and the "full self driving" is still stuck on the same level as the competition. He has managed to get his rocket engineers to design a recoverable first stage. NASA had a reusable spacecraft in the 1980s, trouble was, it had a 2% chance of killing the crew. Musks blowup rate suggests he has a very long way to go to get to Shuttle levels of reliability.
    2
  906.  @emm_arr  Nope. Путин Pootin correct, Пютин Pyutin incorrect. Different vowels in Russian.
    2
  907. Any capacitors would be in the electronics box.
    2
  908. Musk has an obsession with the letter X. His cars were originally going to be named S, E, X, Y. It turned out Ford and Honda had rights to E so it was changed to 3 (E backwards). Yes he's a weirdo.
    2
  909. @Ragazzo-Carino  I don't think you understand how new product R&D works. By your logic the British should not have developed jet aircraft during WW2 because at the time piston engines were still better.
    2
  910.  @Touchlineteaser  The person to blame is the politician who sent in the Paras against the advice of the military. They were not trained in urban peace keeping. Bloody Sunday was a fustercluck, like sending a tank to deal with a parking offence. AFAIK Jackson did not give any orders to fire. I can see you don't want to know or understand about how the Army operates (and how with all its faults the British Army is possibly the best trained in the world.) I'm not ex-Army, I've worked with soldiers as, literally, a boffin (civilian scientist doing military work). Unlike the US we don't go around wiping out wedding parties and unlike the IDF we don't drop thousand kilogram bombs on children. NI was lucky in a way; if it had been a US force they'd have levelled Derry and Crossmaglen with bombs and called it peace.
    2
  911. Yes but what they possibly mean is that they agree with him on everything but they don't want him saying it out loud.
    2
  912. 100% tariffs on apricots.
    2
  913. Kübelwagen war ein gutes Auto! Besser als ein Cybermistwagen.
    2
  914. A bit like Colonel Custer being supported by Wile E. Coyote.
    2
  915.  @paulchambers6537  Nor are the volunteers MPs. Whereas Farage was an MEP in 2015, and I don't mean a multiskilled building company.
    2
  916.  @DavidMoxham957  You mean pro bono. It was perfectly obvious who benefited (cui bono?).
    2
  917.  @Noel-ji8nm  Covert? How does that work? Put on a Hugh Laurie US accent when canvassing?
    2
  918. Trump is simply waiting to see which side will bribe him with the most lithium at the lowest prices. His advisers may argue they should favour Russia, because that way they can get their supplies of tungsten back.
    2
  919.  @Ryan-fb1ot  Actually the Wankel nearly took Mazda bust in 1973 and it was the Ford bailout that expanded their market share.
    2
  920. Indeed. The theory is, with a business you put in effort and get out profit. With a government, you put in money and you get rule of law, defence, infrastructure...
    2
  921. They were so busy attacking Corbyn they didn't get their act in order on Starmer, and by the time they did it was too late.
    2
  922.  @janegreen9340  Musk speaks the language of the $.
    2
  923.  @mr.mayhem7402  Because he's older than I am, and I know my critical thinking ability isn't what it was even when I was 70. He's past it.
    2
  924.  @vxicepickxv  I don't think so. The two main parties are not embedded in State law. Can you provide evidence?
    2
  925.  @rocketscience4516  We don't, we just look after a few for the Americans so they can pretend they aren't holding the world to ransom.
    2
  926.  @sherlock_backs  The Cybercab is "Oh no our cheap EV is not nearly as good as a Chinese or European one, quick market it as a taxi."
    2
  927. Miliband has A levels in physics and maths good enough to get him into Oxford. Somehow I doubt you do.
    2
  928. The "erosion in free speech" is because of Trump and Musk using vile language to attack innocent people, thus enabling other sociopaths. They are responsible and now they do not like the fact that we in Europe remember the past and do not want it back. Don't like it, Vance? Get your party and President to behave like decent human beings so restrictions are not needed.
    2
  929. Hitler got 34%, but then he had two armies of enforcers - the SA and the SS. The lesson of history is that riots must be put down and rioters locked up. Weimer's failure to deal adequately with Hitler inflicted WW2 on Europe.
    2
  930. It looks like a Japanese engine went bad due to a lack of Italian tuneups.
    2
  931. Every one a tulip or a South Sea shell company. The problem with share porices based on opinion, is what happens when opinions change. Musk would know. In South Africa gold and diamond mines could have huge valuations until the initial finds turned out to be a fluke, and soon they were worthless.
    2
  932. The Daily Telegraph (Trump-supporting) in the UK has been predicting the collapse of the EU for over 30 years. It refuses to pay attention.
    2
  933. Farage avoids anywhere full of people sufficiently unintelligent that they would vote for him.
    2
  934. There are in fact good arguments in favour of moving the capital to Yekaterinburg, which is a more modern city than Moscow with more opportunity for development. It's kind of the twin of Peterburg and named after Peter's wife who became Catherine 1st. It has vast mineral wealth and industry, and if Russian strategy is to move south and east, it makes a lot of sense. I doubt this is the reason at the moment, but during the attempted coup against Yeltsin, he moved the administration to Yekaterinburg, so there is precedent.
    2
  935.  @IK-wc4od  Cheaper than most other European countries, much cheaper than the USA. But it is a postcode lottery.
    2
  936. Shot down by AA, many of them downed by the RAF using wing interference. Aircraft guns at the time were not too good against such small targets.
    2
  937.  @peglor  Chromium bore lining was introduced before WW2, and since then there have been continuous improvements in the materials used. When looking at what seems to be a design error in the CT, we need to remember that this would have been a design error as long ago as the 1940s. It is really quite inexcusable.
    2
  938. @ You know metals are designed by metallurgists, not engineers, and they work for the metal suppliers, not SpaceX. The problem with casting is that the materials with the optimum strength and fatigue life may not be castable in the shape required. It is therefore a tradeoff. "Gigacasting" is pushing die casting to the limits so the restriction on available alloys will be greater. As for the stainless steel cladding, it's something out of the 300 series. The rapid corrosion suggests that the maximum iron limit is higher than for 304 to save money, which means they have to call it 30x because there is no actual 300 series standard product. DeLorean, which actually made a real stainless steel car, had to use expensive 316 - which was part of their problem.
    2
  939. @ Is that even relevant? The anaology is with Poland with Putin playing the USSR and Trump playing Hitler, partitioning Ukraine rather than Poland.
    2
  940.  @qvidtvm-s5h  Trained for decades? How long do you think they stay in the Navy?
    2
  941.  @obbie1osias467  Venezuela? Has he omitted to insult them? Panama perhaps.
    2
  942. More than half of all motorists have unsuitable driving patterns for Diesels, half pay extra insurance because they park on the road. I'm afraid that's the way the world works. You've got till at least 2050 (assuming maintenance) to keep your petrol car, what is the problem?
    2
  943.  @Westcountrynordic  QE2, they said QE1.
    2
  944. If the Telegraph thinks Starmer's made the wrong decision, he's probably definitely made the right one. The Telegraph is controlled by right wing US "think tanks".
    2
  945.  @PhilipFly11  Diesel injectors - which for some reason are still made of steel.
    2
  946.  @dusinnhht  Ferrite is ferromagnetic too, it just has much lower hysteresis.
    2
  947. Oh, also Russia has been about to suffer catstrophic defeat in Ukraine for about the last two and a half years.
    2
  948. Your nickname is appropriate.
    2
  949. Square 4 is the only way you can make a 4 cylinder rotary valve engine. Once reeds were perfected, game over.
    2
  950. It looks like the Leapmotor TC03 is indeed coming to the UK - it was reviewed last week, I believe. It's imported by Stellantis so it will have a decent dealer network. It looks like a perfect commuter/shopping trolley that can cope with short motorway journeys, and it's about £16000. The size of a Smart Forfour or a Fiat 500 but much cheaper and bigger inside. This is the EV second car we should have had instead of having Teslas pushed as main cars.
    2
  951.  @FredFox-m9v  Those batteries are heavy though, and you're likely limited to 2kW charging. That or half an hour at the supermarket once a week while you do your shopping?
    2
  952.  @stephensilverstein629  One scientist? Should be easy to name him or her.
    2
  953.  @stephensilverstein629  Kooning has no qualifications in climate science. He is a theoretical physicist. As I say, name an actual climate scientist. Because you can't.
    2
  954.  @stephensilverstein629  Koonin couldn't have "done the climate modelling" as you suggest. A whole lot of scientists do the work for the IPCC, it's a pretty big and complicated subject. One person certainly did not design the models. You're basically a conspiracy theorist; you cherry pick outsiders like Kooning and eccentrics like Curry (who was a good scientist will she was got at in her mid-50s) and you only select things that support what you want to believe. A two page document headed "people who agree with me" is worthless when around a thousand scientists contributed to the 2023 IPCC report, and it's estimated 97% of climate scientists agree with it. You cannot expect to be taken seriously if you cite fringe scientists and reject the consensus, because that is the exact opposite of how science works.
    2
  955.  @ridbanner1407  You are confused. You are either thinking of the Congestion Charge (reduction going in 2025) or the ZEZ (cancelled). ULEZ is unaffected.
    2
  956. People exactly like him ended up with their régime in South Africa being overturned, and they are now really bitter and twisted about it. Do you want to end up like South Africa?
    2
  957. So having got power, Musk now wants to drop Trump and replace him with Vance who will then be controlled by Musk and Thiel?
    2
  958. When speaking of Johnson's magnum opus (i.e. big book) we should be reminded of the Greek tag mega biblion, mega kakon - a big book is a great evil.
    2
  959. Biden should have handed over to Harris early in 2024 so people would have got used to a woman President. In fact, he enabled Trump. Trump should have been handed over to the men in white coats in 2020.
    2
  960. You can do that in one line: "It's a bit like the USA only much, much more democratic."
    2
  961. @curiositycloset2359 Because there was a cover up due to the perpetrators being protected by the police, that's why. This is about policing, not individual offences. (Incidentally what's your view on the white people convicted last week of massive child abuse? Doesn't suit your narrative?)
    2
  962. We used to call that "Welsh miles". Travel at 60mph in Wales between two points people tell you are one mile apart, it takes three minutes.
    2
  963. Harold Macmillan: "Events, dear boy, events." Harold Wilson: "Three weeks is a long time in politics." The UK in 1914: "The war will be over by Christmas". The hysterical claims that a government 6 months old with over 4 years to go if it wants to, is somehow on the verge of collapse, would be silly if it wasn't so silly.
    2
  964. Flynn seems to be advocating what we used to call seagull management. Flap flap crap crap flap flap. Not nearly enough photo ops or dance opportunites for Meneer Musk in that.
    2
  965. I am not "hard of hearing" I am severely deaf. And his subtitles are better than YouTube ones.
    2
  966.  @Mintbun0  How does that work? What theory?
    2
  967. Mafiosi.
    2
  968. Il Duce Farage will make the trains run on time! (Only Mussolini didn't, and someone whose sole business experience was trying to run a small brokerage on the LME is equally unlikely.)
    2
  969.  @johannjohann6523  We charge ours while we are asleep. On the road 20-80% is half an hour. I fail to see your point.
    2
  970. There were no sails on it.
    2
  971.  @v4lhulme  During WW2, Germany had endless problems with DI aero engines due to ring trouble and oil dilution. RR eventually realised the optimum approach was to inject fuel into the supercharger inlet, simple and effective. Not the optimum fuel distribution per cylinder, but good enough.
    2
  972. That was just the media owners telling MPs how to vote.
    2
  973.  @DJWESG1  They got the price reduced, they didn't profit from it. €40 billion, going to European healthcare. British government "OK just carry on."
    2
  974. It's a boat designed to get the maximum out of sails. How is that not responsible?
    2
  975. That is interesting, it would be even more intresting to find out if other pseudo-scripts do or don't. Someone needs to analyse the Book of Mormon.
    2
  976. Because our distant ancestors lived in small groups and didn't have a technical society, so being led by the loudest A Afarensis did keep people cooperating. But it doesn't work for 300 million.
    2
  977. His actions in Europe do not help his business interests? There is a Tesla car factory in Germany and its expansion is being opposed by German environmentalists. It is completely obvious what Musk is up to.
    2
  978.  @mrwpg  Not because of NATO. Ask anybody involved and the problem is always the reckless yee-haw US military. Seen it myself.
    2
  979. Musk will be in trouble. It's Trump's job to shout "You're fired". One of the only two jobs he's ever had (the other is saying "Nice little business you got here, me and my friends think it needs protecting.")
    2
  980. To quote the great Eric Garcia, always go front to back. Start where the air goes in and work back from there. Air filter? Air valve? Turbine? Valve cover should be well down the sequence if you can see at least one rocker nodding or the chain turning.
    2
  981. You mean Farage, I presume? The Member for Clacton in partibus infidelium?
    2
  982. A Smart car's 80BHP engine is of the same order of magnitude as a McLaren, using order of magnitude is not a useful comparison.
    2
  983.  @liquiddevil7396  We got rid of our Trump after three years and he isn't coming back.
    2
  984. No, he won't go bankrupt. He is too big to fail™
    2
  985. He can try all he likes, I don't think they'll let Musk be the next Pope. Maybe the "pastor" at some creepy magachurch _megachurch_.
    2
  986.  @mpetersen6  The lightest car engine crank will be the one where the first harmonic is just above the peak design rpm. People who know what they are doing can accelerate through the harmonics - just like ship engine tachos used to be marked with the forbidden rpms of which there could be several on the way up to cruising speed. If the bearings rumble, change speed PDQ! Surely the limiting rpm is valve float? In the old bathtub heads there was no risk of the pistons hitting the head, so the rpm could go very high even if the valve wasn't following the cam profile very well. Try that with an interference engine and you can do your own metal forging in-cylinder.
    2
  987. Surely the Elon A Guy? It's pretty near an anagram.
    2
  988.  @SabineHossenfelder  Dr. Hossenfelder, you are lucky to be chromosomally incapable of understanding the mentality of male adolescents. Our college motto was "Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas", happy who understands the way things work. But some said it should be "Felix qui mentes iuvenum intelligit" - happy is he who can make sense of young men.
    2
  989. You suddenly reminded me of Charles Walker highlighting the way some police were behaving during lockdown by carrying a bottle of milk around so he could say he had been shopping if they stopped him.
    2
  990.  @miguelosterroht  What about 14 cylinder in line marine engines with 107000BHP (not a misprint) for that matter. These things are fixable.
    2
  991. @ But that's exactly what it is. Tice is going to Dubai and Farage is currently looking for a Trump boot to lick. Reform has the same structure as the US Republican Party.
    2
  992.  @Under-Shepherd  Ron Jeremy.
    2
  993.  @geoffpoole483  Surprising, that was quite a good school.
    2
  994. Interesting. After reading about something like that, I checked with the manufacturer of our EV what the recommended charge level was, and they said 100%. It makes me wonder about VW's battery technology.
    2
  995. After she was elected, Thatcher's popularity dropped for four years straight and she had to engineer the Falklands to get re-elected. It's meaningless; it will be several years before we know if the new government is any good. This is a weakness of the US system; elections every 2 years prevent any kind of longer term strategy.
    2
  996. Democratic Athens. But initially only citizens who could afford to be in the Army could do that - and a hoplite panoply put you in a well off minority. As if today to vote you needed to provide the State with two soldiers and a light tank.
    2
  997. A Personal Identification Number number. The number is redundant.
    2
  998.  @PassportPowell  Growing up in north London in the 1960s, not many Jewish people bought German cars. I wonder why?
    2
  999. @HelloWorld-hb7yt  The bubble is supported by Wall Street, so shorting is a mug's game. The point is not to invest anything you would mind losing.
    2
  1000. I remember the three day week. When managers had to stop nonproductive time wasting and focus on output. Too many white collar staff are at work to get away from the family and don't mind long hours.
    2
  1001. Can you send it back? Is the process reversible?
    2
  1002. Container ships tend to be direct drive. Cruise ships - the main job of the engines is to provide electricity to run the aircon, with the subsidiary role of powering the rotating motor pods. Diesel-electric trains were used to avoid the need for gearboxes, but they are heding into obsolescence.
    2
  1003. Fast track citizenship $5 million Fast track President $250 million. What happens when an oligarch offers Trump $500 million to be President? Does Musk up the ante or get the push?
    2
  1004. Barbarism to decadence. Oscar Wilde.
    2
  1005. One of my American colleagues was working for an MBA. He and his wife went to a school parents' evening where the teacher said she was worried about their daughter. She showed presentations on the wall of "what my Dad does at weekends." Hunting, shooting, fishing, chopping wood etc. His daughter had drawn daddy at a desk surrounded by books. "Yes," says P****, "that's pretty accurate." "Do you want your daughter growing up thinking daddies should be nerds?" US class distinction right there. He managed to get a transfer to the UK where, as he said, you don't have to be anti-book working class to fit in. If they had lived in an upmarket suburb of SF or NY, it would have been different, but in the South anti-intellectualism was a real thing.
    2
  1006. It's been renamed the Departent of Hoeland Security because it has Noem in it.
    2
  1007.  @garryferrington811  Johnson lived in a rather different society which had no technology based jobs, only trades. It is hardly relevant.
    2
  1008.  @lynnlovattjones4171  He has to last another 4 years.
    2
  1009.  @TardigradeTough  Time is a dimension, but to use it in 4D space it has to be multiplied by the square root of minus 1. Also the clock is not a representation of the time dimension. Now go and explain simply how to do geometry in 4D Minkowski space. Stephen Hawking tried to explain it simply and wrote one of the great unread books of the 20th century because the people who understood it already knew it in more detail, and the people who didn't know it did not understand it.
    2
  1010.  @JP-JustSayin  Eisenhower Republican!
    2
  1011.  @grahammonk8013  It's "only" 1800 litres per cylinder. Quite small compared to some marine steam engines.
    2
  1012. So basically they thought Trump would erect tariffs and get China to pay for them, just like his wall?
    2
  1013.  @DoggleBird  I guess you think the EPA is a commie plot, like your orange hero?
    2
  1014. We were discussing this recently at our history studies class. People's experience of war is very different. On the one hand my father was selected for early officer training in the Navy and was landing tanks on D-day and on the invasion of Burma. He never got seriously hurt, was only briefly under badly directed fire, and his postwar time in the Navy was basically an extended cruise - he left before Korea. My wife's father was in the miserable Italian campaign, was invalided out with undiagnosed PTSD and never really recovered mentally. To put it mildly, our families are very different. When we were growing up my father, a rather left wing socialist, always used logic and reason to guide us, while my wife's father would lash out irrationally - often literally. Violence in such people can often be turned against themselves as well as the person they perceive as having done them down or betrayed them.
    2
  1015. If you "meet your Maker" where it's very hot, are you referring to the Big Bang or supporting the Manichaean heresy that Satan created this world?
    2
  1016.  @private-citizen-NO1  It is providing a way for the British government to pivot back to Europe without inflaming our far right, so tht's a win.
    2
  1017. Don't forget the accents on Thérèse, reminds us her parents were pro-French.
    2
  1018.  @JA-qi1fb  Rees-Mogg has earmarked the Pope job for when GB News falls through.
    2
  1019. That really is impressively low bore wear. Understressed engine.
    2
  1020.  @leer5858  And you know why that is? Forced into buying US gas. Which is dirt cheap in the US. We need to disconnect from the US as quickly as possible.
    2
  1021.  @ADifferentBias  That is extremely unfair to The Beano. My youngest grandchild has a subscription and her right on left wing environmentalist parents strongly approve. Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph don't belong in the same section as The Beano.
    2
  1022. Billionaire non-dom property developer Nick Candy is on the left of the Conservative Party? Göbbels to Satan: "I told you we would win in the end."
    2
  1023. She also has more class than almost the entire Republican party except Liz Cheney and one or two others.
    2
  1024.  @GarethGriffiths-g5c  Italy had a king when Mussolini was dictator. The King only did one thing and he did it right. He sacked Mussolini and Italy switched sides.
    2
  1025.  @leosmith848  The Westinghouse design was rejected because it wasn't up to the job. I was on the public consultation, in fact I actually raised an objection to the Westinghouse proposal which to my astonishment went forward.
    2
  1026.  @Canada_Dominium  Not to mention the bitterly cold near vacuum above the water, with the dangerous oxygen levels.
    2
  1027. Lowe and Anderson coming up on the rails.
    2
  1028.  @Globaldave1970  Привет товарищ. Как погода сейчас в Петербурге?
    2
  1029.  @Globaldave1970  And you don't even know that Reform is actually pro-Putin and refused to deny it in a recent interview? Musc (anagram).
    2
  1030.  @chrisedwards-n9j  Look up the Orpington by-election in 1962. Eric Lubbock won the seat with a majority of 7,855, marking a swing of nearly 22% away from the Conservatives. In 1964, Labour got a 4 seat majority and the Liberals got a quarter the votes of the other two parties, 1/8 of the total. Protest votes rise and fall.
    2
  1031. Johnson got rid of them all.
    2
  1032. @Fred-rj3er  Yes indeed, but nowadays they tend to reserve "blower" for the ones that just blow without a big pressure head, like 2 stroke scavenge blowers.
    2
  1033. @jebise1126  I think you mean compound turbo+superchargers. It was turbochargers that were very large and initially short lived. Superchargers had been in use since the 1920s.
    2
  1034. Forget Der Spiegel, it's reported that at least two banks are trying to divest $11 billion worth of Twitter debt that Musk took on. They are talking it up to the rubes because that's what they do to make the sale, but it is clear they doubt Musk's ability to service the interest on the debt.
    2
  1035. The English pronunciation "ku-loan" goes back a long way, but the spray liquid tends to get pronounced "ko-loin" by people who imagine it to be French. Köln was famous for its distilled flower spray, but the smell of the manufacturing process and its waste is apparently awful and in the 19th century the city itself was famous for stinking. I did once take my company Scorpio to visit its birthplace but it didn't seem very interested.
    2
  1036. No IRS, no military. A win for the rest of the world.
    2
  1037. Musk background means he regards de facto slavery as normal.
    2
  1038.  @phil9087  My point in the original post was the over the top response of the builder which itself could cause concern in many quarters. A response along the lines of "This boat has been sailing for 16 years without such an accident, we await the results of the enquiry" would be far more reassuring than "It is impossible we made a mistake." You might want to look up the Roscosmos attempt at a cover up of the cause of the pinhole in the ISS for an example - it was the cover up that put Roscosmos's reputation in the туалет.
    2
  1039. @Kenneth-p1b  The early Sabres had a host of faults including unforgivably poor quality control. It took Bristol to fix the sleeves and the EE takeover to get some shop floor discipline. I believe the common American belief that they productionised the Merlin and early examples they saw were handmade was confusion with a couple of Sabre samples sent to the US which had indeed been hand finished. RR was set up to produce Merlin engines in volume from the start.
    2
  1040. The existence of Reform signals to the EU that rejoining will not be possible till Tice, Farage and a number of others have died or are in care homes. It is much too soon to discuss anything.
    2
  1041.  @johnclements6614  Thing is, Mercedes has an electric taxi already that can carry 8 people. Once self driving is sorted they can add it. The systems are already there in an EV. Musk claims his cybertaxi will be cheap, but different jurisdictions have different rules and his one probably won't be saleable in most places.
    2
  1042. Dear David Starkey, I think you need to review some of the comments here, recognise that they are several sandwiches short of a picnic and that GB "News" probably won't pay you Farage-level dosh for spouting this guff, and then reconsider your life choices. It's embarrassing that someone of your intelligence can not only think like this, but feel it deserves a wider audience.
    2
  1043. Biden chose competent people to run the economy, Trump chooses people he saw on TV.
    2
  1044.  @lDotley  I know. It was an attempt at a joke, obviously a failure.
    2
  1045. BYD buys it via a third party such as a Saudi sovereign wealth fund.
    2
  1046. @alanevans9604  And only 3 allowed to make policy or elect officials. It's an oligarchy.
    2
  1047. I believe according to the Mail, Badenoch has already fixed the economy, saved the Conservative Party, been anointed by John the Baptist and stopped a speeding train with her fist while deflecting bullets with her magic earrings. I'm not sure though because, like the Mail, I never check anything before printing.
    2
  1048.  @irishvicar1963  Technically assault and battery because he threw a missile (an egg). Perhaps it was from a battery hen.
    2
  1049. Taking 180g/kWH, my EV in winter is doing 180/3.6 = 50g carbon dioxide per mile. In summer it's closer to 40g. A typical petrol car nowadays does 120g/km, which is 192g per mile. Nearly 4 times as much based on your own figures I think your mistake is thinking that car emissions are in g/kWH and not g/km. Congratulations on demonstrating that the anti-EV crowd are innumerate. My own EV, however, does not do 50g/mile because we generate 4500kWH of electricity a year from solar - in fact we export to the grid, so given that our EV has a smaller battery, we will already be in total carbon dioxide credit compared to our previous ICEV.
    2
  1050. We'd better say what we think of Trump while we still can, as he seems to be trying to block all criticism on US media. Trump - suka Putina!
    2
  1051. The shakedown continues.
    2
  1052. When Trump got into financial trouble he went to Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish group based in New York and St. Petersburg. This has been exposed by serious journalists. Someone else who comes from Peterburg is one Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Who really was in the KGB and in an interview really did say the best part of his job had been persuading people to spy for the USSR. He is an expert manipulator. Oh yes, and with dysfunctional parents he was helped as a child by a Jewish couple, which he has never forgotten. (Even Putin is human). This is not proof of anything but it is suggestive. The dealings around Trump, Chabad and Deutsche Bank are not exactly transparent.
    2
  1053. What other job is there for which you require no relevant qualifications whatsoever and is so well paid, and gives you the opportunity of getting to the top? Johnson - classics degree - newspaper columnist. Truss - management accountant. Sunak - banker. Thatcher - non-practising barrister who married oil money. Now look at the past: Heath - good war record rising to company level, anti-Nazi and anti-fascist activist before WW2. Wilson - brilliant statistician and economist. Churchill - army officer, senior ministerial jobs. Blair at least was a practising lawyer before he went into politics. It's also instructive to compare Elon Musk with Lord Hives. Hives started as a motor mechanic and worked his way to the top of Rolls-Royce. His focus on the Merlin engine made a big difference to the War, even the US adopting it for fighters. He was willing to sacrifice people's pet projects to the greater good, and to tell politicians to get stuffed. Musk started as a nepo baby, got lucky, bought into an electric car company and became immensely rich despite his car company only making money due to government subsidies and protectionism. It isn't only politics where things are going downhill.
    2
  1054.  @Bill32H-it3sv  This from someone living in a country that spends way beyond its means and hopes people will keep lending more to it, and interest rates on the debt don't go up. The US lives in Nephelococcygeia, and one day someone will present the bill, probably the successor to Xi.
    2
  1055. With all their faults, the RF do promote small to medium sized British companies. Trump?
    2
  1056.  @brianforrester7707  Yes, true. But the argument has been that the RF do more for exports than they actually cost.
    2
  1057.  @GrahamNewman-mq7gr  You know what? I really don't care. We have an EV for the driving benefits, and I expect to keep it till I can't drive any more. I'm sufficiently well off that if it was totalled tomorrow I could just replace it for cash while the insurance got sorted, and not even think about it. A petrol car loses over half its purchase price in the first three years. After the 2008 crash, people leasing often found themselves in negative equity at end of lease. Selling a Diesel in London is like trying to get rid of herpes. If you can't afford to play the game, get out of the casino.
    2
  1058. As I understand it she never got a brief of her own, yet she was made a KC. It's been around a long time. Hilaire Belloc wrote about this kind of corruption, but unfortunately it hasn't made its way to the Internet.
    2
  1059. She is doing the Trump schtick of trying to appeal to the poorly educated.
    2
  1060.  @dwaynegregory599  Do you MAGA people even understand what a university is? It isn't a trade school. Historically, students from all over Europe and the Middle East went from university to university. My children here in England have been to universities in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and the daughter of a French friend is staying in the UK with one of our children while she goes to university in London. Harvard is an international university and one of the top ones in the world. Trump wants to reduce it to being merely one of the top ones in the USA, all because they wouldn't relax the rules and let his son in.
    2
  1061. It'll probably need to be something like spectrally pure scandium or zirconium. Not cheap. Most of these experiments need large amounts of something exotic. Perhaps the physicists hope to sell it off once the experiment is over.
    2
  1062. Followed by Detumescencegate?
    2
  1063. You could argue that anything to do with String Theory, quantum mechanics or cosmology is out of the scope of the Prize because they do not benefit humanity.
    2
  1064. Because we retired people who have the money want cars that are comfortable and easy to park and do not do long journeys.
    2
  1065. Trump's campaign adviser is obviously frightened of Mandelson.
    2
  1066. To a degree Shakespeare is who he is because of the industry that grew up around him, just as Jesus is a construction of the Jesus industries. Every scrap of possible meaning has been extracted from the plays creating bodies of work like the Mishnah or the works of Aquinas. But a couple of middle class people marching on stage at a performance of one of the better plays with a "Just stop oil" message, seemingly an attempt to discredit the people who believe we need to take urgent action to mitigate climate change by presenting them as self-important and arrogant, really isn't anything to do with Shakespeare. It's just "choose somewhere where people are looking, it's a cultural icon and importantly there won't be any armed police". If they are being paid by oil industry PR, it's venial, and if they are not, it's narcissistic.
    2
  1067. You mean like witches used to?
    2
  1068. Musk's problem is that now Meta, Google and even perhaps Amazon wil start to see him as a danger.
    2
  1069. Johnson spent his time at Oxford in the Union practising debating, Starmer worked. That's about it. The thing about Oxford Union debates is that they are not fact checked, so people win by being the better liar. Johnson was allowed to get away with this in Parliament. Badenoch is in opposition, th technique doesn't work so well.
    2
  1070. Fractional powers turn up sometimes in areas like metallurgy, and computing makes it much easier to turn them up. One afternoon once with nothing better to do, I decided to load a number of experimental results into an early automated curve fitting program and got out an interesting formula, which I circulated to the engineering team out of interest. Later that week I was confronted by a metallurgist who was absolutely furious. He waved the one side of paper under my nose and started shouting. It turned out that I had accidentally recreated the substance of his MSc work, in a few hours, only generalised to a wider range of substances. I don't think he ever really stopped believing I had done it on purpose to humilate him. Computers are no respecters of human desire for "elegance".
    2
  1071. I once found myself in a big confrontation between myself, as technical director responsible for standards and QA, and the production director who had taken shortcuts but wanted to release product which I knew would be nonconforming. I said no. He actually ranted and raved. But I was able to take the issue to the group engineering VP, and I won. The local CEO didn't like it, but a VP outranked him. The point here is that final engineering decisions to go ahead should never be with the CEO, whereas it is their responsibility to stop something that could adversely impact the company. I think the Cybertruck is the same thing: Musk should never have had the power finally to approve his pet project. The decision should have been made by a committee of engineering, production and marketing.
    2
  1072. I suggest a look at the ISW map, as they are pretty independent. The incursion is currently about 80km from Kursk, with an area around 1000sq km. Some of the posts here are celebrating very prematurely. It may be that Ukraine has done significant damage to Russian bombing capability, but holding this territory seems unlikely - just as Russia some time ago retreated over quite a large area in the north of the Donbas which was of no strategic value.
    2
  1073.  @orionbetelgeuse1937  It's weasel words - they mean 20% reduction in the losses, or about 1-2% overall.
    2
  1074.  @MadDragon75  The i3 is a small car, tiny by US standards. The wheels are out of proportion.
    2
  1075. To be brutal, EVs are like Porsches or Bentleys: if you cannot afford to buy three, don't buy one. Any new or advanced technology has a big price premium above what the average person thinks it's worth, and when you sell, you're looking at selling to someone poorer than you are. Of course there's huge depreciation. I remember when the 3.5 litre Rover V8 depreciated 50% in its first year for the same reason, people were nervous of reliability (with good reason) and who buys a moneypit second hand? Why did we buy an EV? Lots of solar electricity, very easy to drive for people in their 70s, and they don't suffer from lots of very short journeys like petrol engines do. Was price an issue? No. Might replace it in a year or so if the top of the range Renault 5 looks good. Would we spend the asking price on a Tata Jaguar? Never. Son in law has a long range MG4 in London, completely worth it to them - nobody wants to steal it and it does vast numbers of very short journeys which would never get a petrol engine warm. Worth as much as a Jaguar in convenience, under half the price.
    2
  1076.  @stephenleader-s9x  I'm sorry, that's simply wrong. Most of them were shot down by the British pilots of the RAF. Out of over 1700 German aircraft, the Poles shot down about 200. Impressive indeed, but not the largest number by country. What did you expect? That the Poles outnumbered the British?
    2
  1077. McVey has now posted that she completely rejects all criticism of her post and that the BoD is twisting her words. She seems to have confused the Conservative BoD with the Labour Party. This is quite funny because it was Thatcher who overtly recognised the BoD by giving Jonathan Sacks a peerage. The BoD fiercely attacked Corbyn. So McVey is now attacking supporters of her own party. Her posts are really quite extreme rants. I do wonder if the loss of power has caused severe mental problems for many Conservative MPs - the ones who are not self medicating with Colombian marching powder or horse tranquilliser, that is.
    2
  1078.  @AdenoidHynkelThe2nd  I guess you're too arrogant to actually read some serious history of science, but the discussions of the Schoolmen weren't a false start; they were a restart (renaissance, rebirth) after the Dark Ages. Your feeble attempt to imitate Wolfgang Pauli doesn't make you an expert on the history of ideas.
    2
  1079.  @TheEulerID  The equation for efficiency includes a term for the expansion ratio, true. However the real reason Diesels are so efficient is that they draw in a full air charge at all loads, whereas a spark ignition engine varies the air intake according to load. Thus at idle the effective CR is small, and also the small amount of hot gas loses a lot more heat to the head and walls, while the full charge in the Diesel loses less heat in proportion. WW2 aircraft engines were designed to run at only a few powers - cruise, full power and emergency power - and could be designed to have fairly good efficiency, but to save fuel they needed to run as lean as possible, which tended to cause detonation, and avoiding detonation and a blown engine was more of a headache for the Germans than the Allies as they struggled to make good heat resisting valves. If the Merlin and Griffon had the cooled exhaust valve guides of the Jumo, they could have made even more power.
    2
  1080. If the gap is small enough, the compression ring (which gets hotter than the cylinder) will expand, close the gap completely and exert enough force to break itself. You will then get a big bill. If it is too big you will get blowby. So, the designers of the engine use a combination of past experience and running tests to get the optimum gap.
    2
  1081. You get to be a KC by being good at selecting facts to suit your case, not being right about anything.
    2
  1082.  @johnzmuzic  Trinity has standards. The other place perhaps not so much.
    2
  1083. For cars where exhaust noise and regular firing intervals are desirable, the 360 twin with balance shaft makes more sense than a 90 degree twin which still needs a (smaller) balance shaft but causes more transmission vibration due to the irregular firing. The engine may also be narrower; the Twinair has a three bearing crank but the RE Interceptor needs 4. Fiat knew what they were doing.
    2
  1084. @ It turns out that 76 or 90 degrees makes an insignificant difference, the theoretical advantage of the 14 degrees doesn't really affect real world but it is a little more expensive to make, and it still is not a "real" 90 degree V twin, it just sounds like one.
    2
  1085.  @JesperSandgreen  Of course you can have both a king and a president, Mussolini's Italy being an example. I would remind you that the UK liberated Denmark in WW2, so I think we win that one.
    2
  1086.  @weswheel4834  Meneer Musk please.
    2
  1087. NFN on medical records: "Normal for Norfolk."
    2
  1088.  @Paul-je7bo  Who has benefited from Brexit? Not the British public. Not even the US. Not the EU. But the disruption did cause governments to take their eyes off Russia.
    2
  1089.  @camo68  His company never made much money which is why he went into politics.
    2
  1090. @Ian-sj1wy  You mean restoring their pay to something like pre-Brexit levels, while the architects of Brexit made themselves richer, faster? Farage has a £3 million farm and that wasn't on his MEP pay.
    2
  1091. No, it means that at last they have found a chink in Farage's armour and are keen to exploit it.
    2
  1092. My company Ford had a trip computer with predicted range and other information in 1990.
    2
  1093. At this point the Lizard People would be an actual improvement.
    2
  1094. @LuciFoster-ke8qj  I get the impression they are normal for the US car industry. The biggest problem is too much power for the chassis meaning rapid wear. Tesla sold on speed and acceleration, they will get bad drivers buying them.
    2
  1095.  @aprilbatzle7956  He hasn't invented any "chips" and his cars rely on Nvidia hardware.
    2
  1096. Yes, Rees-Mogg wears proper ties, so he must be always right.
    2
  1097. I used to know an emergency paramedic, and he said all 2 door cars with rear seats should be banned, whether EV or anything else.
    2
  1098. @ Well, the example doesn't really work. Aluminium doesn't run well on aluminium due to oxidation, but it runs fine on cast iron and steel. Austenitic iron doesn't run well on cast iron, for that matter. A lot of main bearings are steel shell lined with reticular aluminium/tin bearing material, tri-metal these days is for really heavy duty.
    2
  1099. @ Be fair to him, it's usually Americans complaining they can't understand 300 m/s or whatever because their brains can't multiply by 3 to get the approximate and good enough answer in feet. And then they tell you half the world uses American units. He at least tries. Also in technical work a "biscuit" is am almond shaped piece of flat wood used in joining two larger pieces of wood together, so it is ambiguous.
    2
  1100.  @brianb-p6586  Hopelessly weak? Well, you might be right, but most of the projected area of the big end bearing is within the central 90 degrees - approximately 85%. The biggest problem is how the self-pumping action of the journal is to be achieved. An inverted version of the design is used in bidirectional variable output pumps such as the Hele-Shaw. Not that I'm suggesting it could be achieved with 1920s technology, but I suspect I know where Ford got the idea from.
    2
  1101. How did that work out with the Babylonians and the Romans?
    2
  1102. Unlikely to happen since Cambridge at least is the economy driver of East Anglia. Its massive traffic problems are due to its success not its failure.
    2
  1103.  @brucemcgrath9921  He'll be the de facto president. Like Japan had an emperor but the real ruler was the Shogun.
    2
  1104. The government is reported to be having a campaign to get those entitled to pension credit to claim it. If they do, this will cost more than savings from winter fuel allowance. The right wing media re focussing on WFA because so many of their readers are well off pensioners.
    2
  1105. The earlier equivalent was the jointing of the internal flues of steam boilers, which was a limiting factor on steam pressure for well over a century.
    2
  1106. My father used to have to defend the odd Chinese restaurant claimed to have rat infestation. Every restaurant in central London in those days had rat infestation, but the inspectors liked to single out the Chinese. The funny thing is that when I did get a severe attack of Delhi belly in India, my hosts told me it was because I had tried the Brahmin vegetarian menu - the meat menu was a lot safer because it had to be properly cooked.
    2
  1107.  @chrishart8548  You're simply making stuff up. There is no second 20% VED. For a typical car in the £25000 range it's either £210 or £270 based on emissions.
    2
  1108. "I don't know how to turn her off." A lot of men would like to have that problem. Turning up in an elderly Transit with a mattress in the back might do it.
    2
  1109. The end result is that government spending will not fall but Musk will get more of it. Which for him is a win even if it is only for four years. See the history of the Grace Commission under Reagan.
    2
  1110. How much publicity do the media give Farage compared to the Lib Dems? Many times more than the relative vote share. The media have decided - or Murdoch has decided - that Farage will be PM.
    2
  1111. Musk is basically trying to turn the USA into Apartheid South Africa, denying the good jobs to non-white people and women. And Trump is happy with it because it suits his passed-down Mitteleuropaischer prejudices. Well, it worked in South Africa for a long time - till it didn't. The issue becomes, what happens to the US Armed Forces as recruits start to dry up (except for white supremacists from backward States)? For many intelligent black Americans the military is the only way to a reasonably well paid job and a university education. Perhaps that's what Musk wants - push down the non-white Americans so the only options are the jobs undocumented immigrants have been doing, while relying on all the armed MAGA nuts to prevent servile wars. The wet dream of the South, introduced by someone from the South - of Africa.
    2
  1112. Something that slightly amuses me is that the tabloids are trying to talk down the government and UK economic prospects - and then blame the government for the propaganda they themselves are spreading. I guess if this was Russia the editors of the Express, Mail, Telegraph and Sun would be installing steel bars on their office windows and bringing their own tea into work.
    2
  1113. Used to be said that if you wanted a Porsche you needed available cash + investments to buy three if you didn't want to worry too much.
    2
  1114. @ How about this analogy: in terms of efficiency overall an EV versus an ICEV is like a sailing yacht with an auxiliary motor versus a power boat. When there's no wind the sailboat will be a bit less efficient, but when the wind is blowing it uses a lot less fuel. Replace wind with solar PV, wind turbines and nuclear and you get the significance.
    2
  1115. The problem is that a lot of US export earnings are from companies like Boeing which avoid WTO rules in this way. The government is not allowed to break WTO rules except on defence and security grounds. Vastly overpaying the likes of Boeing allows covert subsidies in inflated contracts. Meanwhile the rest of NATO is coerced into buying US equipment at inflated prices. Eisenhower was completely right about the MIC. He was ignored and now the USA is dependent on it.
    2
  1116. It won't, you won't.
    2
  1117. @Iazzaboyce  He would have had to tell some first.
    2
  1118. No. Lokk at the pound versus dollar and the euro versus dollar. Both going the same way, same reason, the insanity in the USA causing worldwide disruption.
    2
  1119.  @rkan2  The bigger problem is that if you add liners the bore will be smaller, and the heat transfer worse, resulting in different pistons and reduced power. Thinning the cylinders to fit liners would have unpredictable results. Back in the 1960s, Italian motorbike companies were doing more or less this - aluminium cylinder, then hard chrome plate rather than spray iron, then back etch to create the micro-pitting. When the cylinder wore you got a new one, not so bad because it was a separate air cooled assembly. But expensive.
    2
  1120. So basically he was told he had to appoint her and is incapable of being gracious about it. Remarkable. Unprecedented. Well, unPresidential anyway but we expected that.
    2
  1121. By then GCHQ will have the evidence and be rounding people up, I suspect.
    2
  1122.  @terencefield3204  It's called "turning King's evidence" and has existed for many generations. Do you lot actually know anything about this country and its traditions?
    2
  1123. Protestants, Catholics, Mormons...Catholics are split into sects (Anglicans, Roman, various Orthodox), Protestants even more so. Not a good example.
    2
  1124. Any modern car with Level 2 driver assistance will do as well as a Tesla except that ones with radar will still emergency brake in fog or heavy rain.
    2
  1125. The cam sensor could have been a corroded plug contact surely? The wiring out the back may look OK but you can't easily check whether the plug is making all the contact it should. These days connectors are 90% of all electrical faults.
    2
  1126. You are talking about cars where people are in a horsepower race. Regular BMWs are not bad, but as soon as the abbreviation "V8" appears you are in a world of design pain just fitting the thing in the awkward space. Constant regulations change, constant demands for cost control, at the top end engineers are expected to turn out what are essentially development specials in volume. Don't like it? Buy a sensible car with a middle of the road engine. In the old days that meant a Merc W123 or W124 with taxi engine. Mercedes is exiting the taxi business because the volume is too small to justify a special package these days.
    2
  1127.  @dacscaro  So long as physics depends on experiment, leading edge engineering is part of physics. People forget that the discovery of cathode rays depended on what was for the time extremely advanced pump, sealing and electrical engineering. If anything, it seems to me that neural nets which actually work and advance computer science are more "physics" than String Theory, which seems to be an attempt by mathematicians to class what they do as physics. It didn't arise because an experiment either falsified part of existing physics or showed a new phenomenon.
    2
  1128. When Carter failed to get a second term, the lack of intelligence of the average American voter was exposed, and the ground was laid for Trump.
    2
  1129. Brexit failed, Farage didn't emigrate. As Göbbels (I think) said, "Who compels us to keep our promises?"
    2
  1130. They won't have the UK because it would be too dominant.
    2
  1131.  @Lund.J  Quantum mobile phone, only 30km in diameter.
    2
  1132.  @ChrisBennett-y2j  We do and they immediately get big offers from the USA. That's why we can no longer afford to train doctors and nurses free of charge: the USA basically steals them.
    2
  1133.  @YRUACNT  The brain drain started in the 1960s. Since then as US tuition fees have got ever higher and their education system got ever worse, they have relied on us more and more as a source of cheap professional labour. (My brother emigrated to the US in the late 70s. In the late 80s my then MD remarked to me that he had been to a college reunion for his year and that he was one of only two science students still in the UK.)
    2
  1134. You don't think the President can really open the bowling ball and push a big red button? Time for your afternoon rest, Mr. President, here's your Diet Coke with Rohypnol.
    2
  1135. In a democracy, even violent thugs deserve representation. So long as it's within the law.
    2
  1136. Slippery slope argument. Divorce has released a lot of people from loveless marriages, on the whole it has been a public benefit. I'm not sure where you are going with this.
    2
  1137. Farage is not "right honourable", his idea of being a Privy Councillor involves sitting on the loo getting excited by the Telegraph.
    2
  1138. The US at the moment reminds me of Kipling's poem at the time of the Russian collapse in 1917-18, when pacifists in England were saying it was time to negotiate peace with Germany. It is still popular in Russia. "God rest you, peaceful gentlemen, but give us leave to pass. We go to dig a nation's grave as great as England was. For this Kingdom and this Glory and this Power and this Pride Three hundred years it flourished - in three hundred days it died." Musk may seem an unlikely Lenin but he has many of the personality traits.
    2
  1139. Badenoch has created the need for a new word to describe even more hyperbolic self-promotion than the run of politicians manage. She's managed to demonstrate that she thinks Western civilisation extends about a mile from the Palace of Westminster and wears blue rosettes at election time.
    2
  1140. Today petrol and Diesel cars are also full of "black boxes", including the ECU.
    2
  1141.  @SuzanneO707  Presenter on GB "News"?
    2
  1142. If the UK fixed its company cars tax dodge, people would have stopped buying them long ago. As a minor point they don't fit in a standard UK parking space and watching people trying to get them out in a typical supermarket car park is amusing.
    2
  1143. Historians of science will say this is about the different definitions of the "æther" with time, beginning with Aristotle's spherical universe that needed something to stop the sky collapsing, through the mediæval "horror vacui", through Descartes' space-filling stuff to Newton's invisible framework and thus to the æther needed to explain light waves. At each level of interpretation inconsistencies like the MM experiment, or Galileo's long column of water leaving a gap at the top, force a new interpretation. The æther, in fact, is like the hunt for God. And I suspect as likely to be futile.
    2
  1144. You could probably generate some energy from swaying palm trees, though not nearly as much as from a wind turbine at the same location.
    2
  1145. @ Never said they were zero pollution. Should we also tax ICE owners for the historical pollution caused by lead in fuel which still affects many places, like some Superfund sites? Do you think the nickel in nickel steel extracts itself from the ground neatly, that the cobalt and tungsten in machine tools is found on the ground in convenient lumps, that the uranium in nuclear reactors doesn't require mining, that there have never been major oil spills such as Exxon Valdez, Torrey Canyon and the one that nearly bankrupted BP? Do you have any idea of the mining effort and electricity consumption of making aluminium? Extraction and refining are dirty businesses, focussing on one is purest hypocrisy.
    2
  1146.  @stevenrobert8567  The word "Panzer" actually means shield or protection (PzKw - Panzer Kampfwagen - shielded war chariot.) As it doesn't provide much protection and bits fall off, I think we should find an alternative to the Panzer bit.
    2
  1147. @stevenrobert8567  As I tried to explain, in WW2 Germany called tanks PzKw - PanzerKampwagen. This is nothing to do with the Panther tank. Today they are called tanks.
    2
  1148. Economic uncertainty causing the value of their investments to fall.
    2
  1149.  @Whizzer  You could argue that in that sentence, within the rules of English grammar such as they are, "me" is in the dative case and so is correct. In other languages the "me" can be in a variety of different cases, none of them nominative.
    2
  1150. As a teenager I was experimenting with a push-pull double power triode, building what I thought was a low power oscillator to do some experiments with NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) as described in Wireless World. I managed to blank out the BBC2 channel over a half mile radius. Fortunately the valve burnt out before they were able to get organised and locate the signal.
    2
  1151. Actually Oppo and Lenovo quality is at least as good as Apple if you compare like with like (typing on a Thinkpad.)
    1
  1152.  @justine7083  Then Trump would need thousands of years in prison.
    1
  1153. The British government is already working on the science corridor between Cambridge and Oxford, other European countries will have their own plans. Gutting the NIH is a tragedy for the US, for the rest of the developed world it's an opportunity.
    1
  1154. Baudelaire: Je suis comme le roi d'un pays pluvieux, Riche, mais impuissant, jeune et pourtant très vieux, Qui, de ses précepteurs méprisant les courbettes, S'ennuie avec ses chiens comme avec d'autres bêtes. Rien ne peut l'égayer, ni gibier, ni faucon, Ni son peuple mourant en face du balcon. Du bouffon favori la grotesque ballade Ne distrait plus le front de ce cruel malade ; Son lit fleurdelisé se transforme en tombeau, Et les dames d'atour, pour qui tout prince est beau, Ne savent plus trouver d'impudique toilette Pour tirer un souris de ce jeune squelette. Apart from the fact that Trump really is très vieux, doesn't it hit the right spots? Updated translation I'm like the king of a golf resort, Wealthy but impotent, immature and very old, Who despises the sucking up of his advisers And is bored with anything that needs attention. Nothing can cheer him, neither golf nor Adderall, Nor people dying before his balcony. The ludicrous pronouncements of Elon Musk No longer amuse this cruel invalid; His bed, plated with gold, becomes a grave; The female staff, to whom every boss is handsome, No longer can flash their bits enough To get a reaction from this yellow skeleton.
    1
  1155.  @frankieseward8667  Unlikely. Who would intervene? Remember the US got involved in Suez because it wanted to do down the UK and France. I can't see China doing that.
    1
  1156.  @Drmcclung  I think someone named Marion possibly had the soft stuff.
    1
  1157.  @dilianvt  I don't follow that. In a V engine, both pistons are not pushing on the crankpin at once. In fact that's the benefit of a V over a parallel twin - less twisting moment on the crank or, in the case of fork and blade or pin joint, zero twist. For a given horsepower and rpm, the peak torque in a V8 is half that of an inline 4. The disadvantage of V engines is simply cost due to complexity, plus increased friction. Large marine engines (say 40-80MW) tend to be inline for access reasons - a crane can be used to remove valve gear, pistons and liners, which doesn't work with a V - and because of the stress on the valley metal in high seas. But nowadays medium sized (like 18MW) engines come in V form.
    1
  1158. Doesn't Enola sound a bit like a black name? To be renamed the Elon White Male Heterosexual African before long, no doubt.
    1
  1159. How do you pronounce Koonsberg? Being serious...there is no right pronunciation of a lot of English spelling. And the BBC doesn't always get it right, I remember a NI colleague almost throwing something at the screen and shouting "Ma-herà, not mageera" for Maghera.
    1
  1160. The gear train (reduction gear) is like that in a turbine ship. Over 100 years ago it was discovered that the fast moving reduction gears need not only lots of lubrication but also a very good oil filter to prevent wear. Pump, spray bar for oil, inlet filter for pump, job done. Nissan either didn't know that or couldn't be bothered because reduction gear wear seems to be common on Leafs. Edit - the thing to watch when getting the armature out is that you don't damage the coils. The ends of them are very fragile. Either support it from underneath or, better, lift it out using some sort of overhead arrangement. Preferably on a wood table with nothing steel around.
    1
  1161.  @ogi197  Crypto is a scam in which a small number of rich people agree that a large number is somehow worth $100 000, but that abstract idea is the only asset backing behind it. No government backs it, no physical asset, just a belief. In that sense it is like a religion. And all religions that ask you for money are scams.
    1
  1162. It isn't difficult really. The Lib Dems are a regional party with a few areas where they are the alternative to the Cons rather than Labour. So, they get seats. When they have a leader like Charles Kennedy who unites rather than divides, they get more seats. When they have an apparently delusional one like Swinson, they get fewer. Reform is a right wing pressure group which has persuaded a few very left behind areas to support them. But they don't have enough support in the rest of the country to persuade enough people that they could represent them. Most of the country is totally unworried about immigration. Farage keeps on about it constantly. Most of the country detests Trump. Farage worships him. He doesn't represent 85% of the population as a whole. In a representative democracy, an MP is supposed to represent their constituents, not the country as a whole. Only about 15% of voters are, to put it bluntly, antisocial and xenophobic. Only a few percent believe in a Marxist revolution. The election result was to be expected, therefore, since the majority in most constituencies have no time for extremes.
    1
  1163.  @HaydenCyclist  That's conspiracy theory rubbish as you ought to know. Cambridge was actually started by some scholars who didn't care for Oxford. They headed East to Ely - where the Bishop told them there was lots of local flooding but he had some higher ground further south which they could have. So, they started their university at Cambridge. It was already post-mediaeval, it was not a seminary (though in those days you had to be in Holy Orders to teach, that was imposed) and as for mystrical secret knowledge, I think you're talking out of the wrong orifice. As for the rest of it, the IME was founded by Stephenson (not a graduate), and its head went to Leeds, Tempere, and then did a PhD at Cambridge so you got me there. The work she did there was on improving aluminium alloys, a subject dear to me personally, not exactly involving pentancles and black candles. The head of the ICE did her PhD at UCL. I could go on but why bother?
    1
  1164. He is not an officer of the US government. To be that, he has to be approved by the Senate on or after 20th January. At the moment he's a screaming narcissist with too much money playing at being a government official.
    1
  1165. He's following the Boris Johnson playbook. Johnson went into hiding before the 2019 election as his minders realised the more people saw of him the less they liked him. And it worked.
    1
  1166. Banyan suite is very appropriate; a tree which gets its roots into everything and sucks all the life out of it.
    1
  1167. @fanfeck2844  "I'm not going to ask an expert in case they disturb my prejudices."
    1
  1168. @fanfeck2844  I wish I knew everything like you do. You should stand for Reform at the next GE - they say everything is bad but don't have any actual solutions.
    1
  1169.  @anchorface9671  You mean banks that make money whiter than white? Ordinary drug dealers move money through "barber shops", successful ones do it through the City of London.
    1
  1170. Incidentally it isn't only physics. There are still engineers trying to make Wankel engines work because they are less boring than further refining piston engines. Wankel engines are a tribological, mechanical and thermodynamic failure set but still have a few devotees. Like conspiracy theories and physics going nowhere, it's all about religious thinking which refuses to go away.
    1
  1171. Exploding more rockets?
    1
  1172. I haven't noticed the UK government banning Twitter. I have noticed the courts sentencing people inciting mobs to kill asylum seekers.
    1
  1173. I think there is a causal relationship, though not as stated. The fact remains that the Biden family had at least one business interest in Ukraine, and if you are a professionally suspicious Russian you might well conclude that with Biden in the WH, the US might be plotting against you. Remembering the economic, and possibly physical, sabotage of Nordstream 2, Putin and his group might have concluded that the only way out of the straitjacket was to take over Ukraine, and as a fait accompli negotiate from a position of some strength. Europe doesn't like the way it has been blackmailed into buying expensive US gas while the US gives itself permits to buy certain strategic materials from Russia. Cheap Russian gas and better relations with China, weighed against the loss of the US export market? A difficult one and not necessarily to the advantage of the US. Remember - when the US tells you something isn't about the oil and gas -> it is about the oil and gas.
    1
  1174. Ah Johnson, just as it's reported that his autohubristicbiography was something of a flop and massively outsold by Rory Stewart, he has to say something to get media attention. Just like when he was lacking media attention and put out a rude verse about Erdogan. Trump with a Home Counties accent.
    1
  1175. Since Musk got close to Trump, he has been ever more Trump-like. It's just as well there aren't any illegal drugs at Mar-a-Lago or things might be very much worse. That Diet Coke is powerful stuff.
    1
  1176. Affluenza, the besetting disease of the rich and unaccountable. Causes severe reality distortion.
    1
  1177. When I was at university, our college chaplain was asked to do the Judge's Sermon - preached to the court officials before the Assizes. So some of us went along to support him. He preached a sermon in which he said that too many lawyers were thinking only of their fees and not of justice. He had been in a Japanese PoW camp and he was totally unafraid of saying what he thought to anybody.
    1
  1178. Unfortunately the Wills family became enormous drug dealers based in Bristol, and a lot of older Quakers really struggled to believe that smoking caused serious diseases.
    1
  1179. If Musk lived in the UK, his tweets would be investigated under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. As it is, our MI5 is now having to devote more attention to Facebook and Twitter since they virtually stopped moderation.
    1
  1180. Nobel wanted to invent a safe mining explosive. Dynamite was a great improvement over previous ones. Nowadays they use ANFO slurry or similar, which is not much use to terrorists and can't be safely concentrated for making bad things.
    1
  1181. For "some" substitute "People who never got as far as the conservation laws, chemical energetics, or wondering why hydrogen and oxygen give off heat when they combine but you can't reverse the process and get heat out of water."
    1
  1182. @ My earlier Nokia was 800mAH. My current phone is 4000mAH. The electronics use a lot more energy but they do a lot more with it. Manufacturers are trying to reduce EV weight but a lot of the increase is due to the scope creep of NCAP. Cars which were 5* ten years ago are 1* now, and in the absence of unobtainium and anti-gravity they keep getting heavier to keep up.
    1
  1183. No, Farage has gone to the US to try to persuade Trump to overturn the Chagos deal, so he can represent it as a victory for Reform. Really should be tried for treason - UK MP negotiating directly with the potential head of a foreign power.
    1
  1184. Have you been paying attention? BYD and CATL won't be supplying the US market.
    1
  1185. I believe it turned out she had Dutch Jewish ancestry.
    1
  1186. Anybody who thinks the British car industry didn't act like this is extremely naive. But if someone publishes untrue defamatory context, they should definitely be sued. There are too many lies on the Internet. Jeep and Consumer Reports drove Suzuki out of the US with an untrue review. Which published a "review" of the Ignis which was actually about the Jimny, which might have been incompetence rather than malice. Top Gear faked Reliants falling over and Tesla range. Why shouldn't the companies defamed be able to take action?
    1
  1187. Vance, the Musk/Thiel German/South African candidate, is unelectable. So Trump is the stealth bmber to get him in. Sorry to mix metaphors. At least after Trump gets in, the UK will have to apply to rejoin the EU or collapse.
    1
  1188. I was a bit surprised to find that Watsonian, the very old British sidecar company, has chosen the Chinese "Benelli" for their ready made combo, but those guys know their stuff.
    1
  1189. Only questionis whether Fox News should be renamed Pravda or Izvestiya? Oh sorry, forgot - "Truth Social" actually means the same as Pravda (truth) and Fox has News in the title (Izvestiya = News). Welcome to the Soviet Union, America. You may now unfasten your seat belts and turn your watches back forty years.
    1
  1190. The members did the calculation. She'll last just long enough to get Johnson back at a by-election before she melts down and he takes over again. Jenrick might last long enough to lose the next election.
    1
  1191. Of course. Trivial physics. What point are you trying to make? The rate of acceleration can change.
    1
  1192. It's the Homeland Security Group, not the British anything - we are officially the UK. Thanks to Musk, MI5, GCHQ and other UK government agencies are having to put more effort into online attacks on our country by South African agitators and their followers.
    1
  1193. Warren Buffett can play the ukelele. Mind you, he's created many millionaires through his investment company and doesn't spend his time hanging out with criminals and dissing people.
    1
  1194. You've got it backwards: a gallon is about 4.5 litres, so 50 mpg equates to 0.9kWH per mile. An EV doing 3.6 mile/kWH is therefore about 3 times as efficient allowing for charging loss. If the electricity is generated by gas, the EV is only about 20% more efficient overall. If it's renewables, it is about 2.8 times allowing for grid loss. If it's the solar panels on your roof, you get the full 3 times. The sole reason for EVs at the moment if you don't have solar panels or an investment in a wind farm, is to reduce air pollution in and around towns (which is why we have one).
    1
  1195. @ You must be one of those people who goes around on the Internet being offended by people who make statements that are not wrong but a little redundant. Something that amuses me is the people who object to "SIM card" because the M is for module. These days with e-SIMs, SIM card actually identifies a physical SIM versus an electronic one. It has become correct. "Les pédants plus facheux que les trops longues hivers" - Boileau.
    1
  1196. The rollers on tapered bearings are indeed tapered. SKF state that their bearings are pure rolling without slip.
    1
  1197. Nah, he's Opus Diabolus. I wouldn't want to blame God for Rees-Mogg, entirely too Manichaean.
    1
  1198. Confession: I taught briefly at a private school which had a strict no beating, no bullying code. It wasn't until I talked to people from certain very well known schools that I discovered this was highly unusual, because it was just like the grammar school I went to myself. I was a crap teacher and got out, but I was extremely fortunate in where I taught.
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  1199. @ That's when his wife goes to the bridge club.
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  1200.  @pameladenny4733  irony.
    1
  1201. What are they then if they are not CVs?
    1
  1202. British engineers: "We built the nest fighter/bomber of WW2 out of plywood and Balsa wood." A couple of Chinese engineers: "Huh, call that difficult?"
    1
  1203.  @StephenPalmer-w3y  No, it was persuaded to abandon democracy by people like Alcibiades after the franchise was extended to people who had no real stake in the success of Athens.
    1
  1204. If they ever have a re-enactment of the Ride to the Abyss in Berlioz' Faust, which one will be Faust and which one Mephistopheles? Because there are multiple candidates. Personally I would label Rupert Murdoch as Mephistopheles and the US public as Faust; Trump, Bannon, Musk etc. are in reality just the puppets reciting the lines. Blaming Trump and Musk for the terrible decision making of so many people is wrong. Without Murdoch, Trump would be nowhere.
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  1205. Trump is a failure in one respect: there were lots of assassination attempts on Hitler to the extent that he always went everywhere with three cars, three aircraft and chose which one actually to travel in at the last minute so nobody could pass on information. He also employed doubles, though Trump might find it hard to recruit anybody prepared to look like an overweight Essex geezer covered in fake tan with a ferret on his head. Trump so far has only managed two amateurish ones in a country with more guns than people. I can't see the Dems wanting to remove him, he is perhaps their biggest electoral asset.
    1
  1206. It wasn't him, it was that beancounter company Boeing. Airbus, that Euro-weenie socialist company, was eating their lunch so they did what a Yank capitalist gotta do and started saving money.
    1
  1207.  @michaellayton7373  What a pity that "Telsa"(!) "invented" it a year after Stanley demonstrated a working system funded by Westinghouse, ten years after Yablochkov designed a system in Europe and five years after systems were being installed in Hungary. In fact Ferranti probably beat Stanley to it in the UK, by several years. AC had been discovered by 1830 and its technical merits identified years before Tesla. Oh dear this myth by Tesla fanboys never seems to go away. Like Musk, Tesla was a showman but no genius.
    1
  1208. Yes. The USA wants to do down Europe as it is a more credible competitor than Russia.
    1
  1209. Trump is literally a Mafiosi. His policy is trying a protection racket on the rest of the world. Nice little business you got here, wouldn't want anything to happen to it. I'm sure we can come to an agreement on keeping it that way. Now you don't want China muscling in on our territory, or Russia, do you? So this is what you do... Only our PM was in charge of the department that prosecutes fraudsters, racketeers and the Mafia in general.
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  1210. Never were. Nor were the British or the Romans.
    1
  1211. The UK had 14 years of the progressives failing to unite, and we are up sh1t creek in a cardboard canoe with a barbed wire paddle. Welcome to the decline of the English speaking world as it lurches into plutocracy.
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  1212.  @dazbrugernavn  The belt does not need a tensioner, it's an exact fit. The loose oil pump chain, I wouldn't want that.
    1
  1213. Only one of them runs the Carlton Club.
    1
  1214. No, that's still Adolf Hitler.
    1
  1215.  @aayushkatiyar6174  Trillions in revenue? Solar roofs? "Hyperloop" Boring company SpaceX None of them anything like it. Incidentally, SpaceX is currently a money sink not a profit centre. Tesla's total revenue is around $300 billion over 5 years, before which it was quite small. It is smaller than its nearest long term equivalent, BMW.
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  1216. Collecting taxes from people using avoidance schemes which need testing for legality?
    1
  1217.  @Terrackhimself  The thing is, Musk being somewhat autistic wants to eliminate human interactions. But for most people part of going out is interacting with the staff. Not obviously fast food places like McDuck, but then people are deserting them for individual non-chain restaurants and cafés.
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  1218. In the 1960s and 1970s we had the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) campaign against Apartheid South Africa. More recently we've had it against the Netanyahu government. I never expected to find myself joining it against the US Trump enablers. The way Apartheid South Africa in the form of Musk has actually staged a successful coup against the US government is truly extraordinary, and only possible because you failed to use the law and the Constitution against the Fumbduck - in - chief, and Musk has been able to exploit his character and intellectual defects.
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  1219. Nothing that Powell predicted came true. His prejudices led him to complete and utter failure. There's a lesson there.
    1
  1220. @MissFlight-q8f We can't make it. Ukrainian is great because they have replaced it with h.
    1
  1221. @ No, we had a Prius as well. A lot of Toyotas outside the US (where I guess you live) use AISIN CVTs which use belts and are reliable. The Prius is what you are thinking of.
    1
  1222. @morrisg  There are 2 types of induction motors, sync and async. Asynchronous motors like this one have slip which induces current in the rotor windings and are less efficient than synchronous motors which supply current to the rotor via slip rings. Also cooling the synchronous rotor is easier. But it costs more.
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  1223.  @mbsnyderc  `\_0_/' Your belief is not my problem.
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  1224.  @katrinabryce  So does our GP and dentist. Both very good. I wonder why well qualified Nigerians come to this country?
    1
  1225. There is a revolving door between Conservatives and Republicans. Just ask Truss, Badenoch, Liam Fox.
    1
  1226. The CT is not in Ferrari or Lambo territory. It's merely an expensive pickup truck with a badly designed bed and will only impress sales and marketing types. For a bit more money you could have an electric G-Wagen which is genuinely capable. For a bit less, a top of the range Merc SUV. OK it won't tow as much but it will tow its rated load without risking fatigue failure of the chassis.
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  1227. Farage is not a товарищ. He is a comrade of nobody but himself. He is a бизнесмен - literally businessman but given the history of Yeltsin's Russia, a strong hint of shady dealings.
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  1228. I haven't actually had to use a charger away from home in nearly two years.
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  1229.  @BarrieCrampton  I think Musk (do you know him personally to call him Elon?) is going to see a decline in carbon credits. Trump has now been bought by the oil industry, so carbon credits on gasoline cars are probably on the way out. Trump has no loyalty to anybody, least of all Musk who has now outlived his usefulness.
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  1230.  @rbailey6949  "They all look the same to me."
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  1231. If somebody knew anything about vehicle engineering it was unsurprising. The Toyota wasn't using the electric motor at all, and its engine is not designed to deliver its best efficiency at full power. An automatic BMW might have given a different result. Design for Autobahn affects all vehicles. For instance, the Porsche EVs lose less range on the Autobahn than Teslas (though they have less to start with.) That's because they are optimised for continuous high speed whereas Teslas are optimised for 70-85mph, the US speed limits.
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  1232.  @graham197103010  No, 55mph was the lowest practicable given travel times, plus the fact that the big V8s of the era were practically ticking over at that speed, which meant they would have wasted a lot of fuel in the slushbox had they been going any slower.
    1
  1233.  @graham197103010  85 mph in parts of Texas. I remember being overtaken there, I was doing 65 on the then limit, guy overtook doing no more than 70. A few miles down the road he had been stopped by not one but several police cars. Given Texan attitudes to the British I was very glad it wasn't me.
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  1234.  @iankuah8606  Interesting and thank you for that.
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  1235. Israeli intelligence says Iran developed the missiles and they are worried about them.
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  1236. He is not. He is promising that the UK would support a post-ceasefire peacekeeping force. Something we are much better at than Americans.
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  1237. I remember a former KGB guy writing that the wonderful thing about capitalism was how cheap it was to get people to betray their country. And apparently Putin was very good at recruiting agents. It seems nothing has changed since 1990. Putin takes over the West very cheaply because so many people are so easily taken in.
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  1238. During the Eisenhower postwr boom in the USA the top rate of tax was 90%. And Eisenhower was a Repubican, though according to the present lot "Eisenhower Republicans" are RINOs.
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  1239. I have assumed that this is Trump payback for the loans from the Mafia.
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  1240.  @joekavanagh7171  Purest fantasy for which there is no evidence whatsoever. The Catholic Church is a combination of Roman paganism, the Pope is the descendant of the _flamen dialis_, the High Priest of Juppiter. Jesus made clear his opposition to churches and group worship.
    1
  1241.  @fredarcher7264  Romero and the Franciscans are pretty corner cases, the early Franciscans were persecuted by the Church. I admire the Franciscans but the Dominicans and Benedictines can do one.
    1
  1242. Texas won't. California would benefit financially from not propping up red states.
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  1243.  @chesterdonnelly1212  He thinks Labour is a dictatorship of the proletariat, the last step before complete communism. And he thinks YouTube is the same. I guess it's another Musk worshipper.
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  1244. I've seen lithium battery fires. The bang was an explosion of something else. (I still think it's a big mistake to put the battery in the bottom of a pickup truck since driving over rocks or picking up a length of steel bar on a building site could cause catastrophic failure. A broken sump in an ICEV is expensive, but not vehicle destroying.)
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  1245.  @dukenukem5768  But he boasted about is pickup capability.
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  1246.  @eulalia3446  He isn't. He's on the side of him controlling media and selecting what people read, to his advantage.
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  1247.  @j123-x2r  No. Israel has a party system enshrined in law and is therefore not a true democracy because one person cannot stand for election. In the UK you are supposed to vote for the person not the party, and then whoever can get a majority of our elected representatives forms a government. The fact that our national football hooligan mentality upsets this is neither here not there. If the PM loses a vote of no confidence or is defeated on a finance Bill, there will be a general election, otherwise it is 5 years or when the PM calls one.
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  1248. Circuses are full of people with talent who have mastered difficult skills. Vote Reform in, vote the habitués of the pub your parents warned you about.
    1
  1249. Didn't you know his original name was Dunning Kruger?
    1
  1250.  @thomasreilly6362  True but how many EVs are sold each year? New cars are usually sold to the solid middle classes anyway.
    1
  1251.  @vikkimcdonough6153  At the same time as they were still using steam/sail small ships because of their fuel efficiency.
    1
  1252.  @annepoitrineau5650  No, it's the Scots. It's all about crushing rebellious Scots, confounding their politics and frustrating their knavish tricks. The most unsuitable anthem imaginable unless you are a member of the English Conservative Party.
    1
  1253. Prices going up is inflation . There are various causes such as lack of competition (monopolies) and, er, tariffs.
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  1254. This is precisely what Musk and Thiel are paying for. To create anarchy from which they can create private kingdoms. China, India, the Roman Empire all had this happen in the past. They see an opportunity to create hereditary monarchies in the weak States. Some of the Nazis too had this idea of creating their own hereditary kingdoms in the German Empire of the East. Unfortunately for one of them, one of his concubines was a remember of the Resistance and blew him up with an exploding bed warmer.
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  1255. There is no such thing as quantum radar or sonar. There is a lot of research into target detection and analysis but it relies on good old transistors. Wake me up when a "quantum computer" exists that can be carried on a warship, let alone a plane.
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  1256. Dante, Purgatorio: "Sometimes a people rules and another is under them according to the judgement of the one who is hidden like a snake in the grass" - he means Fate. If Trump lives long enough, I suspect he will guarantee that in the long term power will move from North America to East Asia. If he doesn't, it will take longer. But it will still happen. The Chinese government will not let anybody become rich enough to dictate policy, and that is where the USA has lost the plot. The Left cannot fix that. History shows that it takes overbearing rule by the rich, whether in France or Russia, to bring about a revolution. Only when the public finds fuel even more expensive, when they discover how dependent their cars are on Chinese parts, when food prices go up dramatically because there is nobody to do farm work, only then will they listen to the Left.
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  1257. I suspect Johnson as been watching Trump's approval ratings with the utmost attention.
    1
  1258.  @mrrpnnnn  Waving at the King? Reform hates the King. He's woke, probably lefty.
    1
  1259. I think Rupert Murdoch is having buyers' remorse. His asset is depreciating faster than a Cybertruck.
    1
  1260. US Allison engines in WW2 used the same fuel as Merlins, as there was considerable fuel co-operation between both countries. The reason the USSR preferred that P-39 was simple; it was designed for use at low to medium altitudes where most Eastern Front combat took place, whereas the Spitfires and the like were designed with two stage superchargers for high altitude, making them more expensive and hard to maintain.
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  1261. Has he actually got enough Security Staff to enforce this? Plus they just have to defect to Reform and then return after the election.
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  1262. You do realise that at that point the Soviet Union controlled half of Germany and all of Eastern Europe? And that the Allied force was far, far weaker than the Red Army? And that Patton was a fruitcake? After WW1, the UK, US, Canada, France and the Czechs tried to invade Russia, prop up the Tsarists and defeat the Bolsheviks. They lost despite resorting to chemical warfare. The fact is that the Soviet Union would have been far less repressive had the US not been continually attempting to destroy it - something they knew very well.
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  1263. Unfortunately I don't have the email address for Edward Tufte*, but if anybody does they should forward him that graph, he loves that kind of thing. *Author of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Data Analysis for Politics and Policy , both of which I recommend.
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  1264.  @allanmason3201  I once worked for a UK company taken over by a US one. As a UK company we worked on 15% margin, 20% management overhead, 50% cost of goods sold and 15% factory overhead. Our new US owners worked on 15% COGS, 25% margin and 60% overhead. When they realised this they were not happy. So, they decided to move manufacturing to China to achieve 15% COGS. Their competitor came up with a different idea - they sliced through the management and the executive levels, eliminated a whole lot of marketing and sales activity, moved production close to their customers. They now have most of that business. Apply this generally to the US and you will have enormous unemployment of previously well paid white collar workers. It's noteworthy that Musk wants to cut government waste - but not make companies more competitive by eliminating unnecessary posts and excessive executive pay.
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  1265.  @clivewilliams3661  There are some excellent small US companies, but not in the consumer market.
    1
  1266. Musk took out the radar to save money, the radar which would have detected it even on a really cheap EV like the Leapmotor TO3. Is it still safe to say that his decision making is not very good, without having the CIA sent out to terminate you?
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  1267.  @markwelch3564  It would be if that was a correct description of classical economics. But it isn't. It's a description of very introductory level school economics.
    1
  1268. An example of a fake survey, in fact.
    1
  1269.  @SBImNotWritingMyNameHere  If you cannot work that out, I despair for you.
    1
  1270. A major achievement of Wall Street is to persuade gamblers that they are "investors". Buying something which has no asset backing is gambling pure and simple.
    1
  1271. Quite impressive forecast as he died 4200 years ago.
    1
  1272.  @Jonathan_Doe_  Helmet won't save you if the roll bar is not high enough.
    1
  1273. Our conservatives are so up Trump's nether regions that they can tickle Elon Musk's rear end. But they are not in power, and it's pretty obvious that Starmer, Rayner and the King get on pretty well together.
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  1274. Excuse me. I once did say weird things a bit like Musk. I was 8 not 12 and it turned out I was recovering from some brain damage caused by measles.
    1
  1275.  @paradiselost9946  Hydrolocking could be avoided simply by having exhaust valve lifters on the lower cylinders (decompressors), which have the advantage that the engine can be started on 4 cylinders so needing less power to turn over. With a flathead, spark plug fouling can be avoided by having the head arranged so the plug is at the top. The firing order problem only applies to single row radials with a single cam ring; two camshafts and two rows allow for a 90 degree firing with several different options, either interleaved or one row followed by the other. I think the killer is simply the horrible inlet and exhaust manifold problems. Where do you put the carbs for the two lower banks? How do you stop the upper exhausts getting in the way? All the space saved is going to be taken up with a plumbers' nightmare of pipes.
    1
  1276. Total waste of time. The attempt by anti-vaxxers to prove vaccines were harmful by getting people to record their experiences was proof of that, I tried to read some of the reports and they were laughable. The amount of detail needed to make a report credible is rather large, especially the need for a lot of medical history prior to an "event". It just is not feasible. Medical trials are very expensive, and in effect extending them to the entire population for all medical events would cost hundreds of pounds per head of population per year, based on additional tests needed.
    1
  1277. Like us in the UK, the Netherlans isn't full of armed right wing fruitcakes. This explains a lot about the supine US.
    1
  1278. Why does Musk, who could surely afford decent clothes, wear a scruffy WW2 flying jacket?
    1
  1279.  johndoe2-ns6tf  What an odd comment, out of proportion. Rich people tend to buy good quality clothes, not stupidly expensive ones. They last. Musk worshippers are such sensitive little snowflakes to any criticism of their divinity.
    1
  1280. Really? Then how do you describe the past tense of the perfective vid of a verb if it is not past perfect? There is no present perfect. Я думаю, вы не прочитали русскую грамматику.
    1
  1281. @ Did you actually read the last sentence of your own post?
    1
  1282. You think Trump cares about the libruls in SF? It isn't in a swing state.
    1
  1283. The funny thing is that you used to be able to buy genuine President of the Soviet Union watches as given to foreign dignitaries for a while after the fall of the Soviet Union, for around $350. They were pretty tasteless but not Trump level tasteless. I regret not buying one for a joke because it would be worth more now. The Trump ones won't be in 30 years.
    1
  1284.  @DanaTheInsane  Sadly the tooling was allowed to wear out.
    1
  1285. Shillings is the "reputation management" (i.e. libel lawyers) of choice for the Cons and their owners.
    1
  1286. You elected this thing. Either you voted for it or you didn't vote, or you didn't agitate loudly enough to get the vote out. We're still living with Brexit, you should have watched and taken notice. The same scum that ruined the UK - Farage, Cummings, Truss - are now gently swilling round Trump and Musk's legs, so we can't even laugh and point fingers.
    1
  1287. It'll be a disaster for the USA. Netanyahu, Putin and Xi will be delighted.
    1
  1288.  @dangerious-pa-8975  He is not security cleared to have access to the systems he is demanding. I'm pretty sure that's illegal, comes under espionage.
    1
  1289. He is not good at engineering. He bought into Tesla when the design of their cars was largely finalised. His one attempt at design, the Cybertruck, is a manifest failure, with Tesla trying to force people who have paid a deposit to complete by year end or lose their deposit (torquenews) and sales declining (msn). Meanwhile SpaceX is running massively over budget.
    1
  1290. Yes and no. Farage is still given many times more media coverage than he merits, and he could caise a lot of trouble for the UK in the US.
    1
  1291. @Missladybug62  Trump will actively sabotage the UK, he is making a mockery of the US Constitution. Или к Чёртом!
    1
  1292. @Chixbythesea  4 million unemployed under Thatcher, destroyed computer, telephone and car industries. Yeah, cool story.
    1
  1293. @ So does the USA.
    1
  1294. Moderation will be retained to remove anti-Trump posts exactly as on Twitter.
    1
  1295.  @Barralet58  Oh yes they would. "Attack that machine gun position with your North Korean platoon, Sergeant Robinson." "I want you to take that bunker with your armed Cybertruck, Lt. Musk." "For you, Gospodin Bannon, good job in FSB purging society of traitors."
    1
  1296. The D-wave share price chart, like Trump Media, resembles a typical pump and dump scenario. Not that I'm saying it is one, just that I would never invest in a company with a history like that. I'm waiting for the bit (on the 1930s "water powered engine" analogy) when someone opens up a quantum computer, removes all the cryo stuff, and then in the very middle there's an iPhone motherboard.
    1
  1297. If you think illegal immigrants are being housed in "multi-star hotels" you've been taken in by the right wing media. The owners may have claimed they had AA stars...but that was part of their con to get government money. Can't have hotel owners suffering during a pandemic, throw money at them.
    1
  1298. It was the double gesture of the chest crossing followed by the extended arm that convinced me. That's not a "giving my heart" gesture, it's the "clenching the fasces then saluting the Emperor" gesture.
    1
  1299. @paulgibbon5991  I am not apologising. I am aware Musk was copying fake Roman behaviour. But he was copying it.
    1
  1300. Of course Trump isn't annoyed. Like a lot of publicly powerful men, he's happy to pay for strict discipline and humiliation from Miss Whip.
    1
  1301.  @emmabrooker166  I don't have chronic toothache thanks to my...er...Nigerian dentist. Some people in this country really do need to be treated as second class citizens compared to some immigrants. I'm thinking Leave voters versus the NHS here.
    1
  1302. Because some of the Board is appointed by the President and nobody in their wildest dreams imagined anybody would elect someone like Trump.
    1
  1303. BMW i3, about the same size, 1250kg including battery.
    1
  1304.  @b62boom1  Once the Conservatives were out, Savinsky Street put the beginners on UK agitprop and transferred the better ones to promoting Trump. That or the meds need adjusting.
    1
  1305. It was caused by electing a Kenyan to the White House rather than a South African. That pesky Constitution needs a rewrite, says the man who bought into Tesla and then demanded he be listed as one of the founders.
    1
  1306. White and male.
    1
  1307. Because professors and GPs are so working class, aren't they? I don't think I'll be saying that to our Nigerian GP though.
    1
  1308. Admiral Canaris, WW2. Did not end well for him.
    1
  1309. But even a first degree anthropology graduate could explain it. Cobbler, stick to your last!
    1
  1310. I would say that out of the 94% of the world population that is not American, the majority are not precisely anti-American but either have no idea what it is, or would prefer it to go away. The US supports autocracies around the world.
    1
  1311. Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome are pretty obscure nowadays but he was a considerable scholar of the period (and had an important role in the government of India). In one of his lays, one of the chiefs rallies his men: "And for your wives and babies/in the front rank he fell/now play the man for the good House/that loves the people well!" I don't think anything has changed much in military motivation since.
    1
  1312. The best thing is that the T&C mean he doesn't even have to ship the watches - like Tesla's full self driving it could be "next year" for a decade - so it's straight income. Even if it exists and the $500 Chinese watch really is covered in $5000 worth of gold, the margin is phenomenal. But since the shady buyers are never going to get them analysed, I'm going with gold plate and rhinestones, $1000 DDP Shenzen.
    1
  1313. Because you are too dim or lazy to find out how energy economics work, doesn't mean that he was wrong. He is in fact correct as anybody who has bothered to do a little research knows.
    1
  1314. I get the impression that you neither understand politics nor how a US administration works. By your logic, Obama deserved a third term because of the relentless, lying attacks on him by Trump.
    1
  1315. The value of the ruble against the dollar is not important. What matters is the currency being used for import and export. If a country's external trade is balanced and in the same currency, the internal currency doesn't matter. As Russia is an oil and gas producer its exports in dollar denominated sales vastly exceed its imports. Ruble depreciation is a tool to manage the economy, and OK that is not going well, but unless you are a foreign investor foolish enough to have shares in a Russian company, it really doesn't matter.
    1
  1316. If that was the Perkins DI engine, the only way it would do 100mpg is on the descent from the St. Bernard Pass. Early Diesel adopters were terribly prone to exaggerate, but anyone who saw the specific fuel consumption curves and thought about the bricklike aerodynamics would not be fooled.
    1
  1317. Too true. In the 1990s I was a director of a small company. Having visited a few Labour Party meetings I decided I simply wasn't rich enough to be a Labour activist - or read the Guardian supplements. And I went to one of the Bridges.
    1
  1318. No contest there, the supermodel will be off to be the trophy wife of a billionaire.
    1
  1319.  KeiVeureschy777  Americans have extremely short memories. They quickly forgot how Trump failed in the first year of the pandemic, and how the Democrats had to try to recover from it. That's the problem with democracies; unintelligent people with an attention span of a few weeks. Since you seem to think there were two elections in 2024, I guess you must be one of them.
    1
  1320. The owner is trying to get more people to watch it and then swallow the propaganda. It's the same with the WSJ which now criticises Trump because most finance people think he's mad, but still has the right wing loony stuff that pushes Murdoch's agenda.
    1
  1321. You mean two successive Presidents.
    1
  1322.  @kentl7228  Bashing bishops is better than fiddling kiddies.
    1
  1323. Meanwhile China was responsible for 13% of world trade BT45 (Before Trump), has drastically reduced its trade with the US, and now has 14% of world trade BT47. China won't find things easy but Trump is handing them South America, Africa and East Asia on a big plate.
    1
  1324.  @ComeJesusChrist  American Christians have a bad enough reputation for intelligence as it is, you're making it worse.
    1
  1325. Hives.
    1
  1326. "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen" (that which we can't speak about, we have to get over.) - Wittgenstein.
    1
  1327. Both the Taycan and the Fiat were ridiculously overpriced. I looked at the Fiat - the boot is useless and Fiat cannot up the price based on reputation. The Taycan is based on Porsche's idea that they too could sell on reputation, but the sort of people who buy Porsche sports cars want IC engineering. It's like Rolex trying to sell a quartz watch with an LCD display. 2025 is going to be the year of the MG4, Renault 5 and the Hyundai Inster. Sensible size, range and even price for use in cities and larger towns. Against them the Fiats even look under-spec and over-price.
    1
  1328. I like that Google is renaming it to Gulf of America - but only for viewers in the US. The British cut themselves off from Europe with Brexit - Trump wants to go one better and cut the US off from the entire world.
    1
  1329. I don't think you realise that most foreign aid comes back in the form of trade. If you support the development of other countries and they grow, your trade with them will increase due to friendly relations. The US doesn't "fund" everything. Almost all their foreign aid comes with heavy strings attached. It's basically a way of enforcing their power around the world - and if it stops, China will be in like a shot as they already are in Panama and Colombia. Rwanda, though, that was a Conservative scam.
    1
  1330. The US is not loyal to the US but to its billionaires.
    1
  1331. Musk's attacks are all on people who threaten his income: Rivian, the NHTSA, consumer protection.
    1
  1332.  @wendyg8536  Crochet Theory. My wife would like that.
    1
  1333. Well yes. But forty years ago when I went there on business I was given what proved to be excellent advice: the useful phrase "No americano soy inglés". Since then the USA has become closely integrated with Mexican manufacturing - something the Unflushable Turd seems determined to stop.
    1
  1334. "rather clever"? Her academic results are not very good at all. And it isn't because she's an immigrant who went to a sink school either.
    1
  1335. Patel's position on Brexit is whatever the john is paying for.
    1
  1336.  @jamonit7169  It's complicated, because since 1688 the monarch has been de facto elected by Parliament - how W&M came to the throne when James did a runner. They are effectively a non-executive president for life. You reminded me of a retired colonel I used to work with. He used to say that thinking of some of his fellow serving officers it was just as well people saluted the uniform rather than the person inside it.
    1
  1337.  @fredforsythe8310  Probably because Jerusalem is all about sexual intercourse.
    1
  1338. Speaking an an international emergency trombone repairman, I can get from my base in Calais to the Bolshoi without refuelling using the drop tanks on my Porsche 911, and this is essential to the success of my business. EVs will never be successful until they can travel 3000km on a charge at -20 degrees.
    1
  1339. @ English may not be your first language.
    1
  1340. Those of us who have got one are likely to keep it till the next gen with the LFP or solid state batteries. Most people don't want oversized road hogs, but that's what has been on offer.
    1
  1341. Read the article in Aljazeera by an Ukrainian journalist and an academic from Germany. Ukrainians have been voting with their feet since long before the war, and fewer and fewer want to fight for the oligarchs in Kyiv. I don't disbelieve it since I've spoken to Ukrainian refugees and heard stories of escaping over the Black Sea to Turkey, and know that Russian speaking Ukrainians are often very critical of Zelensky. Both Putin and Zelensky and their entourages need to go as soon as possible. Zelelnsky sleepwalked into the war, Putin started it, both of them are political failures.
    1
  1342. @ But that doesn't affect the issue that "Ukraine" is a very recent creation and far from homogenous culturally or linguistically. Looking at the ISW map, the Russians continue a very slow advance. The areas behind are presumably destroyed. What is this achieving? The best that can be hoped for is a ceasefire on the present line followed by years of negotiation. The worst is that younger and younger Ukrainians get fed into the grinder while more and more emigrate, until former Ukraine is split between Russia, Poland and Romania.
    1
  1343.  @shimmy1984  Almost all the deposits have evaporated and lead times are short.
    1
  1344.  @wolvencreator8585  The answer is short and simple. Electronic data storage and funds transfer facilitiated the rich looting more and more of the wealth out of the system. However the economy wasn't growing in reality so you had share price and land price asset bubbles, meaning real economic activity was supporting more and more pretend economy (just like the USSR). As an example, your health system consists of for-profit insurance companies trying to pay as little as possible to for-profit hospitals, creating a whole class of bureaucrats trying to make that happen. Unproductive workers who are still being paid for negative economic activity! Now do the same with universities - create over the top facilities which are expensive to run, so create a new layer of bureaucrats to manage them, extract money from donors, and manage the actual working staff who deliver education. Soon the bureaucrats pay themselves more and try to pay the academics less. Before long you're importing gradiates from countries with working education systems.
    1
  1345.  @teehen6694  Where did you read that immigrants get free education?
    1
  1346.  @hamzaterzi8801  It doesn't. Carbon fibre is stronger under tension than compression in the usual composites. It is certainly not stronger under compression as you think. Toyota Mirais have been driving around for years with zero tank ruptures. And the failure mode of a correctly designed tank does not cause instant explosion.
    1
  1347.  @hamzaterzi8801  "and forcedly deactivated its temperature-activated pressure relief device" I can read. As for the Ukrainians, they did not build a "hydrogen bomb". They removed parts from a wrecked Mirai including a fuel tank and used it to make an IED. The account is very dubious because they say they removed the fuel cell, which weighed 200kg. The fuel cell is not explosive. The account is rather garbled. I know how somebody could make an IED from full Mirai tanks, having myself worked with hydrogen, but I'm certainly not going to discuss it here. And it wouldn't work in-car.
    1
  1348.  @hamzaterzi8801  I'm afraid it is your English that is missing. They removed the device that causes the tank to leak safely if heated. It is not just a temperature sensor. Without removing it the tank would have vented, not exploded. Although the combustion of hydrogen with air would produce total energy comparable to 150kg of TNT, it wouldn't actually work like that in practice. I'm sorry but you just don't understand this stuff. I do, but for obvious reasons I'm not explaining any more.
    1
  1349. @hamzaterzi8801  In fact I don't think hydrogen cars will work.
    1
  1350. Also a lot of poles means higher efficiency losses.
    1
  1351. I don't think George Soros wastes his time or his money on people like her.
    1
  1352. I suggest it's actually also a dog-whistle i.e. being "woke" is anti white supremacist.
    1
  1353. They did send Rupert Murdoch to destroy ours.
    1
  1354. @ Against a king who was actually well meaning and less mad than Trump.
    1
  1355. The wet belt might have been used because a chain was causing vibration problems. Wet belts and the old fibre gears were used for that reason - reduce noise but also reduce wear due to vibration.
    1
  1356. And we think the Kamikazi were weird.
    1
  1357. Teddy Bears' Picnics surely?
    1
  1358. About 15% of people are sociopathic and hate anybody who is different. They are attracted to sites like Fox.
    1
  1359. You mean gone to China to mend fences which, let's face it, after Johnson and Truss badly need it.
    1
  1360.  @friedalove1315  Probably because it's actually only 10 years, not 35. (According to Macrotrends. The only time life expectancy fell since 1950 was...during the Trump presidency, before the pandemic.)
    1
  1361.  @roosts20412  Well, my cousin suddenly decided to become a professor. In Canada.
    1
  1362. Because they had been brought up to have a lower opinion of black women than of white racists. Cultural problem. Same with Islamists.
    1
  1363. I have. Several. And they are all dead now, but they'd all hate Musk.
    1
  1364. The BMW i3 weighed 1250kg including battery, so an ICE version would be lighter.
    1
  1365. In 1919 the Express was supporting anti-Semitism in Russia. In the 1930s the Mail was supporting anti-Semitism in Germany. After WW2 they've had to think of new hate figures. Muslims, Europeans. Give them time and they'll be back to the Jews again.
    1
  1366. The UK does not have nukes. We pay for the US to require us to host them. But they are purely US controlled.
    1
  1367. Oh, the SEC is the one they woul really like to remove.
    1
  1368.  @jmas1219  It's going to be awful for target Conservtives, they are going to lose their subsidies I suspect.
    1
  1369.  @brianSalem541  I thought the Colonies fought a war to get away from someone who wasn't half as bad as Trump.
    1
  1370. I do get the impression, and I am not joking, that Trump's dementia has advanced to the stage that he is living in the past, and quickly gets confused by new people. I'm not really sure that he knows who Farage or Starmer are, but he remembers Putin. My mother had dementia, I'm pretty sure I recognise the symptoms. My father was pretty lucid till shortly before he died, but the brain research people said he had started to show the signs of Alzheimers. We really do need to think seriously about how we test if old people really should be allowed to do these jobs. I am years younger than Trump but I wouldn't trust myself running anything despite my last IQ test still being on 140.
    1
  1371. We now need to get all US bases out of Europe, and get rid of their weapons as soon as possible. The Greenham Common women were right all those years ago. The US has always been on the verge of a rogue State, the more progressive States have kept it in check but now the Southern states have taken over. Let's just remind ourselves that parts of the US were not desegregated till the 1970s - which is why Musk fits in so well with his views on the blecks and the unfitness of women to do anything other than have babies for him.
    1
  1372.  @leaulife569  They never did. Anybody with a functional brain knows that melting floating ice will not affect sea levels, or raise the level in a glass even. Nor did anybody other than rather silly Hollywood films talk about people drowning.
    1
  1373. If Musk hasn't banned the publication of the data yet so the rubes can continue to tell lies, you can look on the National Snow and Ice Data Center, and learn that "Arctic daily sea ice extent continued to hover near record daily lows in January " along with all the graphs and charts you could possibly want, to show you how you have been conned into believing lies. A few years back some sailing yachts made it from Europe to San Francisco over the top in late summer.
    1
  1374. The example you cited was for an automatic regulator mechanism - a feedback loop - not lighthouses. An early feedback mechanism was the familiar steam governor, which you could call applied physics. It is hard to see what novel applied science there is in reusable rockets. In fact, it's hard to see on what basis recent physics prizes can be said to have benefited mankind.
    1
  1375.  @jadar9356  Three reasons. First, fuel shortage due to bombing of the synthetic fuel plants. Second, lack of strategic metals for aero engines. Third, reliance on unproductive slave labour leading to Scheer falsifying aircraft production to keep Hitler quiet.
    1
  1376. @ Basically a standard tactic such as Iran using small boats against US high tech ships and the growing use of drones in Ukraine. Just don't ask the tank crews their opinion.
    1
  1377. It isn't a case of a "serf mentality", that's just name calling. It is because at one time UK citizenship was the most valuable in the world and people tried to exploit it.
    1
  1378. Irrelevant story. Company I worked for had an operation in SA and rotated managers out from the UK. I was there to deal with a technical problem. The wife of the guy who had most recently gone there told me about their housekeeper, who came with the house. She asked how much the housekeeper expected to be paid, and was told an amount by HR. She told the housekeeper that was far too low, she would pay double. The housekeeper thanked her and said "All you English ladies pay that much." She then discovered that the Afrikaner women she met were constantly complaining of the impossibility of getting good servants. The Trump/Musk mindset: Underpay, overwork - until one day you run out of workers.
    1
  1379. So: someone I knew, an extremely intelligent and well educated guy from Ireland, was persuaded to train for the priesthood. After a year it dawned on him that he was gay and training wouldn't cure it. So, he resigned. The bishop tried to persuade him otherwise. According to this guy - who was very honest and I believe him - the bishop said to him, "Forty percent of my priests sleep with their housekeepers, forty per cent are gay, it's the other twenty percent I worry about." However, he was so pure minded he insisted on leaving and became a social worker (at which point we lost contact).
    1
  1380. You think China hasn't noticed? Theyt're currently going around South America and Africa. "Trust us, we are steady partners, we won't try and screw you or impose mad right wing ideas on you. How would you like a port, a few railways and some nice food and mining contracts?"
    1
  1381. GOP candidate? Assuming there is an election, it will be a Trump. That's how monarchy takes over.
    1
  1382. As bad as Rolls-Royce and Bentley.
    1
  1383.  @seannewman5391  Exactly, and the same thing happened in the early days of petrol cars; apparently most early ones were junk after about 4 years because things moved on so fast, but as they were basically toys for the rich it mattered less.
    1
  1384. Much of what you say about Russia could equally be said about Imperial Britain and today's US. You are just watching Trump behave with a cynicism even Putin must find amazing, but the main difference between him and previous US presidents is that with a very few exceptions - like Carter and Bush 1 - one suspects they behave the same in private but don't say it in public. And both Carter and Bush were one term presidents, because Americans don't like diplomatic negotiators. They want authoritarian strong men who follow the "who compels us to keep our agreements?" school. The Cold War was between two dysfunctional powers using Europe and the ME as a chessboard, and now Trump wants Europe to pay for the destruction of trust the US caused.
    1
  1385. Half a BA in Physics.
    1
  1386. @ I don't quite understand the playgroup analogy, but coming over apparently solely so that your child would have British citizenship, seems different from the intention of the law. "Surprise surprise, people use systems to their own benefit." Some of us call that "exploiting loopholes". As a socialist I believe the law should function for the good of the many. I am guessing you are of right wing views. For information, I am not at all opposed to immigration into the UK. My dentist is Nigerian, my wifes GP is Nigerian, no problem with that at all. But I do feel that citizenship, the right to vote, needs to be based on a little more than birth location.
    1
  1387. DOGE actually stands for Department Of Giving to Elon. It would be a scam in which federal money got diverted to his business interests.
    1
  1388. They do. Whenever the K goes anywhere, there's someone handing out press releases saying who made his clothes, shoes etc., and Mrs. Wales has only to wear a dress from a small British firm and they become a much bigger one. I'm no monarchist but they do a good job as the marketing arm of UK SMEs.
    1
  1389. OK, so abolish vehicle regulations, MOTs, Trading Standards, gun restrictions, Building Regs, waste discharge regulations and let people be responsible for themselves. Enjoy your failed state till the gunmen come for your house and assets.
    1
  1390. Those joints - some old magnetos were connected by a version of this which had an extra piece in the middle. One side had 19 teeth and the other side 20, so by moving the distance piece one tooth forward or back you could adjust timing by one degree (roughly) steps (20*19 = 380), making it easy to adjust the timing. Doing it in software just isn't the same.
    1
  1391. This is all starting to resemble the death of Stalin but with social media. The Republicans dare not move against Trump-Stalin because Musk-Beria will destroy them, but if they do not move against him, he will destroy them. They have to sit on their hands and hope he falls down and gibbers uncontrollably while speaking, and never emerges from hospital. Where is the US Krushchev?
    1
  1392. So rather than being a cynical follower of the Third Reich to protect his business and workers like, say, Schindler, he's a really sincere Nazi like Von Braun? I am not sure you are making the point you think you are.
    1
  1393. @randoawesomemix9501  Relevant?
    1
  1394. @alexwalker8422  Ah no, on brakes it is to create friction, exactly what you do not want in a bore.
    1
  1395.  @replynotificationsdisabled  Piston rubbing faces have been carbon coated for decades. Have you ever worked with graphite crucibles? Look at them funny and they crack. They have low strength.
    1
  1396. @angryralphs2516  Europe has many cities where most people live, and more people than US and Canada combined. Why should we not set standards to protect the lungs of people?
    1
  1397. @angryralphs2516  Spent ten years on standards bodies, you are flat wrong. That is not it at all.
    1
  1398.  @angryralphs2516  No, it's because pollution in Chinese cities was so bad they had to do something about it. They went electric, we went Euro standards. Now ICE has run out of headroom. Big ICE cars are gradually being taxed out of existence but "they" cannot forcibly destroy them, that's called democracy.
    1
  1399. I decided it was time to retire when the boss decided it was time to enter the US market. Having worked for a US corporation for years, I knew that large US companies are exactly as Shakespeare describes them: the big ones gobble up the small ones. They are also mostly intensely litigious and greedy. Autonomy was acquired because the CEO of HP, Léo Apotheker, came from SAP (a software company) and wanted to turn HP into a software company. For those who don't know, HP began as a scientific instrument company and was involved in PCs and mobile phones. After the (some would call it disastrous) tenure of Carly Fiorina the HP board wanted something new and took on Apotheker, perhaps not knowing that, without saying why, SAP had not renewed his contract. Apotheker was perhaps desperate for a success for his new strategy and pushed for the Autonomy acquisition. The outcome of legal cases suggests that there was a bad actor in Autonomy but it wasn't Lynch or his partner. However, HP in doing due diligence - which they did with great speed for such a large M&A - seemed not to notice anything wrong, and Apotheker was prepared to pay 60% over the Autonomy share price, he was so anxious to get it. Problems rapidly emerged. Apotheker got HP out of the mobile phone business - what has been described as a "remarkable decision" in view of what happened thereafter. He lasted 10 months before the Board sacked him, presumably for three terrible decisions: Buying Autonomy at a huge markup, getting out of mobile phones and planning to get out of PCs - the last of which was avoided just in time. Like Truss, Apotheker lost billions - an estimated $30 billion for HP - and exited on a $13 million cushion. If there is a villain in this story it isn't Lynch or Chamberlain. The fact that Apotheker is still around, and still a director or chair of numerous companies, rather puts paid to the conspircy theories because if there is anybody HP shareholders would cheerfully see fall under a bus, he fits the bill.
    1
  1400. @ But then the problem becomes one of buoyancy. Your submersible needs to come back up. Metal submersibles need large buoyancy tanks and these have to be filled with a light substance that can withstand the pressure. The 5 inch hull seems to have been on the limit and going to 7 would mean a complete redesign with added buoyancy, since carbon (or glass) epoxy is denser than water.
    1
  1401. Simple really (yes I know it isn't.) We ally with China. We invite the US to leave. We stop buying US arms and we invite so-called BAe Systems to remove itself from the Stock Exchange, then buy out its assets in the UK. China gives us security guarantees against Russian expansion and has a carrier base in the North Atlantic. Or at least Mandelson tells Foggy Bottom that's the plan.
    1
  1402. It was also the previous government that did that, you just weren't paying attention. However, the present government is slowly undoing some of the actions of the Conservatives. If your solution is to get rid of the law, I want to hear about your plan to protect yourself from criminal gangs when there are no police because the laws have been abolished.
    1
  1403. They cannot tell a judge Musk is in charge because he has not been approved by the Senate. So they have appointed a woman to be "acting" head so she can be fired by Trump when his burger is cold, or some national security matter like that.
    1
  1404. You have Lancia to thank for this engine, they invented it for the 1922 season. But then VW/Porsche also pinched stuff from the Czechs during WW2, hence the Beetle.
    1
  1405. The alternative story is that HP lost its way, took on Fiorina who took it further down the tubes, and then the hapless Apotheker who wanted to turn HP into a software company, abandoned the mobile phone market and seems to have become obsessed with the Autonomy acquisition; neither he nor the CFO really seem to have done proper due diligence on the acqusition, and then when HP got into financial trouble the shareholders wanted to sue everybody in sight. But who spends $11 billion carelessly? US corporations and Wall Street, that's who. Look at the acquisition of Twitter and the valuations of Tesla and Trump Media for more recent examples. HP had gone from a company that was a world leader in the handheld market to one which had a failed launch of two mobile phones and then just got out, even as Nokia, Samsung and Apple created a vast new market between them. It was that which really did for them; trying to change horses in midstream while failing to look the new horse in the mouth. Blaming Autonomy for HP's failure is just...well, typical of some ex-HP execs I've talked to.
    1
  1406. Hardly as Trump has stuffed US farmers.
    1
  1407.  @Southghost5997  We really need to drop the "degree" in Celsius too, since 1 degree C is exactly one kelvin.
    1
  1408. The correct way to make a high current switch is with the knife and socket approach, i.e. the knife end enters between two plates held together with spring pressure. You used to see them on really old switchboards. They are fine for making contact but should only be opened with power off. As the knife engages it is still moving forwards, so no bounce. Largest one I ever saw used in anger was rated 1500A continuous and was spring loaded as your design is. And yes, you need substantial capacitors across all the switches. You are creating large amounts of EMI.
    1
  1409.  @VladimirPutin-p3t  You're right. It isn't 304. My guess is it's a 300 series alloy with looser limits on iron so it can be made more cheaply using scrap from recycling. That's why it turns brown so quickly. DeLorean had to go to 316 to deal with the air pollution of that era, if it was not for today's environmental controls the Cybertruck would corrode faster.
    1
  1410.  @JamesSmith-qs4hx  Well, you would have failed physics GCSE. Energy cost consists of acceleration, cruising and braking. The energy needed to move a car a given distance depends on speed and aerodynamics, due to wind resistance, friction, power source efficiency. An EV is about 30% more massive than a petrol equivalent, so it takes 30% more energy to accelerate to (say) 60mph. At this point both are using the same amount of power to maintain speed, so the mass makes no difference. During braking the petrol car simply heats the brakes, but the EV recovers about 40% of the braking energy using the motor as a generator. So overall, it doesn't use significantly more energy. A rough calculation suggests that our EV does the equivalent of 40-45mph if it was a petrol car, which is about the same as our last petrol car which was similar size. The electric drive is overall about 75% efficient including charging and battery loss while a typical petrol car is about 30% (unless it's an aggressive driver which can easily get it down to 20%). But then there's the energy source, which in this country now is quite dependent on renewables and nuclear, so overall the EV is creating much less carbon dioxide (and zero NOx and particulates, which is important if you live in a town). As a net generator of electricity (solar) our carbon footprint for electricity is negative.
    1
  1411. What? That's complete nonsense. Underground cables cost more because of the need for insulation and the cost of digging, plus providing access. Psychic News or The Spark are not physics textbooks.
    1
  1412. With what percentage of the vote? If Labour shouldn't be in power, nor should Johnson have been.
    1
  1413. Banks employ real economists, not Kwartengs or Hunts.
    1
  1414. Trump had been told England isn't a swing state.
    1
  1415. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Trump: I will stop any attempt to control my powers. Dante Alighieri (Purgatorio 16) in very loose translation: A king is needed who can at least make out the tower of the True City.
    1
  1416. Trump is still going to be the next President, because most Americans don't really pay attention, they just hear "Biden tanked the economy."
    1
  1417. As the palidrome has it, A man, a plan, a canal - Panama. Only his case it's a man, a plan, put my money in Panama.
    1
  1418. Charles II was called out of exile to save the country from the Dutch pirates. He was pretty popular. I think you may be confusing him with Charles I who was forced out in a Civil War by the City of London, and James II and VII who lost the support of the Armed Forces through incompetence.
    1
  1419.  @nioengland  You may be confused. Charles 2nd was not king when he went into exile during the Civil Wars. He was king from 1660 until 1685, when he died. On the Restoration, however, the start of his reign became officially the date of the death of his father.
    1
  1420.  @HH-kh2xy  I'm not American.
    1
  1421. I think coprology is the preferred term nowadays due to the "scat" being appropriated by kinky people.
    1
  1422. @ The version I hard was that he was considered unlikely to pass his A levels, and nothing I have heard since has led me to disbelieve it.
    1
  1423. This reminds me of the Swiss canton of Appenzell where the women did not get the vote until late last century. When they did, the men complained that this meant that women-friendly candidates would now be getting two votes per household.
    1
  1424.  @lkearney7299  The sole point of joining the Conservativce Party for years has been to get a slice of the corruption. Of course it wasn't. They want Banana Republic of Thames.
    1
  1425. Episcopalians are just as much a Catholic Church as are the Orthodox churches. They follow the Nicene Creed which is pretty much the test, and they agree with Augustine, the founder of the Catholic Church, that the Bible is not all literally true. They are simply a branch of the Catholic Church that does not recognise the authority of the Popes. Since a lot of American Catholics don't, that hardly disqualifies them. American Protestants do not agree with Augustine and their religion is based on Saul of Tarsus, not the Gospel of Mark.
    1
  1426.  @uponeric36  The odd thing is that the limited gods of the Old Testament are not impossible - it is conceivable that beings more capable than humans evolved first and for some reason disappeared after kick-starting Near East civilization - but the more "advanced" concept of a supreme creator god conflicts with cosmology.
    1
  1427.  @ecoidea100  But Newton never did that, he was trying to solve practical problems in dynamics.
    1
  1428. Yes, Christians love colonisation, genocide, internecine strife and world wars. *Colonisation of the Caribbean, North America, Australia and parts of Africa. *Genocide in Philippines, North America, and during WW2 *Internecine strife in Albigensian Crusade, 30 Years War, English Civil Wars, Northern Ireland. *WW1 between Christian states. **WW2 between Christian states as well as against Japan and USSR. What a record of peace and love.
    1
  1429.  @SageWon-1aussie  Shouldn't that be Tsar Musk?
    1
  1430. A former British prime minister, Harold Wilson, once said "Three weeks is a long time in politics." It was less than that from his diagnosis of early onset dementia to his stepping down as PM. Sudden events can go either way. It isn't over till the fat normal sized lady sings.
    1
  1431.  @Midg-td3ty  It is neither a commodity nor a security. Both require asset backing. Crypto has neither. It is a very ingenious scam.
    1
  1432. @ The Cybertruck is bad because instead of using really corrosion resistant 316 alloy like the failed DeLorean, it uses an alloy from the 300 series. As it doesn't have a number I'm guessing it's "special" in that it is cheaper because more impurities are allowed. This would explain the rapid marking. Normally 304 is used in that kind of job, so why not in this case?
    1
  1433. Musk wants to end the incentives that made Tesla possible so that he will have no competition in the USA. That is hardly a good sign.
    1
  1434. Remember it was party members in the country who voted her in. You may be living next door to a Truss-worshipping psychopath, unless they are currently banged up for trying to break into hostels.
    1
  1435.  @mgancarzjr  Nobody claimed the vaccine prevented people getting the virus, but it does reduce the severity and duration in most people. And I gather the risk of heart damage from COVID is much greater than from the vaccine.
    1
  1436.  @fnjesusfreak  I don't believe it and I'll tell you why. I had to read parts of it for a school project. Trump does not have the reading comprehension ability to get through it. It's incredibly wordy and turgid. If there's a "Simplified version for Hitlerjugend" he might have read that.
    1
  1437.  @albinklein7680  Surely no more than a few percent? I had a Citroen with inline crankshaft and 90 degrees transfer to drive shafts, it didn't seem to be a problem. A transverse engine would not need a 90 degree gear.
    1
  1438.  @IslaSprollie  Sign recognition with speed limiter is a licence saver in London. If only the e had a 40kWH battery, it would be perfect. As it is, it's rarely an issue for us. For everything except range, the e is still the small EV to beat and I can't see a replacement for ours on the horizon.
    1
  1439.  @MrArcticPOWER  Oil and gas are energy storage too, they store sunlight from a few hundred million years ago. It isn't a valid objection. Many gas wells aren't used because they contain too much hydrogen, so the supply is there. This is part of the reason the oil and gas industry are pushing hydrogen, as it could keep them relevant longer.
    1
  1440. Not crazy, just extremely greedy.
    1
  1441. The Subaru engine is proof of the old adage that just because something is possible doesn't mean you should do it. Making a 4 cylinder engine that is more complicated than a V8 is some sort of achievement.
    1
  1442. Not all white South Africans. I knew one who flew for the Allies in WW2 and subsequently became a covert member of the ANC. He had a word for people like Musk. Not a polite one.
    1
  1443.  @robymaru03  We've had enough experience of both to know that nuclear is by far the lesser evil. Chernobyl was pretty much a worst case yet its impact was far lower than acid rain or leukaemia clusters around mines and power stations.
    1
  1444. What do you mean by "turboshaft props"? A turboshaft is an internal combustion engine with a shaft output. Nuclear subs are basically the same as a land power station - the reactor creates steam which powers steam turbines, which may in older subs drive the props through reduction gearing but also generate electricity for all onboard requirements. Some submarines use electric drive, in which case the turbine output goes 100% to electricity generation.
    1
  1445.  @zolikoff  Direct steam turbine to shaft? No way. Just calculate the RPM needed in a practical turbine to reach even a high fraction of the speed of sound in steam. Titanic (and other early designs) only managed without a reduction gear because the turbine operated with high steam volumes below atmospheric pressure, and even so its prop RPM was high. How fast do you think the HP stage would have to rotate if working at full boiler pressure?
    1
  1446. @zolikoff  You wrote direct drive. You keep getting the terminology wrong.
    1
  1447. Don't forget this time the organs of government are answerable to Biden. The situation is very different.
    1
  1448. Trump is an actual extreme narcissist, he doesn't really think other people are real unless they are worshipping him. He assumes Zelenskyy and Putin are like Republican representatives who will do what he says out of fear, he cannot get his head around the idea that they really exist and have their own ideas.
    1
  1449.  @DavidMoxham957  Both, of course. The object is to spread chaos and buy up the country cheap, not to get the government they want.
    1
  1450. It's funny that Harris had an equivalent role to Starmer and then became a senator, while Braverman "did some of the photocopying", Patel was sacked twice (I think) and Badenoch has risen without trace. Not that I'm suggesting that any non-white woman with a good functioning brain would automatically join Labour or the Democrats, just that the evidence points that way.
    1
  1451. Trump loves the Bible. Behold, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil, in that I command you this day to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His Commandments, and His Ordinances, and His Laws, so that you may live and be multiplied...Deut 30:15 Oh well, 0 out of 5.
    1
  1452.  @chrisf9377  Actually they did. A friend of ours was the divorced wife of a C of E vicar. Esch time accusations surfaced he was just moved to another parish; eventually she realised the accusations were true and wanted to divorce him, and even then the Church asked her not to because of the scandal. The RC church has had even more scandals and many Evangelical churches institutionalise child abuse as "driving out demons". People tend not to know because until rather recently the Press didn't report it. But in some countries the RC church is basically bankrupt due to lawsuits. The gangs in places like Rotherham were not being run by imams. Nor were the many white British ones that have been convicted in recent years, including the large ring in Cornwall, or the ones who just go to Thailand to pursue their activities.
    1
  1453. How dissatisifed with your life do you have to be that being a billionaire is less important than cheating at games to look good to other players? It's exactly like Trump cheating at golf; two of a kind. Warren Buffett is the real thing, and he plays the ukelele!
    1
  1454. Trump has learned from the British Conservative government which gave Russian oligarchs fast track citizenship in exchange for big donations, thus leading to a situation in which our far right "Party" (it's actually a company) Reform is pro-Putin and accused of Russian funding. Yesterday's events have made it possible for the new government to attack Reform for its Russian links. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if AfD turns out to be the same.
    1
  1455. I recall (I hope I've got it right) that at one point Mercedes basically sacked a whole load of their dealers - I remember the one in Bath closing, not that long after I visited them and they were quite rude to me. They then started from scratch. The last time I visited a Merc dealer - the newer one near Bath - I had a very interesting conversation with the sales guy while my wife was having a test drive. He'd been working for another dealership for some years and taken the opportunity to move to Mercedes because of the superb customer relations training you got. The technical stuff was fine, the product knowledge, but learning how to gain and keep customers was what it was about. (We did buy the car, but my wife had been sold on it before I talked to him.) JLR probably needs to do the same. Recruit a few out of work actors to go round and be prospective customers, record the conversations, then swing a big axe. New dealers, new Jaguars. (by the way, just being weird, I actually like the typeface of the new logo. Chinese buyers won't clutch their pearls over whether the G is upper or lower case anyway. Having the colours those of WW2 recon aircraft was also an amusing touch to those of us who know our history - pink for dawn and sunset flights, blue for summer daytime. A car that looks like a P-51 fuselage in side view is quite appropriate.)
    1
  1456. Problem is that EV batteries are improving very fast hence no standardisation. Once solid state and sodium batteries are on stream, I expect standrds quickly. But current wet cells are an interim. I'm not too worried, as after 2 years the range on our car is unaltered.
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  1457.  @gmf8171  If it wasn't for the fact that China is Confucian not Communist, you might have a point. China is going to win because it has more educated people, more manufacturing capacity, and more diplomacy abroad.
    1
  1458. So you reckon if a brain surgeon can't deal with your tumour, give the job to a handyman with a hacksaw and a spoon? Because of over 50 Reform councillors newly elected in Kent, 50 have no experience of local government at all. How long will it take for them to learn their way around things? They won't. Farage will just give them their orders, no matter how foolish.
    1
  1459. Musk desperately needs Trump before Tesla goes bust and NASA starts asking about fulfilling the Moon contract within budget.
    1
  1460. The moment it suits him, Farage will go far right again. He is purely a money seeker, and he will go where there is a chance of getting some. Principles? Aut pecunia, aut nihil.
    1
  1461.  @scromberprofessionalautist1017  How about the engineers and metallurgists who changed spark plugs from a replace every 3000 miles item to a major service replacement? Usually the problems are with US cars where people want to shoehorn in gigantic engines. In the RoW engines are usually much smaller and maintenance is much easier. Inline fours and triples have good access, V8 and V6 don't, but people keep demanding them.
    1
  1462.  @givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935  We were successfully stopping them from getting hold of the nickel, chrome, cobalt, manganese, tin, silver and so on needed to make engines like the Griffon. They did a lot with less. As a side note, people did wonder why the US invaded Morocco, so far west, when the focus was on northeast Africa. The answer, top secret at the time, was that Morocco had big deposits of copper, nickel, cobalt and manganese. And that, children, is how you win wars. By the end of the war they were having to insulate wires with woven cotton, and they were even short of materials for spark plug insulation.
    1
  1463.  @JJpleex  You wouldn't notice the difference. If you did, the heat generated would be such that the bearings overheated.
    1
  1464.  @CoryPchajek  This is actually an advantage in bullsh***ing investors who don't either. Real scientists and engineers tend to qualify their statements and this makes investors nervous.
    1
  1465. Pedestrian safety. They look aggressive but are designed to bend to protect people.
    1
  1466. We wanted a city car for short journeys, solar panels and driveway charging. Fiat 500 had useless boot and back seat, it was down to i3 versus Honda e. The e has a significantly shorter range but was simply a lot more comfortable on test, nearly as good acceleration, and the ergonomics were a lot better. I wanted to want the i3, if you see what I mean, but the carbon fibre tub doesn't register when driving whereas Honda's superb driver assist does. I think BMW missed a huge opportunity by not upgrading the electronics to 2020 levels. Also and a minor point - I was warned that on the i3 the 12V battery is an utter PITA to replace whereas some other EVs (including the Honda) have a perfectly normal 12V battery arrangement. That and the weird tyres were a small factor in the buying decision.
    1
  1467.  @jackoverton8343  One of the key advantages of canola oil is that it is not unstable and its smoke point is over 200C. However, hexane extraction is a low temperature process, and the hexane is continuously recovered and reused.
    1
  1468.  @ZeusEnergyMan  Rapeseed (canola) isn't bleached. Is this some weird US thing?
    1
  1469. @ Japan was raping, looting and burning its way across Manchuria, which the USA already had its eye on, so embargoing oil to try to slow it down did make sense.
    1
  1470. Surely if they were black goats they'd be falling down and worshipping him?
    1
  1471. The subtitles said "generic" which is apposite - he is indeed a generic right wing corrupt conservative.
    1
  1472.  @Rose-zw2oe  Why are you wasting NHS resources in dispensing medicine you refuse to use, and causing pollution hazards by binning them? You obviously do have a major attitude problem that prevents doctors from helping you. My wife knows someone like you. She went to see the same consultant as my wife. She has the same attitude that doctors don't know what they are doing and went in with it, then complained that the consultant was "hostile" and refused to do what she was told. The same person was extremely helpful to my wife and is still monitoring her condition many years later. You sound like you are your own problem.
    1
  1473.  @dalecrocker3213  Well, you read Nassim Tabeb's Fooled by randomness and realise that most traders actually end up bust or get out quick.
    1
  1474. @ So is justice an abstraction, try committing murder in front of witnesses and argue that it doesn't exist. We now know that the particles which make up the visible universe are themselves some kind of abstraction, virtual entities popping in and out of existence around a kind of median value. So by your argument the world doesn't exist.
    1
  1475. I thought he was just an abusive drunk, or does that mean the same thing?
    1
  1476. There was an interesting article in (I think) the FT saying that BMW (about twice the size of Tesla now) was in good shape to survive Trump. Now look at its P/E compared to the one trick pony that is Tesla.
    1
  1477. So you approve of, for instance, his blocking government grants to women scientists regardless of field, his insulting Vernon Unsworth for pointing out his submarine would not work, his claim that only the neo-Nazis can save Germany and his attempt to overthrow an elected UK government, and his closure of the government branch that is responsible for looking after nuclear weapons? He is anti anybody who points out that he really is an emperor with very few clothes, left, right or sideways.
    1
  1478.  @BarrieCrampton  I'm surprised you support Musk. He is responsible for a lot of the hype around EVs. His claims of self-driving "next year" in 2014 were untrue. As a retired industrial engineer who ws involved in computing and robotics for years, it was obvious that his hardware wasn't up to it to me and others like me. As he has now had to admit. But any attempt to explain this on sites like Quora resulted in your account being blocked, permanent bans. For someone who claims to believe in "free speech" he tells a lot of porkies and tries to shut down anybody who dares disagree. The current problems with EVs are almost entirely down to Musk. Mitsubishi's i-Miev showed the way forward with city cars, but Musk was promoting Teslas as super-fast long range sports cars, to well off Americans, and that's what the industry thought it had to compete with. For once, Top Gear fiddled the books a bit but were basically right.
    1
  1479. @ Oh, not specifically and only. It seems there was a wide range of potentally "woke", "DEI" or whatever that were being shut down at the NRC. Trying to cover up for the African neo-Nazi just makes you look ridiculous.
    1
  1480. Question 1: has the person ever thought about how two strokes work for a moment?
    1
  1481.  @dfuher968  Culturally he's correct. All European countries have about 17% headbangers and a floating population of the thick, but most British people are far more European than USian.
    1
  1482. @darthwiizius I think you have confused him with Ed Balls.
    1
  1483. Being big meant it could carry radar, which was what gave it a new lease of life in merchant sinking and ASW.
    1
  1484. Jesus was OK with the Roman Empire and even paying taxes. It was the MAGA equivalent of the day - the Scribes and Pharisees - and their constant asking for money that he objected to.
    1
  1485. Slovenia is an advanced country, perhaps the most successful to emerge from former Yugoslavia. Dobre din and don't let the door hit your backside on the way out.
    1
  1486.  @JeffBilkins  You mean more reliable, more drop resistant, longer battery life and no ads?
    1
  1487.  @benholroyd5221  Don't omit to mention that high gas prices are due to the US policies towards Russia and Iran.
    1
  1488.  @francomartini4328  £45 billion. Much of the cost is due to Conservative government dithering and Brexit, plus the need to train so many people due to the lack of experienced engineers and technicians caused by lack of work in the UK. The second one should be cheaper as there is now a pool of trained constructor.
    1
  1489. Apparently civilisation consists of not moderating Twitter or Facebook.
    1
  1490. 12 years ago. Have you ever heard of progress?
    1
  1491. You mean the straight SS. The Waffen SS was made up of foreigners, i.e. non-Germans. Tice wouldn't want that.
    1
  1492.  @johnrussell3961  Buffett is a completely different type. People give him money because he employs people to find out what are the really sound businesses with long term plans, and then invests for the long term. If you'd bought Tesla shares in 2022 you'd still be pretty unhappy. Twitter is now a private company and Fidelity, who foolishly lent him money, have written 3/4 of it off as a loss. As for SpaceX, so long as they manage to keep him right out of it (perhaps with a special fake rocket lab for him to go and play in) it might be successful. But one reason is that its priority customer is NASA, which has world leading edge bullshit detectors and quality evaluators. They send things to roll around on Mars and visit the outer planets, keeping an eye on a low earth orbit vehicle is well within their competence.
    1
  1493. Apart from being rude, Badenoch is not a "coconut". She is trying to turn the Conservatives into a totally corrupt Nigerian-style political party while trying to sound white on the outside.
    1
  1494. If a lawyer with no scientific training is qualified to "investigate the relation between vaccines and autism", then it seems only fair that psychologists and drug addiction researchers with no legal training should be called in to investigate the fitness for office of the incoming President, Elon Musk and the Supreme Court.
    1
  1495.  @johnrussell3961  Hedge funds rely on HFT (high frequency trading) and very short term movements. They don't care about the underlying economics, just what the stocks are doing which i driven by "sentiment". Hence Trump Media being valued at over 1 cent. The funds are not conned. The foolish day traders who think they can compete with them - they are the mugs.
    1
  1496. Cryptocurrency is good for tax evading billionaires, drug barons and other criminals, but not for the US economy.
    1
  1497. How about a lean agile EU army to run rings round big fat Americans? Not long after the collapse of the USSR, a Slovenian officer was invited as an observer to a NATO meeting. At the breakup party someone asked him "So what do you reckon? Could the USSR defeat NATO?" "Of course," he said, "the USSR would have been in Bonn before you'd finished showing one another PowerPoints."
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  1498.  @SDK2006b  Do lots of short trips in winter in a petrol or Diesel car and you will either have to change the oil and battery twice as often or knacker the engine.
    1
  1499. This is why the USA needs to adopt the French system for presidential elections. Let the lunatics get their jollies in the first round, then the leading two candidates go to the runoff and one of them has actually to get over 50%.
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  1500. Мёртвые души by Gogol. It's actually very appropriate since it's in part about landowners' dead serfs still being counted as part of their property, and Trumpmusk wants to turn the US into a pre-Revolutionary Russia.
    1
  1501. Oh, don't be silly. Bandying around what are no more than ignorant memes is not political discussion.
    1
  1502.  @stephenchappell7512  It's just a discussion group and no, it doesn't control everything.
    1
  1503.  @LukaDTTW  Not amazing really given the Italian tendency still to put regional allegiance above national one.
    1
  1504. Herringbone gears were extensively used in marine turbine reduction gears which are basically the same as the ones on an EV, but bigger. The problem with herringbone gears are that they will never be perfectly aligned until they wear sufficiently, and not perfectly even then, meaning that first of all there will be some oscillating axial forces as teeth on both sides don't engage at precisely the same time, but second, regular oil changes are needed until the gears wear in, and that's expensive. In the early days of marine gears there were failures until it was realised a large settling tank was needed for the oil, and magnetic traps, to remove the wear particles. Even filters were not fine enough. Where the power and axial load permits, a single helical gear can avoid this problem, the teeth become polished rather than wearing. Ball bearings are not more efficient because they always have some sliding at the contact line. A correctly designed taper roller has no thrust on the roller ends, and the contact is pure rolling.
    1
  1505.  @darthwiizius  Tell us what you really think. I think you were right to start with but then Musk believed his own hype and realised the government could be persuaded to give him subsidies to keep the US a world leader in EVs. Everything was fiddled - as well as purchase subsidies it was set up so that other car makers had to buy carbon credits from Tesla to sell in the US. He advertised ridiculous low prices that didn't happen, self driving that didn't happen, but it was all aimed at politicians. Teslas are not bad but the lack of support infrastructure and dubious engineering like the terrible UI - and even a bad steering wheel replacement - are off putting. It's a bit like iPhones - great support if you live near an Apple store, otherwise suck it up.
    1
  1506. Yes, Donald, it is. Now get on handing it over to Canada.
    1
  1507. Indeed. You can use a composite made of e.g. glass microspheres and a resin but the hull would need to be very thick indeed, very much limiting outward visibility. I checked, and one of those materials has a compressive strength of about 70MPa - more than the 40MPa Titan was supposed to reach - but its 24 hour rating is 24MPa. This is going to go down in engineering history as one of the worst designs ever to be produced. It must be a disappointment to Germany since the Me-163.
    1
  1508. Actual Jesus had a bit of a problem with the MAGA of his time. MAGA = distorted Protestantism, Scribes and Pharisees = distorted Judaism.
    1
  1509. Those aren't character flaws. His character flaws are that he is a narcissist on the autism spectrum who cannot relate to other people except insofar as they do what he wants. Unfortunately some people like that become very successful. Even Hitler, awful as he was, had better emotional intelligence, which is how he came to rule Germany.
    1
  1510.  @daveandjanwoolf8078  American games obsession, everybody has to belong to a "team". The land of freedom is the land of sheeplike behaviour, in my experience.
    1
  1511.  @timg1246  At the time of the riots (rapidly stopped and less serious than Jan 6th.) he stated the UK would have a civil war, which was ridiculous hyperbole but possibly intended to help incite one. He also attacked the British caving expert who said his submarine wouldn't work with grossly abusive language.
    1
  1512. The ones who were not there; Musk and Thiel. The monkeys are not the problem, it's the organ grinders.
    1
  1513. I disagree (I'm not repeating my longer post as to why). Shouting playground insults at Putin is in my view a grave error, which in your case doesn't matter, but fortunately people of actual importance tend to avoid.
    1
  1514. Interesting. Incompetent people trying to live on boats was a serious issue in Bath, UK, in the 2000s. I often wondered about their thinking.
    1
  1515. You might want to look at the makeup of the Allied forces in WW2. Lots of women, Indians, Caribbeans, Africans - all helping end the kind of government Farage wants.
    1
  1516. People involved in Tesla collisions had better not claim on insurance. The incident didn't happen, and if they claim it did it would be insurance fraud. Yours Sincerely, Biggus Dikkus Africanus.
    1
  1517. The loan was agreed by DB after Chabad backed it. Chabad is the Jewish sect strong in New York and St. Petersburg, which coincidentally is where Putin grew up, helped by a Jewish couple when his parents were dysfunctional. Putin knows where bodies are buried via Chabad.
    1
  1518. In the USA yes, elsewhere there are already better alternatives.
    1
  1519. At one time around the late 1990s I had the idea, for amusement, of seeing how much power you could get out of a B&S engine (with a lot of mods including forced lubrication, reworked valves and cams etc.) I couldn't find a B&S engine in decent condition, they were all Honda OHC or Husqvarna 2-strokes. So someone saying "20 years" is I think exaggerting.
    1
  1520. Simple really. Tesla is about the size of BMW. It makes a profit in the same ballpark. But it has over 10 times the stock makret valuation. That makes no sense. BMW EVs are more expensive than Teslas but are in a class above in public perception.
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  1521. Lynch's share of the sale was £500 million and most of that has probably gone in US legal costs.
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  1522. I am currently reading A Nasty Little War by Anna Reid, about the 1919-20 attempt by the US, France and the UK to defeat the Bolsheviks and stop the Russian Revolution. One of the things that comes over very strongly is how the Allies deluded the people back home, and even themselves, about what was happening in reality. The same thing happened with Vietnam and Iraq. I see no reason to believe that history is not repeating itself and Foggy Bottom and the US media are not as misinformed and misguided about current events in Donbas and Crimea as is Trump. (I don't favour either side, I detest wars started and continued by psychopaths and narcissists, but Trump's fantasies about global reach are just that and reality may come quickly to bite him in the Depends.)
    1
  1523. "That once you have paid him the Dane-geld, you never get rid of the Dane."
    1
  1524. Great mistake to end someone like Macron to talk to Trump, being French he doesn't know the short words needed.
    1
  1525. Musk is confused between trying to sell his electric cars and trying to keep his new constituency of right wing Trumpers onside. The Cybertruck is a nice attempt at it but if he makes enough to keep them happy he will go bust due to the interest charges on the investment needed. Billionaire problems that could all be avoided if they'd just stick to making stuff and let marketing find out what people want. Like BYD or BMW.
    1
  1526.  @robynmurray7421  It was also a satire on the media, and journalists making up stuff to suit the government line. Sound familiar, except that it's the Murdoch line?
    1
  1527. But in the USA, a good percentage of the cost of buying and running your equipment is so that corporations you don't vote for can send you advertising. The BBC has zero adverts. Also, some of the funding goes to keep radio transmitters going which allow local radio and the like to function at low cost. Paradoxically if the disgusting right-wing propaganda outfit GB "News" succeeded in its desire to abolish the licence, it would no longer be able to transmit to air because it would not be able to afford to keep the transmitters going.
    1
  1528.  @DeusVult-q3f  Freedom of speech? He took over Twitter so he could silence what he saw as left wing bias and promote right wing views. If that's freedom of speech I am the Flying Dutchman.
    1
  1529.  @Z4K97B  Redditor? From the Latin meaning to give back or restore? Sorry, you've lost me.
    1
  1530. I can remember when the Conservatives were good at giving the illusion of being respectable people you could trust. Now they seem to be trying to give the illusion that you'd better vote for them because they know some bad n***s in the hood and they know where you live.
    1
  1531. China last year had more middle class people and fewer billionaires because the CPC won't let them get too rich. That's why people like Musk hate China, even as they use it to grow their businesses.
    1
  1532. Not always true. Ford actually supported the Nazis and advocated anti-Semitism. He didn't sever connections with the Third Reich until the US entered WW2. It did Ford no harm.
    1
  1533.  @RadioJonophone  Fair enough, post edited.
    1
  1534.  @moblet  That was already done when the small sailboat owned by a well known San Francisco data scientist went missing in fog in the Bay. Sadly he was never found, but I believe that the analysis carried out led to some promising approaches in future to missing vessels and aircraft.
    1
  1535.  @L98fiero  У меня нет глупого друга к югу от Москвы, дурак.
    1
  1536.  @SarafinaSummers  I'm afraid you missed the irony. I thought it was obvious it was a joke but clearly not.
    1
  1537.  @L98fiero  During WW2 there was a British branch called SOE which carried out all kinds of operations in Europe - disinformation, turning spies, helping the Resistance, co-ordinating a Mosquito attack on a Gestapo HQ to destroy their records. During WW2, US intelligence was relatively gentlemanly, but the success of SOE led to the creation of the CIA on the same lines, and also the Mossad. The problem with such forces is that they are so used to lying to everybody else, one starts to wonder how much truth they tell their own government. Especially people like Musk and Trump who will never get "real" security clearance, far too flaky. Your idea that I have a friend in Georgia seems very odd and I don't understand it at all, perhaps since I have replied to you sensibly you could explain your meaning?
    1
  1538.  @burningSHADOW42  Vacuum trains were even older than that - they failed in the 1850s. Whenever you read about something like Musk's hyperloop, you just recite to yourself "it will fail due to the difficulty of sealing moving surfaces". Same with Stirling and Wankel engines.
    1
  1539.  @jonbraden2877  Musk is a marketing success story. His knowledge of physics and chemistry is not great. The only reason he said that was because he had gone all in on batteries and worried that investors would desert him for hydrogen. Everything he says is about boosting his share prices. As it is, the rest of the EV market have gone for a different type of battery, and collectively are now much bigger than Tesla.
    1
  1540. During WW2, both the Allies and Germany had constantly to redesign their engines to use different fuels. The problems were detonation - premature explosion - and heat. Detonation is not a problem for turbine engines, but heat is, and current turbines are at the limit of technology with methane. However, there's no reason a hydrogen engine should be inherently more difficult than a methane fuelled one.
    1
  1541.  @tjroelsma  And then the US wonders why it is being overtaken by China.
    1
  1542.  @michaelbuckers  Hydrogen's combustion range with air is much wider than that of hydrocarbon fuels which means it can burn much leaner. This does mean more power consumed in the air intake, but water is not needed. Stoichiometric mixture temperature is limited by dissociation, i.e. the maximum temperature achievable is that at which the forward and back reactions are at equal speed (around 3000K); as the gas expands the reaction moves more towards water until combustion is complete. That's why it is possible to make oxygen/hydrogen rockets.
    1
  1543.  @burningSHADOW42  Vacuum vessel? I think your translation from German may be faulty.
    1
  1544.  @TheRealVranesh  Fuel leaks? Very common, in fact some military aircraft leak on the ground because the seals only work properly at altitude. Hydrogen tanks? I'm not sure, but in WW2 the Allies were using liquid oxygen boost tanks in fighters, that's in 1944 and we might have advanced a bit since then.
    1
  1545.  @johnsevern739  He wrote "rediculous". Towering intellect, who can't spell.
    1
  1546. Harold Wilson, in fact. To be more precise, he tried to stop it being the salaried wing of the Conservative Party.
    1
  1547. Trump and Musk are now basically world kings and can crash the UK economy whenever they feel like it. Job done, need for GB News to talk up Farage has gone. Farage hasn't realised it yet, but he's about to be dispensed with. He isn't needed.
    1
  1548. @ Yes, the ride is the problem. I am not sure they were a sales failure (250k sold); I just believe BMW never managed to break even on manufacture of them. They thought battery prices would drop much faster than they did.
    1
  1549. I believe a few Yugos are still on the road. Will any Cybertrucks be after the same time?
    1
  1550.  @thorn6809  Er, no. The temperature of a hydrogen/oxygen fire rises to near the point at which the water dissociates back to hydrogen and oxygen as fast as it reacts. It continues to burn but doesn't get any hotter. This is at around 3000 real degrees, not those fake American things. You cannot separate water into hydrogen and oxygen with heat without some very advanced equipment indeed. They just burn at a maximum temperature.
    1
  1551.  @konradlindblad7860  There's a plastic material, it's pretty standard stuff. But I suspect in volume they use a precision measuring rig.
    1
  1552. Summer tyres work down to about 7 degrees, and a lot of mornings in winter start off well below that. Now you can get all weather EV optimised tyres that's what I use.
    1
  1553.  @thedon-e6514  The problem with fuel cells is catalyst poisoning. They are good for short term like spaceflight, but they need to air breathe and the atmosphere is full of pollutants. In fact, it's the exhaust from oil fuelled cars that is a major factor in causing problems for fuel cells. You have to clean up the air on the way in, get rid of the carbon dioxide, the hydrocarbons, the particles, the NOx. Another factor is response time. Fuel cells can never be fast response, so an intermediate battery is needed to store overproduction and release quickly when needed. I was involved in a school fuel cell project back in 1968 and it worked basically the same as they do now; carbon electrodes mildly dosed with platinum and fed with oxygen and hydrogen. There have really been no huge breakthroughs since, it's all been about trying to solve the technical problems.
    1
  1554. "China despite rolling out EVs in large numbers is still by far the most polluting nation in the world and its CO2 emissions are still increasing exponentially" 2026 is predicted to be peak year for Chinese carbon emissions. I don't think you got A level maths. In considering which is the most polluting you need to take several things into account. One is population: China has 4 times the population of the US but twice the emissions, so it is half as much per head. Second, you need to consider how much of that is exported emissions, i.e. emissions resulting from manufacturing for other countries. Third, before about 2008, the US emitted more than China, and will always have emitted more than all of Europe together. It will take till about 2090 before total Chinese emissions catch up with total US emissions.
    1
  1555. Can you imagine a council run by 57 mini-Trumps? Because that's what we'll get. Sack the chief exec on Monday for being female, replace with Richard Tice's pool cleaner on Tuesday.
    1
  1556. Some engineer at Subaru obviously had shares in an Allen screw factory. Back in the day when refitting things like timing covers with Allen screws, I used to put in a small blob of silicone when the screws were tight - takes seconds, and then you just hook them out next time you remove them. Don't, obviously, do this on internal ones.
    1
  1557.  @christopherspavins9250  In sail days the RN regularly captured French and Spanish ships and renamed them without problems.
    1
  1558.  @MrSnash43  Incidentally, no RAF male personnel ever got near Tilly's orifice. She was a lesbian. Worth remembering when the new US VP doesn't think women have a role in the military.
    1
  1559. You realise Trump isn't the State Department? What with golf, Twitter and his internal problems, he doesn't have the attention span to focus on what's happening there.
    1
  1560.  @nc3826  ? Makes no sense.
    1
  1561. You want positivity? Strength through joy! Work makes free!
    1
  1562. Trump obviously is a great businessman - Trump Media is still $16 higher than it ought to be.
    1
  1563. "We have good news and bad news. The bad news: the Swordfish is obsolete as a carrier aircraft. The good news: the Swordfish is our interim helicopter substitute."
    1
  1564. Tugendhat has a functioning cerebral cortex, so is overqualified.
    1
  1565. The Muppets had professionals working them, the Conservatives have dodgy billionaires.
    1
  1566.  @stevepi1  The OP said it was MPs and has not corrected the error. It isn't the end of the world except in the febrile minds of people upset that the Conservatives are not in power.
    1
  1567.  @stevepi1  You do know you can edit posts on YouTube? But he chose not to, just add a second post nobody will read since it isn't at the top of the thread. The Mail technique - issue correction in the small print. You people are pretty transparent.
    1
  1568. The calculation for hybrids is quite simple; how much does additional battery storage cost compared to the hybrid powertrain? Mazda has tried to improve the tradeoff with a very small, simple Wankel range extender, using an emissions boondoggle, but at some point it will just be cheaper to put in a 100kWH battery and call it a day.
    1
  1569. Notice Trump admitting that Americans pay far too much for medicine just after he allowed the manufacturers to charge what they like. How low an IQ do you need not to spot that?
    1
  1570.  @Jesse-v7h  Edison was forced to share credit for the incandescent light bulb with Swan. Do you know the names of the real founders of Tesla? Musk is much, much worse than Edison.
    1
  1571. The WSJ is turning against Musk, exposing the serious environmental violations of his Texas factory. Murdoch seems to have decided enough is enough.
    1
  1572. Johnson knows enough about history to be a weasel. The root cause of Pearl Harbor was the attempts of the United States to defeat Japan economically in order to prevent its empire growing t the expense of US control of the Pacific. The root cause of the invasion of Ukraine was the attempt of the USA to destroy Russia, after it succeeded in defeating the USSR. Putin is a bad man, but in terms of overall harm done he's just a footnote compared to the efforts of the American rich.
    1
  1573. "Driven by people that should have had bicycles instead" - you see people like that on bicycles and no, even mobility scooters are more than they should be trusted with.
    1
  1574. It looks very, very similar to our Honda e. More unnecessary bling, the only benefits I can see are longer range and bigger boot. FWD is a negative, the turning circle on an e is extremely small, ideal for cities. Same power (same motor?). The controls just don't look as good. Honda ergonomics are superb. It doesn't seem to have enough benefits to make me want to switch. There's a new sub-4m city EV coming somewhere out there that will, but this isn't it.
    1
  1575. Have you asked the Swiss?
    1
  1576. If you believe the numbers, the value of the US tech economy has tripled in four years. Do you really believe that? Is Tesla really worth between 11 and 20 BMWs?
    1
  1577. One new-ish problem car makers have to deal with is carjacking and robbery. A lot of features are now based on this. The door problem is this: you want to be able to lock the doors to prevent outside entry when driving through dubious neighbourhoods. In a collision you want the doors to unlock so you can be got out. So the villains shunt you from in front to unlock the doors...what's the answer? To a degree it is country dependent, but there are bad places everywhere. I don't have an answer. I just do know that omitting clearly labelled exit handles should be illegal; after all it's illegal not to have them on trains and buses.
    1
  1578. Funnily enough a 5 bank engine was designed for the Sherman tank. The US did not like it but the British Army managed to make it work well.
    1
  1579. Oxford? Are you confusing him with our own vacuum, Jacob Rees-Mogg? He may have been intelligent when younger, but now he seems like a crazy old man shouting at clouds.
    1
  1580. Not even Meloni or Le Pen.
    1
  1581. £360 at 10p a litre is 3600 litres. If you can actually average 60 litres a minute that might work for an artic but not cars. Assuming a more realistic 3 minutes per car and even averaging 30 litres, that's £60 per hour. The average uK mileage is about 9000, so around 1200 litres/year, which means visiting a fuel station on average once a week. However, calling a fuel station a "community hub" is a bit odd. Where we used to live someone decided to put a Budgens + fuel station on the bypass. I would say most of the cars there bypassed refuelling and went straight to the shop. A Subway failed, a Greggs succeeded. And where we live now, which is an "urban village", we have ten shops, no fuel station, and constant problems of too many people trying to park. In short, things will evolve.
    1
  1582. @tobycolin6271  How many cars have tanks over 47 litres these days?
    1
  1583.  @andrewgage6942  A W12 VW doesn't get 35mpg, more like 16. It will be decades before EVs represent 50% of vehicles on the roads, by which time one imagines charging will have been fixed. All new technologies trickle down from the middle and upper classes as they become more affordable, I'm afraid that is just how it is. The alternative is no progress. Incidentally I've been debt free since 1994 and had an excess of assets over debt since 1990. I just use a credit card and pay it off every month, and so I have a good credit rating and I get the extra buyer protection of a credit card over a debit card.
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  1584. It is the largest single company but it does not dominate the industry outside the USA. It's like phones: Apple is the largest single company and dominant in the USA, but is a small part of the total industry because 95% of the world is not the USA.
    1
  1585. You're mostly water so I expect you'd be better off living under the sea.
    1
  1586.  @andrewfarrow4699  I suspect that to get all the parts needed in the scale size and make it work would actually cost more than the original P51 did. Just thinking of the compressor tolerances makes me anxious, add in the gear train, the cooling circuit. There's a reason this models doesn't make much power: cost to do it properly.
    1
  1587. For fleets where the usage pattern works, electric vans do have one big advantage. The control systems don't permit the kind of engine abuse typical company van drivers give the vehicles, and this means lower maintenance costs. For fleets where the usage pattern doesn't work, they aren't going to buy them. Fleet managers know what their vehicles do and if they fail to get a match, that's where the problem lies. (Incidentally I remember in 1981 our technical director - Diesel R&D company - saying "Nobody will ever want a Diesel car." Five years later and that viewpoint was very out of date. In the early days of Diesels the big worry was fuel waxing in the winter and endless horror stories of companies getting rid of Diesels for this reason. Then the problem got fixed and virtually all vans and most taxis became Diesel. Engineers, eh? You moan about a problem and they come along and fix it. Things will look different by 2030.)
    1
  1588.  @alexsidney4796  Who wouldn't? I would really like a new Ural but my wife won't let me.
    1
  1589. President Trump is a good Christian man? Let me break it to you: when it comes to the Ten Commandments, you don't score 100% by breaking all of them. And then there's that bit about not being able to serve God and Money that your megachurch "pastors" never, ever mention.
    1
  1590. Auden on Hitler: "the whole offence that has driven a culture mad....what huge imago made a psychopathic god." The USA's right wing billionaires and its media made Trump. Like Germany, before the nightmare can end, they will need to be defeated because they won't go willingly.
    1
  1591. Waste of tar, I'd petition for a real FBI investigation into his financial affairs with publication at the end of it.
    1
  1592. Half the emissions from conventional ICE vehicles are water already, this is a silly argument. Oil combustion is basically 2(CH₂) + 3O₂ -> 2(H₂O) + 2(CO₂), 50% of exhaust by volume is steam. And the steam represents over half the energy generated, so a hydrogen based engine actually produces very little more water than an ICE.
    1
  1593. And BMW. Give Tesla their due, they have really managed to make BMW, Audi and Mercedes look good.
    1
  1594. Anyone who doesn't believe in human caused global warming because of the propaganda from these people needs to know that they do believe in it - that's why they are planning to monopolise all the wealth for people like them so they won't suffer the ill effects.
    1
  1595. @Juangalt  Perhaps because other manufacturers realise electric pickups are a niche product and battery technology is not really there yet. What happened to the pre-orders?
    1
  1596. TEM at the moment is more successful than it ever has been, but there seems to be a problem with S in some fields.
    1
  1597.  @ADifferentBias  It was still battery.
    1
  1598. I don't see the problem. Trump is turning the US into the Christofascist version of Iran, and Iran is wildly successful. Isn't it?
    1
  1599. Your information about drones was very interesting but I think you may have missed Musk logic. SpaceX is going to go massively over budget on government jobs. But Musk is supposed to be stopping waste. So how can he continue to get funding for vanity Moon shots? Make big savings somewhere else. If he gets the F-35 cancelled he can lose SpaceX funding in the noise, perhaps selling it with "Starlink" (as if) as some sort of drone support operation. In other words, try to get all other government programs funded so the lovely money can keep flowing to him.
    1
  1600. A fully restored standard milkfloat goes for about £18000-£23000. How much would a milkfloat with three times the range, 0-62 in 8 seconds, heated front seats, driver assist and Android Auto cost?
    1
  1601. Canada has a treaty with the US that they will not accept American refugees. They'll have to go to Ireland or Australia.
    1
  1602. Tiny minority worked on the easily led and the criminals took advantage. If the rioters could think critically, they wouldn't riot. They would see their interests are not served by the people who run the media or Reform.
    1
  1603. Putin's a bit busy right now, doesn't want to have to spend time on yet another British agent.
    1
  1604. Musk wants his and Thiel's puppet Vance for President. He just needs to get Trump elected before the 25th Amendment kicks in.
    1
  1605.  @PeterFairhurst-v3e  I guess none of your children have ever done anything that they subsequently regretted? If you have any.
    1
  1606.  @andrijajalsovec5877  The Winter War was when the British, French, Americans, Canadians, Czechs and a few Japanese tried to prop up the Tsar and invaded Russia to do it. Churchill ordered the nerve gas bombing of Russian villages without knowing whether or not the Bolsheviks held them. Poland at the time was thinking of invading and taking over much of Ukraine. Russians paranoid? Anti-Polish? Perhaps there's a reason.
    1
  1607. Probably out trying to start another Russian airline.
    1
  1608. Trump made money out of those casinos. He loaded them with debt, paid himself a lot, and then wound them up leaving the (foreign) creditors carrying the can. Normal for Vegas.
    1
  1609.  @atdhekaba769  Because they re ner psychopaths good at stealing other people's work and charming people into giving them money.
    1
  1610.  @Stepbystep74  That's actually incorrect. Turing produced On Computable Numbers and people who worked with him have left records of what he did. The Hollywood version may be rubbish but his actual contributions are well documented. Turing was nothing like Edison or Musk, and certainly almost the opposite of Oppenheimer.
    1
  1611.  @MrVuvuzaala  He's not good enough to be run by the Russians. Putin would give him 0/5 as an agent.
    1
  1612. Of course it isn't, it should be 25% on the imported cost. But that would mean disclosing importer and dealer margins. Hum.
    1
  1613.  @twistedelegance_  Its noticeable that US media are already spreading lying propaganda (e.g. about Greenlanders supporting MAGA). Just like Göbbels about Austria and the Czechs. If the Greenlanders knew any history and knew how the Anschluss and the invasion worked out for the Austrians and Czechs, they'd be building barricades.
    1
  1614. Musk has a joint degree in economics. It would be nice for him to open his mouth and some evidence of it come out. For anybody who doesn't already know, share prices are not the real economy, they are the Wall Street casino which has currently decided Musk is its fattest whale. I really don't think he has a clue about the real economy.
    1
  1615.  @Noel-ji8nm  Because as a former DPP he knows correct procedure. Why are you an ignorant, provocative poster? Have you ever had a responsible job?
    1
  1616.  @Noel-ji8nm  Извините, я не знал, что вы из Петербурга.
    1
  1617. Oppo phones are superb quality, and the USA made up crap about Huawei spying on them to block sales because their product was better than Apple's (and Cisco's).
    1
  1618. They can't sure have all become Reform "supporters"? OK, yes they can.
    1
  1619. I had one of the early PD engines, in 1999. These had proper injection pumps, not this common rail garbage, which meant that you couldn't flood a cylinder with a stuck injection valve but could get off the road safely. From then on things went backwards.
    1
  1620.  @jimbrennan1181  We had an independent judiciary, but for which things would hve been worse here. It's interesting that a former head of the Supreme Court, Lord Sumption, recently said he had voted for the winning party in every election for many years - which meant that he has voted both Conservative and Labour on their merits at the time.
    1
  1621.  @youevil9846  Don't tell Musk, he'll want to invade France, take over the government, and have him listed as the founder of Citröen.
    1
  1622.  @CuriousVelociiraptor  Like lithium and copper? (I have an EV but resource usage is not the reason. It's pollution. )
    1
  1623. Canada and Greenland waging environmental warfare and giving Trump an excuse to invade.
    1
  1624. I had a much heavier duty version of that rhombic jack, it was East German, TüV approved and rated 1.5 tonnes. I reckon that was a cheap imitation. The steel looked about half the thickness.
    1
  1625. Why? Add lots of cost for no benefit in a low spec vehicle like a car. Aerospace engineering costs many times more than road vehicle engineering. What's the point of a bearing that costs more than the rest of the gearbox?
    1
  1626. They used to refer to people dying of "apoplexy", which was a heart attack.
    1
  1627. The only system of units in the US officially adopted by Congress is the metric system, which is why the common system is called "American customary units", ACU - they are not official. The Apollo astronauts were pretty annoyed when told that they had to use American units for the Moon landing (for publicity reasons) since as military pilots they were of course completely familiar with metric. As it was it is claimed that the extra load of the conversion from metric (that the computer was really working on) to ACU, was what caused the computer overload during the descent.
    1
  1628. That isn't unhinged. Someone with a degree in psychology got together with someone with a degree in English to post something that would keep wavering low-IQ MAGA people on board. Basically it consists of button, button, button.
    1
  1629. Yaxley-Lennon isn't rich enough to have the kinds of friends that can buy the judiciary. Even Deux Étages Farage is only marginally at that level. In this country unlike the USA, the courts are not afraid of being shot by disaffected Republicans, which is the sole reason Trump isn't in prison.
    1
  1630. One of the things that did for Hitler was the way his immediate circle created private empires in competition - the Luftwaffe, the SS, the civil police, Speer's production system. The result adversely affected their efficiency. One reason the Luftwaffe became so weak was that the Army was conscripting skilled workers from the engine plants and throwing them away on the Eastern Front, for instance. We can assume Trump's lot will do the same, because they are temporary allies in pursuit of personal power (like all right wing governments). How long before whoever ends up running the DoJ starts using it to take down political opponents (as Beria did)? If the so-called DOGE department ever happens, how long before it starts putting taxpayer money into private slush funds? In this country, a political plonker (Eton and Oxford, of course) with a history degree, named Jacob Rees-Mogg, was put in charge of a department supposed to increase government efficiency. His sole work for it was going around leaving post-it notes on the desks of people working from home complaining that they weren't in the office. Sounds like the kind of thing Musk would do?
    1
  1631. A small point. The little group of six independent shops near us all are happy with cash. Why? Because one of them is a Post Office where they can deposit their cash at the end of the day. Steel shutters, anti-ram bollards mean money is safe. With the closure of many banks, and Building Society branches not wanting to handle coins, small businesses without that advantage prefer contactless so they are not worth being targeted by thieves. And if you have a private pension, it's almost certainly partly invested in Tesco etc. If you want all private pensions abolished and replaced with State pension, you're a communist. But that is the end result of not wanting corporations to make profits. Make your mind up.
    1
  1632.  @dougerrohmer  The Germans could make high octane synthetic fuel, but not as much as they wanted. Their problems with fuel were very complex - the particular analysis they used was more likely to knock with inverted cylinders and was better running rich, which meant less economy. Both sides developed engines and fuel in parallel based on what they could make, because they deviated so much each side couldn't use the other's engines at full power.
    1
  1633. Elon Musk learned a lot from Colin Chapman, but not about car design.
    1
  1634. From the Zelenskyy meeting it looks like товарищ Ж. Д. Ванц - I'm sorry, J D Vance - is the real Russian asset. At the start of the meeting he pushed his way to the front and then immediately launched an irrelevant attack on Zelenskyy with the obvious intention of sabotaging any agreement with Trump, in which he succeeded. I suspect Trump is now simply too senile to be able to be coherent on the issues and Vantz is there to ensure the Party Line gets followed. The demonstrators when he arrived in Vermont suggests that the rather well educated citizens of that State worked out the same thing.
    1
  1635.  @malcaniscsm5184  Good point. Perhaps she could request that all results relating to searches for her on Google could be removed in countries with the GDPR.
    1
  1636.  @stephaniesanderson6190  Regardless, his collection/museum is of immense value for the history of technology.
    1
  1637.  @geraldhewing2076  That is incorrect. He went to university in what was then Rhodesia, and I think for a time in South Africa, and he got a correspondence degree from London. Mugabe was undoubtedly intelligent but I suspect he was definitely on the autism chart.
    1
  1638.  @helenamcginty4920  He did a correspondence degree from a London college, he did not actually live in London. In some ways his early life resembles Stalin - something I write without making any moral value judgement.
    1
  1639.  @MCT954  Living in London house on 1% of the normal rent was bigger in itself than everything Starmer got, as was the bung from a Russian oligarch.
    1
  1640. New car sales are down due to the economic hits of Brexit (4% of GDP), the pandemic and the Truss "budget", plus the post-pandemic inflation and the rise in interest rates, and finally plus rent rises above inflation. People are too poor to buy rapidly depreciating capital goods whether petrol, Diesel or electric. The 22% rise for junior doctors still didn't get them back where they were before Farage. They then justify keeping cars longer because new ones have too many gadgets (probably untrue) and cost too much (true).
    1
  1641. So you're saying we don't understand how gas engines work because the solar system is too complicated?
    1
  1642. Of course. How do Western car makers get favourable reviews? They buy journalists. The Chinese learn from the West and then do it cheaper (no flights to and from 4 day stays at 5 star hotels in exotic locations to review a new upmarket model.) Software was even worse - of course you needed a 7 day "conference" in the Caribbean to learn about the latest ERP system that didn't do what it promised. Provided you actually had specifying ability and weren't just one of the poor IT people that would actually have to implement that POS.
    1
  1643.  @johntimbrell  If you have lost the use of your legs, possibly from militry service, how does that stop you doing a desk job? The last I remember, running was not part of the qualification for ATC. Remember Reagan sacking them all and the long term chaos that caused? Republicans have form in f*****g stupidity even without factoring in MTG and Boebert - very definitely DEI hires.
    1
  1644.  @brianconnelly-s5e  People who are prescribed amphetamines in this country for ADHD benefit from them. People with NPD or psychopathy are made worse. Trump has NPD.
    1
  1645. It's people like you that have created pressure on governments to regulate for pedestrian safety.
    1
  1646. Johnson: "These are my principles" - blank sheet of paper with pound and dollar signs at the top.
    1
  1647. No, that's just civilisation 101 default mode. Why yes I am a birthright Tottenham supporter, why do you ask? (The anti semitic abuse Tottenham supporters had directed at them was a source of pride.)
    1
  1648. I have noticed increased support for Farage from some UK Zionists, presumably because they see him as anti-Islam. Farage is truly the Nexus of the Nasty.
    1
  1649. But also, access for maintenance isn't an issue. Yes V8 and V12 engines make the most sense dynamically and in terms of packaging, but in terms of first cost and under-bonnet layout for a production car, assuming length is not a constraint, the inline 6 works best, followed by the inline 4.
    1
  1650. Big Oil is Trump's best buddy along with Big Pharma.
    1
  1651. Truss was actually being the straight woman. I suspect Coffey was simply trying to get into the Treasury and leak stuff to the Cons. They aren't used to being kept in the dark, and like lettuces they don't do very well in it.
    1
  1652. No, because they don't buy, they lease. Only a small minority buy foreign cars. And the products of Musk's Shanghai factory and Apple's Foxconn outsourcing will be excluded from tariffs. The WTO will not intervene because it is US dominated.
    1
  1653. One of the things that brought Hitler down was the conflict between Himmler (SS), Göring (Luftwaffe), Bormann (Nazi Party) , Speer (production) and Hitler himself (Army). And after the early death of Alexander the Great, his generals all fought among themselves. Fill in your own equivalents, but the pattern will repeat.
    1
  1654. That's incorrect. Jobs and Wozniak really did found Apple just as Hewlett and Packard really did found HP. Jobs saw the possibilities of the mouse interaction when Xerox didn't - and threw away their opportunity to overtake IBM. Musk did not found Tesla but claims to have done. He's a liar.
    1
  1655. Trump never was a business person, it was the people his father left him who did that stuff, till he started to fantasise he was in charge and lost a lot of money. Then he became famous as an actor, like Reagan. In Trump's mind, you succeed by recruiting a load of photogenic but dysfunctional people, set them tasks for which they are not qualified, and fire one a week. And that keeps your ratings high, which is what matters. Yes, United States, enough of you think that's how the world works that you made him President. And that's why China will overtake you economically and in terms of world influence.
    1
  1656.  @Jeff180Me-no5ss  Fair enough and I don't like them myself, but the issue is that Tesla buyers are not car people, they see them as appliances that just work, like iPhones, and they do need to be babysat.
    1
  1657.  @steveclark8304  "Starship" that makes it to Earth orbit. Nearest star other than sun is 4 light years away. Exaggeration?
    1
  1658. This doesn't work in practice because the Constitution is like a religious document and it is interpreted by a Supreme Court that can be packed by a party in power. The Constitution is not sufficient to guarantee rights since it is couched in obsolete language about an earlier state of society, enabling wide interpretation by those lawyers. Germany has a much more advanced Consitution than the USA, the Grundgesetz, but even so interpretation creeps in. In the USA the people cannot change the Supreme Court, so in this respect the USA is undemocratic. And Citizens United v FEC made the USA a plutocracy, reducing the power of the individual citizen versus corporations - which is, literally, cornerstone of fascism.
    1
  1659.  @bbpleg  It makes sense in China where they build long highways with electrical power running alongside. It makes no sense for cities or shorter routes because of the need to bring in pylons or overhead cables.
    1
  1660. I think there were a few 4 valve OHV engines. The difficulty is hydraulic lifters or double the number of rockers.
    1
  1661.  @2handsandwiches  No we don't, that's a silly conspiracy theory. But in fact the Rothschild family have been extremely patriotic, helping the UK buy the Suez Canal and even being in SIS in WW2. For some reason they don't like Nazis or other far right organisations.
    1
  1662. I'm afraid SH once she strolls outside her domain of expertise just repeats the old joke about the physicist who decides to become a farmer. "Start by postulating a perfectly spherical cow."
    1
  1663.  @ricomajestic  Out of curiosity, what is your profession?
    1
  1664. Trump has certainly beaten Hitler by firing more generals in a much shorter time.
    1
  1665. Even Mogg could not have brought in such a level of cretinous stupidity, he just said it for the elderly dimwits who think the Telegraph is a newspaper.
    1
  1666. It's a pity you ended the video with someone who clearly has serious mental health issues. I still remember that in my S level physics paper more than half a century ago there was a question about how much energy could be extracted from the diurnal heating and cooling of a metal rod. It was very small, not enough for the Daedalus machine, but today you could probably power a basic digital watch with it if you didn't mind carrying around 5kg of steel rod encased in a low expansion ceramic tube, and a delicate system of levers on top.
    1
  1667. One source of the success of frauds is being demonstrated in these comments: People who are wedded to the self-serving lies of narcissistic politicians who want to claim credit for simple solutions to complex problems.
    1
  1668. That only applies till after Holocaust Memorial Day.
    1
  1669.  @BmacRDX  Some British motorcycles had aluminium conrods, but that was because (a) surplus metal after WW2 but (b) weight for weight an aluminium rod will have a higher modulus than a steel one. However, Triumph used steel rod caps, which makes the point that fatigue in tension is worse than fatigue in compression for aluminium.
    1
  1670.  @paulnewman9275  Aceman SE £36000. The Countryman isn't a mini, it's a small 4WD BMW with a Mini body kit added. I think you're referring to the open top version. The Aceman is made in Oxford which last time I looked was a little way from China. I was considering it for our next EV but I do like the look of the top of the range Renault.
    1
  1671.  @paulnewman9275  So you carefully selected the most expensive top of the range electric Mini and then added £4000 worth of extras.
    1
  1672. And your solution is?
    1
  1673. They are over 5 years old, so even with a replacement battery might not realise the replacement cost.
    1
  1674. "Patriotism is the last resort of the scoundrel" is exactly what is happening here. Prices going up, government falling apart...trust me, I'm patriotic.
    1
  1675. I think actually it's the American voting public that will go down in history as the worst ever. They don't even have the excuse of the Germans in 1933 that there had been a massive financial crisis just five years before.
    1
  1676. You've obviously not looked at total cost of ICEVs. If you think any vehicle other than a bamboo framed bicycle is environmentally friendly, think again. Engine oil, for instance, is loaded with additives that have to be disposed of, and engines themselves use a lot of nickel, cobalt and manganese. Cleaning up oil results in a lot of coke and sulfur production as well as burnoff gases. You just aren't aware of them. On the environment front I do not think there is much in it except clean air in towns. But that is sufficiently important to be worth fixing, even if it means only EVs allowed into cities.
    1
  1677. @ ULEZ brings in no money for most drivers. You're proposing an extremely expensive solution that would require everybody without an EV to buy a new car, rather than simply (say) a scheme to help people get old cars off the road. Nobody I know has to pay ULEZ.
    1
  1678.  @betterdonotanswer  I think Germany and Japan started WW2 with the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Manchuria, to be exact.
    1
  1679.  @betterdonotanswer  You are partially correct: Hitler took over the Sudetenland in 1938 without a war and then actually invaded the rest in 1939. The Japanese invasion of China has to be seen in the context of US economic war against Japan, and Japanese threats to Russia - why Stalin collaborated with Germany, could not afford a two front war - so yes the Japanese attack on Manchuria did involve the USA and the USSR and had the prospect of becoming a much wider conflict. I am unable to understand the point you are trying to make by introducing a very simplistic view of history.
    1
  1680. His lawyers will have told him it's a federal crime so Trump will pardon him. Americans really don't seem to understand they have actually voted to be run by the Mob, but they have.
    1
  1681. You realise that for Musk to become officially President, the US will need to annex South Africa? Perhaps that's his plan. Get his hands on the gold, diamonds, and a big source of cheap labour.
    1
  1682. I think you mean Syria. The short answer is that Assad's government treated women better than most other countries in the region, and now they are going to be Talibanised. The Republican Party doesn't care about its own women, it certainly doesn't care about ones in the ME. It doesn't even get excited when Israel kills US women.
    1
  1683. I'm surprised he has gone for Austin, it's the most left wing part of Texas. (I.e. slightly to the left of Genghiz Kham rather than well over to the right.)
    1
  1684. Converting all cars to EV will not fix climate change. There are other good reasons for EVs and we have one, but they will have little effect on global warming. BYD is overtaking Tesla with more appropriate EVs for world markets. BMW has overtaken them in Europe. Focussing on spreading far right white supremacist propaganda through Xwitter has taken Musk's eye completely off the ball.
    1
  1685. He doesn't come up with ideas. He sees an idea and thinks how he could make money off it. Starlink = Reagan's Star Wars. SpaceX = Copy of what NASA wanted to do. Tesla = acquisition Solar rooftiles, Boring company, Hyperloop - flops.
    1
  1686.  @Bald_Fred  He is not a good business leader. He is a manipulator.
    1
  1687. You think Badenoch is clever enough to work that out? She seems to understand very little about (a) this country (b) political economy and (c) how to avoid putting your foot in it.
    1
  1688. With Musk it is always about the money. I suggest that because environmentalists have been campaigning against the expansion of Tesla in Germany, he wants to promote a party that will do what he wants. His problem is that Tesla got German government support, but now Daimler, VAG and BMW are getting seriously into EVs. He wants to keep the flow of taxpayer money to him before it's too late. Every single one of his mindfarts is about his bottom line, whether it's people he sees as threatening it or people in his business who want to be treated decently.
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  1689. This is American style litigation coming over here. It's instructive to see how many Cons MPs and ex-MPs have strong connections to the US Republicans. My own feeling is that they are right, they are an ethnic minority subject to discrimination due to their reigious beliefs (Aryan superiority) and we should get the UN to help us establish a national homeland for them, possibly in Texas (some of their ancestors drove out the locals in Texas in the 1800s, why not do it again?)
    1
  1690. He wants to destroy the Education Department because his fake university scam was shut down. He wants to stop NIH vaccine research because they said his ideas about the pandemic were wrong. He is an oppositional narcissist. And apparently sane people voted for him.
    1
  1691. Mandelson will be dealing with Foggy Bottom, not Mar-a-Lago. What do you think the Harvard and Yale graduates in the State Department think of Trump but can't say out loud?
    1
  1692.  @NoahSpurrier  Except that Great Britain really was first, Babbage had the idea in the first half of the 19th century, Turing published On Computable Numbers in 1937, and the first complete electronic computer was built at Manchester, UK. This video is as flawed as Hollywood making it up that a Naval Enigma was captured by a US ship. It wasn't...why does the USA which leads in so many things constantly have to lie about who was first to discover or invent something?
    1
  1693.  @davidwright7193  Yes but by that point they were getting a bit mixed.
    1
  1694.  @Cruisecontrol67  That's stalemate not catastrophic defeat. Try to be objective and try talking to some actual Ukrainian refugees about what is happening.
    1
  1695.  @Cruisecontrol67  By that logic Germany lost WW1 in 1915, but nobody told them.
    1
  1696.  @jon-kp2rq  In English?
    1
  1697.  @redrick8900  The EU has regulations on belts, airbags etc. to protect driver and passengers.
    1
  1698.  @redrick8900  They are not cars, they are 4 or 3 wheeled motorcycles (Quadricycles and tricycles) mostly limited to 45kph.
    1
  1699. That was Volvo, and when the amount of renewables generation was a lot lower. (Actually they will never be carbon neutral, 70k was the point at which they undertook ICE Volvos.)
    1
  1700.  @MC-nb6jx  The point I was making is that out of 5 recent EVs not one is a Tesla, and it isn't because people can't afford them. Nothing to do with EV versus ICE.
    1
  1701. I have solar PV. Let's say 10 million feasible houses at £8000 a go. That's actually quite a bit more than Hinkley Point. It's 40 TWH a year. Hinkley will produce about 20TWH/year. The problem is seasonal variation, however. Hinkley produces its power all winter and at night. Wind turbines too are variable in output. Hinkley's 20TWH is of more economic value than 40TWH of solar. My EV is a net consumer of power from the grid almost all winter, and I export a lot in summer as well as charging the car. An economy that runs in daylight for 6 months of the year won't be very productive.
    1
  1702. King David was a psychopath, Saul either manic depressive or paranoid schizophrenic.
    1
  1703.  @CaptHollister  Rotary valves do have their problems though, and I have heard of them breaking up. They need good lubrication because they rub against their enclosure, and they flip from side to side as the pressure changes. This also means that they need oil injection in front of the valve, or petroil. Reed valves don't have the lubrication problem.
    1
  1704.  @paradiselost9946  You've obviously never seen a Trabant engine dismantled. Someone did it. If you feed between two pairs of cylinders you have two problems: one is a very wide engine, and the other is that the gas has to do a 90 degree direction change which restricts breathing. As for feeding through the crankshaft, how do you intend to get the gas round the big ends? Excelsior actually tried something similar in the 1930s and the power output was very poor, along with needing a lot of lubricant. Bends slow down airflow. Reeds do not work the way you say. There is a single flap over the inlet, the reed is not parallel to a flat surface. Any pressure reduction due to the airflow is countered by the still air in back of the reed achieving roughly the same pressure, so aerofoil lift really is not an issue. The RD350LC produced 47BHP at 8500 rpm, 134BHP per litre. That's not bad for a road bike.
    1
  1705. White Apartheid South African, what do you expect? My mother was PA to the MD of a company that had a factory in South Africa. On his wall he had two framed letters. One was from a black South African applying for a job. The other one was from the employment ministry telling him that this man could not be given the job because black people are not intelligent enough. Guess which one was in perfect English and which one was barely literate?
    1
  1706.  @believeroflight9888  He was actually executed because he was trying to persuade the young to prefer aristocracy to democracy, and then refused to go into exile.
    1
  1707. Neanderthals may have been more intelligent than modern humans (bigger brains), they just lived in small groups and were adversely affected by climate change. Europeans and white Americans are typically about 4% Neanderthal. Trump is a Mafia thug who went to Wharton - even if someone else sat his exams.
    1
  1708. The invention of Lotus 1-2-3 caused many banks to lend money to bad businesses because the bankers were impressed with spreadsheets. (Nitpick - a viola is a musical instrument. Voilà (see there in French) is what you want. )
    1
  1709.  @thstroyur  We are all laypeople to somebody else in a different field.
    1
  1710. Starmer is the PM, not some sort of vigilante. Farage is a drama queen self-publicist, also not really a vigilante.
    1
  1711. "First thing we need to do is get all the weirdos and saddos out of the Party." "But then we won't have any MPs."
    1
  1712. Probably of Scots origin, from Farquhar.
    1
  1713.  @frankyyaggabot6222  No, that's the exact opposite. Israel is a State in the near East. Its government is awful. But the great majority of Jews are perfectly ordinary, respectable people. Saudi Arabia is a State in the Middle East. Its government is awful. But the great majority of Muslims are perfectly ordinary, respectable people. Islamophobia and ant-Semitism are both irrational hatreds of the followers of two closely related religions. Being anti-Likud or anti-the Saudi government are reasonable political positions.
    1
  1714. ULEZ is an EV incentive.
    1
  1715. In Purgatorio, Canto 16, Dante discusses good and bad government. His character says: "Onde convenne legge per fren porre; convenne rege aver, che discernesse de la vera cittade almen la torre." Therefore the laws were needed as a brake (i.e. curb on bad men) And there is need of a king who can at least make out the tower of the True City." Trump, Vance and Musk reject and ignore the laws, and have no higher goal in mind than their own power and wealth. If Vance is correct in saying that Europe has not invested enough in its security, he is saying it for the wrong reason: because we are in this situation due to the US attempt to take over the world, starting in 1990, and using Europe as a tool. Without NATO in the post-1990 era, without the US bases, Europe could have Europeanised Russia, to the benefit of everybody but with a great relative reduction in US power.
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  1716. Electric motors have been around for 200 years. Liquid cooled ones have been around for over a century. It takes VAG to make one that leaks.
    1
  1717. I thought her income was already jug-based?
    1
  1718. Mein Kampf is a tedious book full of lies and nonsense but it is written in a style that aligned with German culture of the era. Yaxley-Lennon doesn't have the ability, he's a "misleading video" kind of white-winger, not a book. And who reads books any more?
    1
  1719. Admiral Grace Hopper was involved in the development of the first high level programming language, COBOL. It's still around.
    1
  1720. Or the entire US government whose work make it possible for him to become President.
    1
  1721.  @xiaoka  There will be places inside the matrix where the fibres are in tension. The pressure on the outside is 40MPa. The pressure on the inside is 100kPa. This means that there is a bowing force trying to push the hull inward which to a degree is resisted by the innermost longitudinal fibres in tension. Of course if the fibres are wound circumferentially that's of no use whatsoever, but it doesn't affect the fact that the innermost layer of the hull is in longitudinal tension to some extent. Which is part of why ships have spars as well as frames.
    1
  1722. Light blue is the best colour. It's why it is also used for gloves and finger bandages in food processing and machine erection.
    1
  1723.  @Themanwithnoname386  The US is where high tax rates correlate with high incomes. Trump's gutting the federal government will act to the advantage of blue states and disadvantage of Trump states. But the rubes don't know that.
    1
  1724.  @samsonsoturian6013  I did.
    1
  1725.  @dlevi67  Look, anybody with a name like Turnbull knows God is English and foreigners don't count. Stephen could well be mythical anyway, as is anything prior to about 120CE when documents start to cross reference.
    1
  1726.  @dlevi67  You sent me back to check lithos versus petros. You are correct, lithos is used for stones used in the advanced Hebrew legal system (!) whereas petros is used for the disciple. I haven't gone further than that.
    1
  1727.  @dlevi67  I think that's a retro formation. The word "petros" is from PIE, lithos is later, but both have had all the meanings at different times.
    1
  1728. That would involve changing the company name and so affect the LR part of the company. It wouldn't be JLR any more.
    1
  1729.  @wbjxfkwsklejfde34d  This isn't the Soviet Union, you have a choice, and complaining that something doesn't suit you personally just looks like fussing. Renault don't care if you don't buy one. Why try to make the entire world car industry all about you?
    1
  1730. Oil leakage causing detonation, and fuel diluting the oil, were problems with the DB series. The original Zündapp boxer motorcycle had a cylinder angle of, I think, 170 degrees or even less, so that the oil would drain back, at least in sidecar form. In my view BMW should have gone for a wide angle V. The difference in vibration wouldn't have been much, though it would be on the rather silly huge boxer they are now making.
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  1731.  @mnomadvfx  DeLorean used expensive but corrosion resistant 316. Cybertruck uses an alloy from the 300 series, which marks but is much cheaper.
    1
  1732. In the USA, access to charging points. Elsewhere they are reasonably cheap, the Ford of EVs for people who want a bit of speed but can't afford a BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Volvo etc.
    1
  1733. You can't be "charged with prison time". Do try to make some sort of sense.
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  1734. It depends on the available power to the site. IIRC, earlier Tesla installations were often put in without considering how much power was available. In one case I believe Tesla assumed they would get a wayleave for pylons across a farm and the farmer turned them down.
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  1735. The US civil war was between two cities only 140 miles apart, and the NI problem is due to two similr but different working class communities living in the same small patch.
    1
  1736. Been the case ever since Saul of Tarsus invented his own revelation and made a takeover bid.
    1
  1737.  @DKNguyen3.1415  He means dimensions not axis then. And it really doesn't work like that. Midair collisions are rare, but most aircraft accidents happen near the ground. Just as most ship collisions happen in harbours.
    1
  1738.  @DKNguyen3.1415  When engineers refer to axes they are talking about machinery, and it's derived from rorating machinery like lathes; axis is from the same Latin root as axle; scientists are referring to directions in a crystal which are not usally all at 90 degrees, e.g. monoclinic or hexagonal. Dimensions on the other hand imply directions in space which have no proection onto one another. In an aircraft or spacecraft when we talk about axes they are rotational, roll, pitch and yaw. They are local to the craft, not its movement in space where for aircraft we use gravity (altitude), latitude and longitude as dimensions relative to the Earth's surface.
    1
  1739.  @martinogold  Only in the US, which is only 5% of world population. You may not like it, but much of the world either doesn't care about Ukraine or is actually pro-Russian. Trump is probably winning the most hated stakes by a large margin.
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  1740. The front end of BMWs looks like a butt but hardly anybody mentions it.
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  1741.  @Harrythehun  Presumably the Renault 5 manages it.
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  1742. CAN bus is real time. PoE isn't. But the main objection is that what you describe would involve putting the inverter in the hub along with the motor. What would work for little DC motors like window and wiper controllers won't work if you need a liquid cooled inverter in the wheel as well as the motor.
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  1743.  @ryuuguu01  I have no idea what you mean. And I used to be a real time systems designer.
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  1744.  @ryuuguu01  You know there is no such thing as "Ethernet wiring"? Ethernet is a set of protocols. First Ethernet connection I ever made used a 25mm diameter coaxial cable. Hence my confusion over your post. You're also describing IP (Internet Protocol) not Ethernet. I suspect Musk is just trying to save money with a different design of wiring harness and protocol and surrounds it with his usual marketing bullshit, like "autopilot".
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  1745. Anybody who has spent serious amounts of time studying the Third Reich will be aware that the Trumpists are copying its methods to the letter.
    1
  1746. Bloomberg already explained it. Shares and the dollar are rising because of irrational investors emotionally involved with Trump. Wall Street will happily take their money, then sell short a few months down the line. They care about trading profit, not the economy.
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  1747. Trump thought that The Apprentice is how business really works, because up to then he had left everything to the people put in charge by his father. Mafiosi. The problem has been that the low-IQ rubes also thought The Apprentice was really how business works.
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  1748.  @birdinthebush  Bill Gates and Warren Buffett want a word.
    1
  1749. @SP-qe2cr Um...the Hebrews lived in Palestine from about 1200BCE to 600, when they were exiled to Babylon because of the trouble they were causing. After they went back, they were exiled by the Romans in about 70CE. Modern Israel has little to do with the pre-70CE people, in fact very Orthodox Jews say it is an illegitimate State because it was not restored by the Messiah and the Temple has not been rebuilt. By your standard, Native Americans have a much better case to drive out all the white colonists since their occupation was uncontested from at least 3600BCE to about 1650CE - over 5000 years.
    1
  1750.  @bryanbobbie9590  Agreed. Many Buddhists are "cultural Buddhists" just as many Americans are "cultural Christians". It's only the shallowest surface of their lives.
    1
  1751.  @deanwakley8357  Not entirely, lawyers, doctors, dentists, scientists and engineers are all middle class. My father used to say the test was, are you in business for yourself or could you walk away from your job without worrying? If not, you are a wage slave.
    1
  1752. Catholics versus Protestants coming to a country very near you. Luther, the founder of Protestantism, supported the billionaire equivalents of his day against the general population. That's why Auden identified Protestantism as the ultimate cause of the rise of Hitler. Well, you've just seen the Protestants give you what is potentially Hitler 2. Because they are still anti-women and anti-non white people, and they still distort the Gospels to money worship.
    1
  1753.  @peachesp2979  But the people Vance is addressing will. We're an Anglo-Indian family, we all live in and near London where nobody cares what colour you are outside a few ghetto areas.
    1
  1754.  @evancourtney7746  Er, no. Those 1940s sleeve valve engines had far lower BHP/litre than a modern poppet valve engine and were already in trouble with sleeves bulging into ports and out of round problems. The final Sabre prototype was still under 100BHP/litre. Today even quite ordinary engines routinely achieve 125bhp/litre.
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  1755. Oh, don't worry, Musk is transmit only (TX Only). He doesn't listen on any frequency unless someone important directly insults him.
    1
  1756. Musk's takeover seems basically to be the same idea as the Islamists in Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Like them it is directed against women and non-members of a social group - here, non-white people. He seems to be trying to turn the US into Apartheid South Africa - which is after all where he grew up. None of those states have been terribly successful.
    1
  1757. It isn't "odd" at all. The President has a car factory in China. There is also the small point that China produces over 90% of some materials critical to US industry that would take years to replace. Trump's tariffs are rather as if Southern England decided to impose them on goods from the Midlands and North during the Industrial Revolution.
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  1758. Common factor? Public Schools and Masonic handshakes.
    1
  1759.  @thisguyshorty3554  And to get the clearances correct.
    1
  1760. I suspect MI5 has told Starmer that the police force is not big enough to control the riots if an attempt is made to join the EU. Think of hundreds of Southports.
    1
  1761.  @Humanity101-zp4sq  So is St. Paul's Cathedral. So are the Pyramids, La Scala and the Bol'shoi. Where in your utilitarian world do you stop?
    1
  1762.  @Humanity101-zp4sq  Yes. They were built as an expression of pride and power by the upper classes in society. I excluded the Duomo in Firenze because that was actually built by the civis and used as a public meeting place. But the others were foci for the rich and powerful. And what has "when" got to do with it? Human nature doesn't change.
    1
  1763. To be fair, Hugo Boss is respectable these days and my HB suit has lasted extremely well.
    1
  1764. Leapmotor has gone into business with Stellantis and the Chinese-made Smarts are looked after by Mercedes dealers. SAIC ("MG") is doing very well in Australia. But I agree about avoiding Tesla, ORA and a number of others.
    1
  1765.  @patrickgriffiths889  Indeed, neglecting the third derivative of position in cam design is a good start on premature engine failure.
    1
  1766. @PeterPete Certainly the Tank Regiment dodged a missile there.
    1
  1767. The main reason for the ban is so parents can tell their children to do what they need to do without getting so much pushback.
    1
  1768. All this uproar to deflect from the fact that Musk is shutting down USAID because it was investigating potential corruption in his Ukraine business. Presumably he hopes to get his goons to delete any evidence. This is what needs to be focussed on: you have a big crook running loose covering up while Trump gets everybody excited.
    1
  1769.  @velez910  Oil is cheaper than drills. And in fact you can use soda water on that kind of work, it's more coolant than lubricant.
    1
  1770. China is making them for a lot less than $15k.
    1
  1771. This is what happens when any field runs out of steam and progress is very slow. The Talmud and the Mishnah is what happens when you have a religious book which is supposed to be authoritative and people become increasingfly desperate to add their own two cents. Then you got Christianity and it started all over again with people writing enormous textbooks supposedly to explain a few sentences from a first century CE street teacher. With time everything original gets said and the signal to noise ratio decreases. With physics there are fewer and fewer genuinely new experimental results, and more and more graduates, and the rest follows. Meanwhile, subjects like genetics and biochemistry have a very long way to go before they run out of new material, and it's hard to keep up even in general terms as a lay person.
    1
  1772. The mast represented about 10% of the sail area. What do you think would be the surface area of two smaller masts?
    1
  1773. Trump does not seem to understand that 94% of the people of the world live outside the US. Nor do many Americans.
    1
  1774. They were moored and the adjacent yacht which was nearly as big weathered the storm.
    1
  1775.  @quentagonthornton49  Plastics can be diecast into shapes impossible for metal castings. And it isn't strength to weight ratio but rigidity. It's like boats - you could make a steel hull lighter than a GRP one for a small boat, but for the same strength the steel would be so thin it woud dent very easily. That's why big ships are steel and small boats are GRP, the thickness of the big ship hull for strength is sufficient to make it sufficiently rigid. Unless you hit an iceberg which the GRP boat would survive and the big ship would not. If you look at old pressed valve covers they distort very easily and always leak oil. A plastic one of the same weight would be seven times thicker, and that means much more rigid, so it can be screwed down all the way round and not leak.
    1
  1776. @ It depends on the plastic and the conditions. Glass fibre epoxy can last over 50 years in the ordinary environment. The problem comes when valve covers get too hot for too long, and I think Germans have tried to use "eco" plastics with a short life. I'm not for or against plastics in engineering, but for the best material for the job. That should not be an accountant decision. But for instance a cheap replaceable oil sump that dents if hit by a rock and lasts 5 years may be better than an aluminium one that cracks when it is hit and dumps all the oil, or a pressed steel one that quickly develops leaks. So maintenance chedules do become important.
    1
  1777. @ I put a 5 tonne 12 HP Crossley engine in a Mini-Cooper, it's completly reliable because it won't move. Why are you wrong? Because a badly designed large engine will still fail. Early car engines were often over 4 litres, turned at around 1400rpm, and produced about 30BHP. They were also extremely unreliable because of poor metallurgy, poor design, and poor manufacturing. The 1 litre 3 cylinder Daihatsu engine that powered many small Asian and European cars is known to be very reliable and produces about 68BHP.
    1
  1778. Warum "in dieser Art und Weise"? Brexit war eine böse Dummheit.
    1
  1779. Maybe you shouldn't have taken all the oil, overthrown the democratic government in Iran, supported a Crusader state in Palestine founded by Eastern Europeans and Americans, first supported and then attacked Iraq? The USA and the UK were heavily involved in dismantling any chance of an advanced civilisation in the Near and Middle East.
    1
  1780.  @johndennington5136  But the West did destroy the East in pursuit of oil, as well as committing genocide in the Americas and impoverishing India. Your reply is like looking at Europe post-WW2 and saying "That's right, blame the Nazis!"
    1
  1781.  @claudemontezin911  The stuff Trump takes. We should worry.
    1
  1782. The BBC legitimated Farage and Reform. Will they accept responsibility? Answers on a postage stamp with NO on the back.
    1
  1783. MAGAs with guns. Also known as the SA in the 1930s.
    1
  1784.  @JohnCharles-m9g  Hitler pretended to be socialist right up till he was elected, whereupon he stopped all socialist policies. UKIP had a manifesto right up till Farage disowned it. Any similarity is deliberate.
    1
  1785. "Sky's Laura Bundock has been meeting NHS nurses who welcome the ruling." Weasel words not exactly saying that she carefully did not meet any who did not. And thus Trumpism enters this country.
    1
  1786.  @liquiddevil7396  No, it wasn't. The first settlers went there because the government would not let them enforce their strict Puritanism on their neighbours. The American Revolution was against a German king who was also unpopular in Great Britain. But the key bit of "tyranny" they objected to was that he was in the process of getting a law passed to stop settlers driving Native Americans off their lands. The rest of it was fluff. It's funny how "British tyranny" was so bad that during the Napoleonic Wars the British and French in Canada united with the Native Americans to repel an American invasion under Madison.
    1
  1787. Trump is going to win, because too many American men will vote with the contents of their underpants, and Harris has the wrong pigmentation but above all lacks a Y chromosome. Add in the women brainwashed by their churches into believing women must never be put above a man, and you have the recipe. It's funny in a way that, having overthrown Iranian democracy in 1953, the USA is slowly turning into a richer, more populous Iran-a-like complete with suppression of women, loony religion, and worship of militarism.
    1
  1788. Good point. He bitterly resents anything Obama got that he didn't.
    1
  1789. The Chinese have built a giant deepwater port in Chile. They will now build railways to the East coast of South America so Brazilian soya and so on do not have to pass Panama. Eurasia will eventually belong to China. So will Africa. If South American goes that way, MAGA will end up in control of Canada and Mexico, a sixteenth of the world in total, rather than control half the world as it does at the moment.
    1
  1790. @ Don't forget DEI involves finding roles for people of limited intelligence or with mental health problems, addicts and convicts, as well as women and non-white people.
    1
  1791. Turing extended the work of Boole to devise the Turing machine which is in concept the basis of all numeric computing.
    1
  1792.  @f.n8581  Turing 1936 paper.
    1
  1793. Spending vast amounts of money to prove the Earth was at the centre of the universe and then employing Kepler to analyse his results and prove him wrong was pretty good.
    1
  1794. Never existed. Look at your cults: JWs, Mormons, Scientologists. Americans are remarkably easily taken in by con-men (or con-women). You haven't been invaded enough to develop healthy cynicism like Europeans.
    1
  1795. Planned for the plebs so people like him and his mates - like Cameron - can do what they like.
    1
  1796.  @user-og1de7dd3d  Thanks for making the point about MAGA anti-intellectualism. Perhaps one notch up from calling someone "Einstein", but also perhaps you don't know that people have turned down Rhodes scolarahips because of the association with an out and out white supremacist. Ever heard of Rhodesia?
    1
  1797. Why no manual? Because the combination of 5l V8 and typical clueless driver = big warranty claims for destroyed clutches and broken gear teeth. When V8s were 140BHP or similar it wasn't a problem, but few people are safe around a 400BHP plus manual.
    1
  1798. "You cannoit serve God and Money." "It is easier for a mooring rope to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Some Jewish guy. "Money money money" - modern day Evangelical "pastors" claiming to say what he really wanted.
    1
  1799. You are correct: a recent study suggested post-2020 EVs will probably last about 18 years. Unlike engines, battery cells are getting cheaper with time.
    1
  1800.  @John-b1l6t  One of my family is a judge and cannot take any political positions in public.
    1
  1801. If the rockets get funding, who cares if they bust? That's not my department, says Elon von Musk. (after Tom Lehrer).
    1
  1802. Since the United States is the primry example of European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere, if it were true that would be staggering hypocrisy. But actually the Monroe Doctrine is "The only land thieves allowed in the Americas are the citizens of the USA".
    1
  1803.  @MrDino1953  There are plenty of Audi A2s still in service as well. Audi with their racing experience will know exactly how to design such a thing. The warning bells ran when Tesla boasted about their single "gigacasting" or whatever. There is a big difference between casting and rolling when it comes to metallurgy. The A2 panels are formed out of rolled sheets. Boats are made out of sheets on extruded frames. Large castings are prone to shorts (when the metal flows in different directions meet and fail to melt into one another properly) as well as slag inclusions. Aluminium can be used in stressed members such as pistons and cylinder blocks, but the gigacasting might have too many compromises due to its size and complexity.
    1
  1804. Trump has got where he is because he is at bottom a Mafia boss who will attack anybody who tries to stop him doing what he wants. People, even judges, are frightened of retaliation in a country with more guns than people and the worst mental health services in the developed world. People voted for it.
    1
  1805.  @Bob-k3v7l  Really? Many would argue he sold us to the Russians, only to jump ship when he realised that being pro-Ukraine looked better.
    1
  1806. @ Not being part of an unsustainable empire that is past its peak and flailing to stay on top.
    1
  1807. HSS is intended for cutting at moderately high temperatures, not for strength. And the grade of titanium is extremely important - a lot of titanium alloys will crack, not deform. As for brass, there are many different ones. This one broke, but free cutting brass used for a lot of decorative and domestic work will bend back on itself before it breaks. Brasses contain varying mounts of copper, zinc, tin and lead, and pure 58% copper/42% zinc can be deep drawn.
    1
  1808.  @miriamhavard7621  "But if they do not have self-control, they should marry, since it is better to marry than to burn with desire." I don't think that supports your reading.
    1
  1809. The US is already in a full Constitutional crisis since SCOTUS made the President a king. It's just taking Americans much longer to realise it than the rest of the world. The old democracies have been through stuff like this. The US has yet to learn.
    1
  1810. It's a shame that the Ivy League educated people at Foggy Bottom could prost****e themselves to produce this, but then it's an equal shame that the Oxford educated members of the Conservative Party can also lie with a straight face. The motto of Oxford is "Dominus illuminatio mea", the Lord is my light, and the motto of Yale is "Lux et veritas", so at least they are both equally hypocritical when it comes to politics.
    1
  1811.  @brendanbarker6403  Of course not; that would be sexual assault.
    1
  1812. He's a businessman with just enough engineering knowledge to make persuasive pitches.
    1
  1813. The root problem is surely that at the heart of any scientific discovery is an inductive step which is not logical. Logic is tautologous. Imagine an AI Kepler trying to work out the orbits of the planets from observations. It has never been trained on fitting observations to ellipses so it cannot recognise the pattern. Or an AI replacing Jocelyn Bell examining all those radio telescope traces, and just kicking out the peculiar bumps... Or an AI for some reason putting a photographic plate next to a jar of uranium salts and then finding out the plate is fogged...
    1
  1814.  @KingGenoOfficial  No he didn't. He just did not remove existing sanctions. Remember if he opens his mouth, he's lying,
    1
  1815. He really meant Nebraska.
    1
  1816.  @gregorygant4242  You completely missed my point. Engineering makes extensive use of applied chemistry. What do you think metallurgy, adhesive and composite development, new compounds for gaskets and O rings, cements, ceramics and cermets, platings and paints are (just the first things off the top of my head) if not applied chemistry that apply to engineering? Human factors design and ergonomics are examples of biology applied to engineering. You are reading it completely backward; I'm not saying engineering takes in all of those fields, I am saying the Venn diagrams overlap. Sounds like you're a student not anyone with significant experience.
    1
  1817.  @gregorygant4242  I'm sorry I failed to get your brilliantly articulated point. I hope you're taking the statins.
    1
  1818. And here's theUSB-C microphone and phone app to detect them, $20 on Ali-Express or $20000 in an approved version to the DoD.
    1
  1819. To be fair, in the tables of horror, the Allies as well as the Germans developed nerve agents of which "novichok" is simply a more potent derivative. Whether it takes a whole drop or a tenth of a drop to kill someone is mainly of academic interest. The fact is that Russians deployed a WMD in this country and technically NATO should have jointly responded, but did not. If that bottle had smashed in a shopping centre or a school, there could have been dozens, perhaps hundreds, of deaths. Putin intended a test and a warning. He may even have chosen Skripal and Salisbury to see how Porton Down would respond. The warning was "I could kill thousands of people in a city." The test was how NATO would respond. NATO failed to respond militarily and the rest followed.
    1
  1820. " Trump voters realize"? They will explain it away. The inflation is caused by Denmark not giving the US Greenland, or something. Musk is trying a McCarthy 2, only this time it's women and non-white people. Trump has already blamed them for a crash involving all white male helicopter crew. Expect more of it.
    1
  1821.  @petrolhead4503  Nonsense. Wheels make very little difference to range.
    1
  1822. But Musk hasn't got the disposable. He was trying to get a huge cash payment from Tesla which would have crashed the stock but given him vast liquidity. So far he has been blocked. If he sells a few billion of Tesla shares, the price will fall like a stone due to oversupply. Tesla is a Veblen share.
    1
  1823. Probably be Musk, and he'll sell Ukraine Cybertrucks with shotguns and call them "full self driving tanks".
    1
  1824. China's entire message to other countries as "We are reliable, we believe in free trade, we will not overthrow your government." Trump's (+Musk's) message is "We are unreliable, we do not believe in free trade, we will undermine your government by any means possible if you dare to oppose us any way." I realise that a lot of US voters are either ignorant or contemptuous of the rest of the world, but the US is only 5% of world population. That's an awful lot of people to annoy.
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  1825. Two tier policing indeed. I'm afraid people like me - white, Oxbridge, RP when it suits - tend to get on well with the police, certainly at the higher levels. People like you on the other hand - if you ever get arrested get a solicitor and shut up when they tell you to. That's how it is for people like Farage and Tice...
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  1826. Since the UK is supporting Ukraine, does this mean that we should withdraw from Five Eyes and demand US spying bases leave our country, as they are pro-Russian?
    1
  1827. You assume anybody in their right mind gives Trump sensitive information.
    1
  1828. Trump only knows people he saw on TV, that is literally his system. He talks about swamps but as no more than an NY mafia style property developer, he neither understands government nor knows where to go for competence. Even Adolf had the sense to leave the bureaucracy intact, but for which his régime would probably have collapsed before 1939.
    1
  1829.  @picklethepirate  Missing the point - Applebaum is worried that Poland will be Putin's next land grab and that Trump will allow it in exchange for concessions.
    1
  1830. Any military organisation that doesn't check bulk hardware purchases for supply chain and booby traps is a bit incompetent. It looks like they have got very careless. You don't need a lot of C4 in a pager to do localised damage but, even so, it wouldn't be hard to detect. When you are dealing with perhaps the most uncrupulous and paranoid militaries in the world, this is the sort of thing you expect - especially as the Mossad has used phone bombs in the past, and there will be KGB-trained people at high levels.
    1
  1831.  @RoboticRaindrops  Did you pay for your copy of Roget? Speaking of fiction, Le Carré, who really was in SIS for a while, would have given you gamma minus for that bit of trying to write on stilts. Too many overblown adjectives, too much supposed ad hominem, no content.
    1
  1832.  @RoboticRaindrops  I am not trying to be clever. You are. That's the difference. And enough pandering to your narcissism right now.
    1
  1833.  @SirAntoniousBlock  Musk spotted ideas that might get government funding and then bought into them.
    1
  1834. @ Oh, they are qualified for the jobs Trump wants them for, though. Gofer, hitman, guy who burns down buildings for insurance scams.
    1
  1835. Timing - the Leapmotor TO3 just arrived. It's a very hopeful sign - a much cheaper replacement for the Smart Forfour and the Twingo (which never sold well here).
    1
  1836. Mercury, Ivanka, Trump America, Musk, Hisanus.
    1
  1837. What did for the Germans was a shortage of critical materials, nickel, manganese, cobalt,chromium, meaning that their engines were limited in power by valve burn. It wasn't helped with the D-B engines by cylinder head design defects which worsened the valve problem. The invasion of Morocco was to deny the Germans cobalt and tin and was highly successful in crippling their aircraft engine design. That with (eventually) bombing the fuel production plants was what did for the Luftwaffe.
    1
  1838. Er no, Land of Hope and Glory is about colonial expansion. God Save the King is an anti-Scots song, they just miss out most of the verses. Rule Britannia is an injunction to the Royal Navy to control the world's shipping.
    1
  1839.  @HD46409  You can read Israel's own assessment of those missiles. They don't agree with you and they are worried about them.
    1
  1840.  @HD46409  I actually read the Israeli defence evaluation, not Wikipedia.
    1
  1841. I personally wish I didn't know as much as I do about missiles and artillery. It's a bit like watching a cricket match but knowing that you cannot influence the outcome but it may result in the wrecking of the Northern Hemisphere.
    1
  1842.  @GregOrCreg  In the UK, class has little to do directly with money. OK the upper classes are usually rich but not always, whereas East London working class kids have become bank traders and made millions. Trump is rich working class by UK standards. Walz and Harris are middle class. Greene and Boebert are working class. It's all to do with what your social attitudes, attitudes to education and professionalism are like.
    1
  1843.  @thegrandmuftiofwakanda  I wrote "maths", not arithmetic or accountancy. If you don't understand the difference, don't bother commenting. Applying standard formulae to a design is arithmetic. Building a computer model of a structure is maths.
    1
  1844.  @thegrandmuftiofwakanda  *Opens certificates folder. *Yup, all there. *Definitely did not imagine 40 years career in science and engineering. *Ignores tröll.
    1
  1845.  @jamesbyrd3740  Take an issue that I do understand; how the ALU works in computers. Now try to explain it to someone who has never done binary arithmetic or Boolean algebra. Those things are pretty simple but explaining them in sequence till you get to an arithmetic unit would take a very long time. Saying "It takes two numbers from different places, adds them and saves them in another place" really isn't useful. For an economics example, explain Ricardo's Law to someone who has not been exposed to the idea of productivity. I'll wait...
    1
  1846. At the moment they seem to believe and stand for immigrants taking over their country so long as they are rich and white, and the rest of the world just looks on in amazement.
    1
  1847. Meeting Setright was a shock - I hadn't realised he was Orthodox Jewish. Great writer, very knowledgeable, his article on the Napier Nomad in particular was brilliant. Also his comment in Bike that 16 year olds shouldn't have been on the road on mopeds, they should be home doing their violin practice. A lot of people agreed with that.
    1
  1848. Cost and underinvestment.
    1
  1849. Not surprising since short wave radios are readily obtainable. I doubt Tesco could compete on price with the Internet. By the way, there are multiple short wave bands not one. And the Tesco one did not transmit so "freedom of speech" is nonsense.
    1
  1850. Do you think she's a deep penetration Reform mole? Destroy her own party banging on about the immigration they failed to manage, then jump ship to Reform in time for the next election and still bang on about immigration (if Labour have also been unable to control it.) At this point everybody in the Conservative Party and the Reform Company Limited can see that being lazy, intellectually vacuous and unwilling to learn has brought big dividends for Johnson, Truss and Farage. Why wouldn't they copy a winning formula?
    1
  1851.  @nathanevans6277  So has average UK intelligence as the people who voted Leave die off and are replaced by well qualified immigrants.
    1
  1852. @ You're bonkers. He was making an observation about his personal experience, not trying to promote himself. What is your problem?
    1
  1853.  @markhackett2302  "Our" problem? Royal we? Lay off the electric sauce before lunchtime, friend.
    1
  1854. @ What makes you think I don't know that? Contrary to what markhackett2302 thinks, I am not making stuff up.
    1
  1855. In Calum Douglas's excellent book The Secret Horsepower Race, he describes at length the problems Germany had with its direct injected, supercharged aero engines in WW2, trying to get more power while cutting costs. Every single problem the Germans had is resurfacing, oil dilution, bad sparks, pistons melting, dropped valve seats. In fact history is repeating itself 80 years later. It's almost as if it was all a bad idea.
    1
  1856. Sorry, having defeated the Nazis in WW2, the US is going to have to go through the same mistakes because you failed to fight to protect your democracy. The US now has its own Göring, Göbbels, Thyssen, Krupps and Bayers. The only hope for the US is that Trump lacks the intelligence to be Hitler. But Vance may not.
    1
  1857.  @michaelpieters1844  No, it's the MIC but not the military proper. In about 1993 my director of research (in industry) complained that the accountants didn't want to fund feasibility studies unless he could give them an 80% chance of them working out. Which rather negated the point of a feasibility study. He returned to university, I departed for a startup that actually made things and spent the next few years finding ways to do it cheaper and better. What industry does seem to want is to announce groundbreaking inventions that will get investors wetting their pants while using well established technology that they can sell as novel with a few tweaks, e.g. Tesla. But then they run into the fact that China and Korea really are doing R&D and are now eating their lunch. So, let's put our hands over our ears and pretend China doesn't exist or is just copying us. It will end in tears before bedtime.
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  1858. I guess because the USA still has the death penalty and refuses to recognise the ICC or the UDHR, Americans could apply for asylum in the EU if Trump threatens them.
    1
  1859. The Suzuki CVT (AISIN I believe) is absolutely fine. But these days people who want autos tend to go for EVs or hybrids instead. In really big cities like London, manuals are a PITA and manual drivers hold people up at traffic lights. So things are changing.
    1
  1860. Since when they are rushing out joint venture products and Honda is selling a badge engineered GM EV in the USA. Toyota have realised hydrogen will be too little too late, for cars. They placed too heavy a bet on the hydrogen infrastructure and extraction happening in a short timescale, despite how long it had taken for Diesel cars and for BEVs to ramp up.
    1
  1861. Trump's dementia and inability to control himself is accelerating.
    1
  1862. @ but what Biden?
    1
  1863. @ Well, none of them are, so that's a bit of a problem.
    1
  1864.  @EmetSheker  Tell me you won't vote for a woman without actually saying so. You'd rather have a vindictive, ignorant, senile man with an IQ around 80, who is determined to wreck alliances around the world in a delusional quest to make the US the capo de tutti capi of rogue régimes.
    1
  1865.  @AveCaesar2025  I assume you've only read US "history" books? Because your view of George III is very, very wrong. He had a great deal of power. So did later kings. Why did the UK go in with France in WW1? Because Edward was extremely pro-French and this affected foreign policy. I suggest you read some serious history, starting with the entries on George III on our Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. And try not to shout in capitals - it just looks like you are about 14.
    1
  1866.  @stevec700  I think it's a long word insult bot generator. That or a 13 year old at Eton.
    1
  1867.  @G0ldfingers  They didn't. Don't be silly.
    1
  1868. @ I don't know what all the commas are supposed to mean, but basically the UK looks after part of the ICBMs of the US on the subs we pay for.
    1
  1869. Too late. Did you read about Trump's Nazi rally in NY?
    1
  1870. Peterson trying to justify bullying. Because that is not the way you make progress in this world.
    1
  1871. How? You think Chairman Xi is watching you drive? Really the Chinese don't care about you.
    1
  1872.  @danielclemence3689  He doesn't have a clue about this country or its government. He sends off hundreds of tweets on different subjects while supposedly running four companies. He has the attention span of a gnat these days.
    1
  1873.  @danielclemence3689  There was another guy who created a transport revolution, funded aircraft development, started the space program, attempted to overthrow democracy with right wing propaganda and had millions of worshipping supporters. Adolf Hitler. He got this country wrong too.
    1
  1874.  @mrmeldrew693  20% of the UK workforce is not 20% of the population. Congratulations on reminding us why Leavce won; so many people who don't understand basic economics, statistics and population data.
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  1875. That isn't science, or even engineering, it's manufacturing. I resigned from a corporate job with a US company when the plant general manager told me I ought to "take a risk" - i.e. release defective product which as technical director I refused to do. It proved a wise decision - the operation later relocated to China where it failed - but only possible because in the UK we have a State health system and pension system, so I could walk away with only short term consequences.
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  1876. Comrade Vantz began by insulting him. Standard Mafia tactic: the capo gets one of his lieutenants to insult and put down the victim to make him emotional before stating his demands. The bad cop/good cop tactic but in this case the bad cop/bad cop tactic. Fortunately the heads of the EU countries have a bit more knowledge of the world than you are getting in your Peterburg bunker, and were not taken in.
    1
  1877.  @kevinpillay6103  Helped destabilise it to the advantage of Russia, 2016-2020.
    1
  1878. There is no such thing as a black box on these boats, don't spread lies. Pictures of it have not shown a red box data logger on the bridge. You are making stuff up and have been reported for misinformation.
    1
  1879. So Habib was kept around so Farage could say Reform wasn't racist during the election campaign, and now it's over he can be discarded?
    1
  1880. None of these are EVs I would ever consider buying, they all have some major downside that keeps them off the list. Air cooled batteries (obsolete tech), high price for a brand that your fellow bankers won't recognise, or one just not associated with expensive cars. And then there are things like the Taycan or the Q8, bought by people who usually obsess over noise, or capacity of the engine, or position on a model pecking order. In my experience there are three basic types of Porsche buyer: the German who does high Autobahn mileage (one guy I encountered was commuting 50 000 miles a year), the engineer, and the status freak. The first group won't buy a Taycan because it doesn't do what they need, the second group won't because they can't maintain it themselves, and the third group live in a world in which all their friends sneer at EVs anyway. That leaves the people with lots of money who buy one for the experience and then discover that once you've played with all the bits it just becomes normal. And those people don't buy second hand. I did see a 2015 Leaf on the road this morning but most of it was Hyundais, MGs, BMWs and the odd Mokka, with one Model 3 from 2019. All practical company cars.
    1
  1881. I posted elsewhere about this - Ricardo analysed the process in depth in the 1940s, and did the wear estimates. Incidentally polarity reversal to create pores (not cracks) in hard chrome has been around probably since WW1. It is also used to improve copper plating levelling.
    1
  1882. Why not drill a hole sideways through the bottom of the housing where pressure is lowest and put a magnetic sensor in there to detect a passing vane? As it's symmetric it does not matter where the pickup is, just a matter of adjusting the timing angle using a battery operated CDI or similar. You'd need an industrial grade sensor - inductive sensors go down to 4mm before they start to get really expensive. Piezo sealing won't work, how would you get the power in? From my own experience, when there's lots of patents going a long way back for an idea and it isn't on the market, that's just a reminder that working patent prototypes are no longer expected, and people have patented things only to find out they could not make them work. The biggest enemies of every heat engine design are heat (obviously), friction and sealing. The piston with rings is a genius design that was already well proven by about 1850. Wankels and Stirlings both fail on sealing and thermal problems. This engine looks like it's going to fail on all three.
    1
  1883. Farage cannot stick with anything long term. The moment Reform members do something he doesn't like - I don't know, come up with sensible policy - he'll disavow it and start something else.
    1
  1884.  @DoggleBird  You wouldn't.
    1
  1885.  @MATTHEW-rp3kq  When I was in college we had one of them who used to wake people up with his screaming fits like the guy in Catch-22. He thought that the Vietcong had infiltrated the USN.
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  1886. Are you seriously saying we will be paying Mauritius £891 billion up front for the Chagos Islands?
    1
  1887.  @boxingsense3459  But it wasn't designed or made by the government. Tesla is only there because of regulatory capture, it's in the same position.
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  1888. He does when it allows him to lie wildly about the British government because he wasn't invited to its investment summit due to not having investment in the UK.
    1
  1889. Surely the point is that neither Badenoch nor Farage have ever achieved anything remotely positive in their pointless, narcissistic existences? And that really is the key metric of the far right: all negativity. When did the Conservative Party last have a leader who had done more than move money for people, write columns or make speeches? Heath had perhaps the most distinguished record of any postwar PM other than Churchill - an early anti-Nazi, anti-Fascist, artillery officer in WW2, musician and sailor with friends in other parties, who stood up to Farage's predecessor Powell, but was sabotaged by the unions. Thatcher reportedly helped put the air in Mr. Whippy, and sensibly married an oil multi-millionaire to further her career. Major was decent enough and did his best over Europe and the economy, only to be sabotaged by the likes of Deadwood and Bonehead. The party preferred - just - PR man Cameron over David Davis who actually was successful in business before going into politics. They then had the nonentity May, the featherweight Johnson, the disastrous Truss and the unreal-economy Sunak. And without having remotely learned the lesson, they chose Badenoch who had risen without trace like Truss. Is it deathwish? In this case electing a puppet so the corruption can proceed unchanged doesn't apply as she isn't PM.
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  1890.  @The1trueDave  The Drax family is a genuine family of British supervillains. Look them up.
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  1891.  @Rhymosophy  The Third World would be much better off with China. They understand development.
    1
  1892. @ Still better than managed decline.
    1
  1893. China doesn't have it. It seeks soft power projection. Until now relentless US propaganda has been fairly succesful in US power projection ("Coca-colonisation") but increasingly the US uses military force. China then presents itself as an ally that would not do that. The UK took over much of India almost by accident, stumbling into an empire through having to defend its trading posts from warlords. It did not start to "civilise" India until after the Rebellion, and its expansion in Africa was only slightly better than the Dutch, Belgians, French and Germans. But the expansion in the Americas was an actual genocide. We are not superior to the Russians in that respect. It is just that British settlers in the USA and Australia have written their two genocides out of their propaganda.
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  1894. The crash at the end of the 1980s did wonders for the economy in the 1990s. I joined a startup in 1994, 5 years later we had more than quadrupled in size due to demand. Pity about Iraq...
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  1895. It is literally a 1990s car - created in 1993 from the Ukrainian SSR on the collapse of the USSR. It was never a Warsaw Pact country. I have enormous sympathy for the Ukrainians who suffered deeply from this, but some of the blame has to be laid at the feet of Ukrainian oligarchs who decided to go for independence. Ukraine was as corrupt as Russia but the oligarchs thought they could get a better deal from the West. For themselves. Corrupt as Russia is, Putin did reduce corruption somewhat in the early years. Ukraine never had a Putin and until the war, Zelensky was the public face of an oligarch. The fact that Trump is a greedy, amoral, possibly psychopathic white supremacist seeking world domination doesn't alter the fact that millions in Ukraine have been displaced who, had the war ended quickly with the overthrow of the Zelensky government, would not have been. People still talk about Pétain as a traitor, but there is no doubt that his settling with Hitler in 1940 saved millions of French lives. If Trump manages to find a way to end the war, even with Russia holding Donbas and Crimea, people will be able to return home and rebuild. If Ukraine wins, many Russian speakers from Donbas will never be allowed back.
    1
  1896. It's Musk's coup. He used Trump just the way the Japanese armed forces used the Emperor to start WW2 in the Pacific, as a fig leaf.
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  1897.  @JA-qi1fb  A friend who taught for years in a Catholic school said Catholicism is a pick and mix religion these days. Picking Rees-Mogg would be an odd choice.
    1
  1898. Well Trump's a con and he employed a pro or two, so the two of them fit together well.
    1
  1899.  @leer5858  In fact we are currently paid buy in rate (about 16p/unit) and pay about 28p. Given the amount we export our net electricity cost is roughly zero including the EV.
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  1900.  @jeffhedrich3551  You merely have to have lived for over 70 years to know that nobody in the US government wants peace, from the history you have lived through.
    1
  1901. The Consuls and the Senate appointed the Dictator as a short term ruler under martial law. Your comment is very apposite.
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  1902. Trump doesn't. He has been ordered to by the real President.
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  1903. I could pay about the same for home charging but I prefer to use my solar panels as I'm retired. My average charging cost is around 6c/kwH. Fast chargers are expensive though.
    1
  1904. Also wearing horns has long been code for "your wife is committing adultery". It's called cornutation.
    1
  1905. Any peace dividend went straight into the pockets of Cameron and his enablers.
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  1906. They had enough experience covering up for Reagan, I guess it's coming in handy now.
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  1907. Not really. Its vast military spend is to maintain its power and enable it to control much of the world's finances via the petrodollar. If European countries took over full responsibility for the security of Europe, American power would be hugely weakened. Trump wants us to fund US military power in Europe and the oil producing countries. He wants to run a protection racket.
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  1908. King Alfred defeated the Danes at Edington and established the Danelaw. But then Knut was king of England, Denmark and part of Scandinavia. He built a big kingdom. All Trumpmusk is doing is trying to tear one down.
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  1909.  @scottfirman  Trump and Musk continually spew hate and their supporters love it. But the people they attack...no, bad.
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  1910.  @MichaelKane-s3i  Yes, work it out. Atmospheric pressure is about 10N/sq cm (100kPa). A 3 mm hole has an area of about 7 square millimetres, so the force on the finger would be 0.7N, or under 3 ounces in American Customary Units. Like pressing a button.
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  1911. You haven't been paying attention to the clown, have you? Bluster is exactly what he does.
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  1912. CEOs obviously forgot that the principal source of income of mafiosi isn't even drugs or s** selling - it's the protection racket applied to businesses. They elected an actual gangster as President and the results will be as expected. I do think part of the reason is the way the US media glorifies drug dealers and gangsters, normalising them in people's minds.
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  1913. So at this point the US nukes are in the same position as those of the USSR after the fall of the government? Perhaps China and Canada should offer to send people in to secure the sites and prevent them being looted by Musk, otherwise you'll have the first drug-addled billionaire with ICBMs. And knowing his hair trigger response, if someone somewhere says something he doesn't like, bang goes a major city.
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  1914. No excuses. Germany really did have a major financial crisis and chaos. Americans were just gaslighted by Murdoch and Bannon into believing they did, rather than having their money stolen by the rich.
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  1915. There are a lot of cars that are economical to run, long lasting and good value for money, but you can't buy them in the USA. Even the "European" cars you get in the US are not the ones that sell well in Europe.
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  1916. That's a joke, it's referencing splitting Ukraine between Russia and the EU.
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  1917. How do you intend to cross the Darien Gap?
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  1918. @Hellsong89  Supercaps are extremely bulky.
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  1919.  @hendo337  The exhaust turbines recovered about 20% of the exhaust energy but increased heat load on the already stressed exhaust valves and they made the engine rather unreliable.
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  1920. Blame Bush for repealing the acts that stopped banks lending to properly developers in the US even as prices were falling. Sucking up to Trump would just get us to be in the fallout when the same thing happens again as property developer Trump leans on the banks to give him and people like him excessive loans.
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  1921.  @GT380man  Your "city analyst" must have been a Bannonite conspiracy theorist. Real economists have long diagnosed the cause of the 2008 crash. Deregulation.
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  1922. Porsche is part of VAG, a gigantic company. If Porsche went out of business as a brand tomorrow, VAG would survive.
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  1923. I am going to sue Tesla for illegally not advertising on my YouTube comments. Remember: the more people use Bluesky, the more valuable it becomes and the less valuable Twitter becomes. Also, boycott websitres that have Twitter buttons.
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  1924. @ The problem is that new petrol cars are just as dependent on electronics as EVs. With limited production, modern Jaguars may not be fixable in future due to lack of electronic spares. It isn't like doing a carb swap on an old Land Rover.
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  1925. You mean she was instructed by the Lord to cry out against the evils of Nineveh? Or she captained an early submarine?
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  1926.  @timg1246  With only two seats, it would be as much use as a Smart used as a taxi. Hint: Smarts were never used as taxis.
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  1927.  @InqvisitorMagnvs  Jolly clever how he managed to do that while actually getting his legal qualifications and not attracting the attention of MI5. Or are you just confusing fiction with reality?
    1
  1928. He took money from the wife of a financier close to Putin. Then came the invasion and he saw an opportunity. "Wotcher, Volo, wanna photo op? I'm a big noise in the West you know!" -"So, Gospodin Dzhonson, by you how many battalions?" "Just play it my way and Biden will roll over and play dead for you." Millions of refugees and tens of thousands of dead later, landscape lunar and the war goes on, Johnson, exasperated: "Putin grebaniy durak, ya yeshchye ne korol' mira!"
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  1929. Isolation? China is trying to isolate the USA.
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  1930. "Quite heavy cars - 1600kg" Or about the same as an entry level EV. The side panels show that Bristol was still thinking aircraft. If only it didn't have that horrible American lump up front, whether or not they fitted hydraulic lifters.
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  1931.  @derpgeez  What? Hasn't he already got rid of senior officers who were female, black or a bit woke? What more can you ask for? Here's a $50 billion order for SpaceX...
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  1932. He was never really the executive producer, he does not have the brains and experience. It seems their biggest problem was when he went off script, probably because he had forgotten his lines, refused to repeat, and then they had to reshoot other scenes to make the narrative coherent. He probably thinks they are going to do that now.
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  1933. I have never had anybody gay try to shove anything down any part of my anatomy, but I have had a white supremacist attack me with a knife. And I'm white.
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  1934. "'tis but a scratch"- Monty Python.
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  1935. But but but it was better than voting for a (gasp) woman. Our pastor says women must be silent and obedient, epecially when they are in his presence with his pants down.
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  1936.  @hathaway.1166  And for valves.
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  1937.  @johncunningham4820  Assuming a half way decent production run, there are no economies of scale from two crankshafts because you are still selling the same number of bikes. To add a second crank you need the crank itself along with its machining, a second set of bearings, a larger crankcase with more bearing bosses, and an extra gear. Now compared to a typical crank gear, the two gears to join the cranks must be bigger because they have to span the distance between the crank centres, whereas in a typical geared design the crank gear is smaller than the clutch gear. Then you need a clutch reduction gear. So that's two additional large, expensive gears. There are also costs associated with the ignition system. A V4 on the other hand has a slightly wider crank than a parallel twin, with the same number of main bearings, gears etc. It is almost as narrow as a square engine, shorter, and supplying air is somewhat easier because there is more room around each cylinder head.
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  1938.  @johncunningham4820  Hoo boy, I'm glad I'm probably an ocean away from someone so easily triggered by disagreement.
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  1939.  @johncunningham4820  Then why does nobody make square 4 car engines and never have done? Whereas both Lancia and VW have had some success with narrow angle V engines. As for your gear between the cranks, you might want to look up what happened with the German double V12 in WW2. Hint: not a success. It's instructive to look at the problems encountered when that approach was tried with geared steam turbines on ships. Resonance damage to the gears becomes a major issue. Geared cranks have a lot of disadvantages, perhaps not important for racing 2 strokes, but for everyday use they simply are too complex, too expensive in first cost, and expensive to maintain.
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  1940. See also Netanyahu and Trump, both copying exactly the same idea.
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  1941.  @donnaw3765  $90000 for hepatitis treatment which actually costs the hospital about $900. Yes, that's competition working for you.
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  1942.  @mikehefford6499  Too sensible for Reform voters who look at the Express and the Mail.
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  1943.  @cobbler40  Only if he gets his csh handout from Tesla (which would turn it into a loss making company). Otherwise he has to sell shares for cash. And you know what drops share prices quicker than anything? The owner selling shares for cash.
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  1944.  @goldenhawk352  The US broke away because George III was about to pass a law protecting Native Americans, the rest is just fluff.
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  1945.  @arbbr9397  Making my point: you're saying many Americans are too ignorant of maths to read fractions.
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  1946. Lynch wasn't a billionaire. He got about £500 million from Autonomy - which he actually founded, unlike Musk with Tesla and Twitter - and was then prevented from starting up a new company by the trial.
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  1947. Not really, but it did show that Teslas are no safer than equivalent vehicles from other manufacturers, contrary to Musk's claims.
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  1948.  @chow-chihuang4903  When we got our second EV (a Honda) I was a bit worried about the power curve, but it turned out the control is extremely fine. In both our EVs I noticed that the accelerator response depends on the amount of surrounding traffic. The thing is, most EVs have radar and ultrasonics linked to the auto braking. If I'm going even slightly too fast in reverse or forward there will be a sudden stop before an obstacle even if it is only something like a plastic bottle, or in one case a fox cub. Teslas have neither radar nor ultrasonics, so anything below the view of the cameras will not cause them to stop. To make a sort of pun, this seems extremely short sighted on Musk's part unless he intends to get an big income stream from fender bender repairs.
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  1949.  @BarsimonR  He uses it to buy South Seas real estate.
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  1950. Can't he just call it an Enabling Law?
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  1951. The concept is simple but the mass and complexity of the parts involved is much too high. You end up with a 3 cylinder with the complexity of a V6.
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  1952. Clarkson may be anti-Starmer but he's more of a Lib Dem, a friend of Cameron. He'd show Farage round the tradesmen's entrance. "And don't bang about when you're emptying the bins."
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  1953. The problem with your argument is that actually in the upper regions private school fees have increased far more rapidly than inflation and wages, and become so expensive that they have to extend their net to countries with a large emerging upper class.
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  1954. Well, the British tried to abolish Suttee in 19th centiry India, Trump wants to get back to the 18th century, so it's good, no?
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  1955. This is why Plato opposed democracy; short termism and the influence of agitators.
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  1956. Starmer won an election in a country which is far less racist and misogynist than the USA. Trump may yet win.
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  1957. So the Murdoch crime syndicate has turned against the Trump and Musk crime syndicates, but Muskrump controls the FBI. Interesting times.
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  1958. It was the Troubles and the UK government was desperate to bring jobs to Northern Ireland. DeLorean wasn't the only US conman who got money from the UK government in this way. British politicians seem throughout my life to have been extraordinarily naïve about America, and even now seem unwilling to face up to the reality that they will never, ever get a reasonable relationship with Dementia Don.
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  1959. @Nyaradzo-o7l  You mean Daimler should not have bailed out Tesla?
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  1960. @ Reform supporters and Trump supporters like to quote Reagan as if he wasn't a dementia-addled old man in hock to the big corporations.
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  1961. Ambrose Bierce: "An ambassador is a man sent to lie abroad for his country."
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  1962. It would probably turn out that most of them are too small to be viable or have inadequate premises. It is hard to get it across to people, a number of whom may well be relatively recent immigrants, that just because you pay for it up front doesn't mean it is better than state provision.
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  1963. At this point it seems to many Americans confuse TV and Hollywood with reality that any conception that Musk humiliated himself is wrong. The rubes love it, just as they thought real business people behaved like Trump did on The Apprentice . Idiocracy.
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  1964. Sadly, this is extremely true. Think of a media industry full of Clarksons.
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  1965. Tell that to Thatcher, her government set up the system. The tax doesn't care whether the oil comes from the North Sea or not, the revenue from North Sea oil and gas would be small. Miliband tried to explain it but people like you simply do not want to understand.
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  1966. It makes a difference in terms of donations, which are the only things that matter.
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  1967. Exactly. I didn't notice Johnson offering profound thoughts on what is going on in the Russian government, or even the Duma. Just name calling.
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  1968. You mean Farage has relatives? That's quite a discovery. He hasn't by any chance got a niece who is a psychologist and prepared to spill the dirt?
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  1969. It isn't chagrin, which is bad. It's Schadenfreude (i.e. joy at the misfortunes of GM).
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  1970. Still 3 last time I checked.
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  1971. But you're completely missing the point here. My neighbour with the Cayenne is still going to cause 4 times the carbon dioxide emissions, at least, as my other neighbour with the BMW Xdrive 40 if they each drive equally hard, and neither of them is about to buy a Yaris hybrid and drive it slowly. You're also backward in another assumption - the Toyota is not a true Atkinson cycle, but it still has a more efficient engine than a typical plain ICEV. If you compare like with like it will emit less. Why do you assume your granny will swap her carefully driven Aygo for a Yaris hybrid and then wring its neck? Makes no sense.
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  1972.  @HappyBagger  I don't bother arguing with your kind of conspiracy theorist.
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  1973.  @raydavies7328  Oh I did, it took me a little time to follow your confused word salad. Have a nice evening.
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  1974. And the Argentine currency is currently at below 0.1 US cents and falling. My economics teacher said over half a century ago "Cutting costs is no good unless you have a clear plan of what to do with the savings". You see, that "government waste" is being spent on economic activity. At the end of the day your taxes are going in part to be spent by people who are buying goods and services. You want those to be spent at home if possible because it's keeping your neighbors employed and the shops open. But if, as will happen, those savings will go to cut taxes for billionaires or subsidise their vanity projects, what you will get is economic contraction. They aren't spending money in Walmart. They are creating asset bubbles - companies like Tesla with stock valuations far in excess of expected returns. Asset bubbles remove money from circulation, depressing economic activity. If you buy a house for $1 million and sell it for $2 million you feel good, but what you've actually done is removed $1 million from circulation and buried it in your cellar for all the good it does. Failing to understand this real world economics has given you Trump. Understanding it has given the Chinese massive growth. Enjoy the next few years.
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  1975. There isn't "the" Muslim community, any more than Jews can be lumped into one group. I happen to live in one of the most multicultural towns in the country and there's very little trouble. Lumping over a billion people into one group is ridiculous and shows you have no idea what you are on about.
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  1976. "Hey Don, I like the pics of your wife but I like my ones of you even more. Now, about Donbas..."
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  1977. The correct story is that 135 Taycans are being recalled to fix a battery fault, not all of them but a known batch. The biggest problem is the boondoggle backhander of company cars in the UK, which means new cars are much cheaper to companies than to individuals. As a result the list price of new Taycans is inflated relative to the real cost to fleet buyers. This has been an issue in the past with petrol cars - the depreciation on many Fords looked enormous because the price fleets paid was so much lower than the price paid by any individual silly enough to buy one personally. The tax structure makes petrol cars much less attractive to fleet buyers, so their private list price is more realistic and depreciation looks lower. The Taycan is also suffering from the effect that there is a better 2025 model, so private buyers of ex-lease vehicles don't want to buy an inferior vehicle. Would I want to buy an expensive EV? No, because having had other people pay me to do R&D, I'm not in the business of paying car companies to fund their research and development of exotic vehicles.
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  1978.  @nigell1652  For company buyers whose sales reps and the like are mostly not charging at home, charging cost is less of a benefit.
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  1979.  @JohnHaveaguessGoogle  I think the ban under Parliament is more due to worries about terrorist attacks after the Cybertruck incident and the activities of Mr. Guido Fawkes.
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  1980. Indeed. US out of NATO, US bases out of Europe, US arms sales to Europe cancelled en bloc.
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  1981. Marine architects already discounted this. That keel is designed for use when high winds are blowing against an enormous sail. There were no sails.
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  1982. I don't think so; more that Badenoch is upper middle class and Dorries isn't. Though they bang on about "unqualified immigrants" what seems to annoy quite a lot of working class people is non-white professional people.
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  1983. The Black Holes are the result of Klapaucius asking Trurl's omnicompetent machine to do Nothing. Lem will yet be proven right.
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  1984. 90% discount on actual Adderall? Trump will do anything to save some money, even supply his own worshippers with burgers (tarted up communion wafers for the MAGA religion, I guess.)
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  1985.  @tobycolin6271  Since I monitor the actual consumption of the EV via its charger I can tell you the loss is around 10%, not 20%. Ethanol is not carbon neutral due to the high energetic cost of harvesting and conversion - it was basically a protectionist subsidy to farmers. And as there isn't any "efuel" taht's a bit irrelevant; during WW2 Germany produced a lot of synthetic fuel and the conversion cost was high, it's part of how the Allies won the war. Your "calculation" of battery manufacture cost makes no sense at all, but as Co is cobalt, and you mean CO₂, I doubt that you have a science background. Look, it's pretty simple: average 100kg carbon dioxide per kWH so a 40kWH battery needs 4t of carbon dioxide. Breakeven is therefore around the point at which the emission averages to 80g/km, 50 000km or about 31000 miles. If you want a battery bigger than that, ask yourself why. (I also know you don't have a science background because you quote "41869 miles" for an approximate number. Stick to the day job.)
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  1986. In the good old days (!) of East End gangsters, people like him were liable to end up as part of the foundations. They didn't want their cosy arrangements with the Conservative Party upset.
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  1987. The way things are going with the dollar, foreign imports will soon be too expensive even without tariffs. However, yes in normal times a flight from stocks tends to be to gilts and vice versa, but in a globalised world both stocks and gilts for a given economy are a lumped measure - faith in companies and government as one - and a fall in both is a vote of no confidence in where the US is going. Republican senators and representatives scared still of armed MAGA nuts at worst and deselection at best - confidence cannot resume until MAGA is bottled, and that could end in a second Civil War. I don't even hold any shares in Apple these days.
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  1988. Nobody has ever had the fuel stolen from their tank, have they?
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  1989. Duh...
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  1990. I'm afraid we can't lend the US King Alfred to defeat the Danes because we may need him to come back and save us from the US.
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  1991.  @ronniesimpson9141  It's interesting that the heads of the two biggest car companies - Toyota and VAG - get paid many times less than Elon Musk, who is trying to get $50 billion out of Tesla despite its being very much second tier, behind Toyota, VAG, Mercedes, Honda, Stellantis, Hyundai, Renault, BMW and before long BYD.
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  1992. I doubt either of them regret anything. They both give the impression of having zero empathy and zero insight. That may be what makes them successful.
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  1993.  @Dongobog-ps9tz  For one thing it assumes the invention of a reliable calendar, then the development of numeracy and literacy, and then the concepts of data management.
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  1994.  @gustavmeyrink_2.0  The Triumph head is derived from designs experimented with in the UK before and during WW2. The advantages were recognised by 1916, but manufacturing and metallurgy hadn't caught up with theory at that point.
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  1995. There is also the point that the Soviet Union was officially socialist. That meant that all inventions were freely available to use, no licensing or patents within the USSR. Same for China, what the US sees as "stealing intellectual property" was meaningless. Of course when the USA was a developing country it had the same attitude, but not for ideological reasons, but because it didn't even have a patents office till 1836.
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  1996. Direct injection seems to cause more problems than it solves, right back to its invention in Germany in the 1930s.
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  1997.  @I5bit  I completely agree about point 6, CCS is purely a boondoggle to give more backhanders to the oil industry while business as usual, ditto synfuels - German experience in WW2 being instructive, they ended up having to add lots of nasties like aniline and TEL to get decent octane numbers. I suspect the answer to turbine blades will be the same as the answer to fly ash from coal stations. Develop a constructional material that uses them. The thing is, keeping old cars on the road only made sense when progress was slow, such as during the post-WW2 period when money was tight and most R&D engineers only knew military stuff. I am sure one of the pushes towards EVs was not carbon dioxide but NOx and particulate emissions. I can remember well in the 1950s and 60s how disgustingly dirty and smelly London was (and after living close to the A41 for a bit I got elevated levels of lead). Fixing that has made ICE vastly more complex and expensive, it's astounding what the wiring harness and pipelines look like on modern engines. I can remember testing big Diesels where the only visible wiring was to the sensors we were putting on. There's a crossover point at I think 2025 is that year; EVs are now on the winning side of the equation, and in the USA the ICE and oil industries have just fought back politically and won - for the time being.
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  1998. Next four years? Prepare for a Thousand Year Reich. So, more like 11.
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  1999. Laura Loomer manages to look a bit like Morticia Addams without the class, charm, intelligence, wit or family values.
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  2000. People have always self censored. During the 1980s and 1990s, frequently visiting the USA, one quickly found out who was "safe" to talk to and who wasn't. People would quietly admit that they "had to" have a flagpole in their front gardens for fear of being classed as a liberal or a commie who "hates America". Oh yes, it was a thing then. When they go on about "self-censorship" what they mean is they don't like not being able to say what they think about women and outsiders at work. And citing Toby Young and his organisation just demonstrates that you know nothing about the UK, because they are that kind of people Sorry, but you are now straying so far off your core competence that it really is turning into clickbait and right wing talking points. I used to say to people that what worried me about Wikipedia was the more I knew about a subject the more errors I found, so how could I look to it for information about things of which I was ignorant? The answer, of course, is proper citations. And this video is full of very dubious citations such as that nonsense survey. So now - I don't trust you on physics any more.
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  2001.  @clarecrawford9677  Indeed I doubt whether the late Queen or current king are likely to seek her counsel. C3 presumably already has someone to work his photocopier.
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  2002.  @YawnGod  I did, this morning. I'm not a victim of the American edumbacating system.
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  2003.  @dand3975  The Latin Mass cult and Opus Dei exist in England too: look up Jacob Rees-Mogg.
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  2004. Narcissism, we've all heard of it. But why is it the right wing parties here and in the US that seem to have so much of it? Do Twitter and Facebook preferentially rot right wing minds?
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  2005. Trump can say the trade war with China will end but he is still trying to control the agenda. Perhaps Xi wants it to continue.
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  2006. Give the poor old guy a break. His mind is rambling so he needs to take a week off to recuperate. Just like he would if he were President and Putin invaded Poland.
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  2007. The USA may in total have killed over 100 million Native Americans. It is the biggest genocide of the lot by numbers, beating even Mao's destruction of his own people, or the Holodomor.
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  2008. She's just done it again, releasing a piece on small nuclear reactors, just about every aspect of what is likely to be stuffed with trade secrets and unpublished research at this point because everybody involved wants to be first to commercialise.
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  2009. The Muppets were operated by some highly intelligent people with excellent scriptwriters. I don't think anyone would describe the IEA, Taxpayers' Alliance etc. as either of those things. Just money grabbing sociopaths.
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  2010.  @yobgol  Don't forget a lot of them learnt it at the Oxford Union and the Oxford Conservative Association. The Cons basically decided that Oxford was where you got your PMs, so of course all the wannabes went to Oxford and spouted the same stuff at one another. Groupthink. It's a cult, no different in principle from those American ones that promise if you pay your subs and follow the rules you will end up in Heaven - or if you are a Mormon, ruling planets.
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  2011. "Vote for me and I'll send people like me back where they came from." One of Hitler's drivers is said to have been Jewish...
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  2012. Bakers would believe the universe was held together by gluten, not croissants.
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  2013. SpaceX has taken $3 billion for a moon project that is, literally, going nowhere. It's another taxpayer benefit fraud.
    1
  2014. Possibly because the Corsa is not a good EV?
    1
  2015. Really? Then why have the people I've known who have been through Sandhurst not had that happen? They all speak highly of the place as somewhere that brought out leadership and management talents. You are confusing Sandhurst with West Point - brainwashing central.
    1
  2016.  @yttrxstein4192  I am not a "fan" as you put it, I have criticised her elsewhere as well in comments on her own videos. However, she isn't always wrong when she sticks to her own subject, and she is not the only one who asks why we spend so much money on pure speculation and huge experiments that avhieve nothing useful.
    1
  2017.  @rogeriopenna9014  Well , more than Wales since no Welsh was ever UK prime minister. Actually David Lloyd George was. His parents were Welsh and though he was born in England his mother took her family back to Wales when he was a year old.
    1
  2018. Same way Qatar does. Has friends, keeps them.
    1
  2019.  @marcoliver625  Over in seconds.
    1
  2020. I think you may be misjudging Porsche. The 930 is a pure sports car and as such people buying it are supposed to have plenty of money to look after it, and probably over-maintain it. The 944 is more of a touring car and is less likely to get the exotica treatment, so limiting boost means it's less likely to suffer blowups. Porsche sold a lot of 944s, seven times as many as 930s.
    1
  2021.  @pederfallbom  You are completely missing my point, which is about expected maintenance costs, perhaps English is not your first language?
    1
  2022.  @Number27  Define "better" from the point of view of the manufacturer and the dealer/service garage?
    1
  2023. What you describe is illegal under the GDPR legislation, a bit paranoid if I may say so.
    1
  2024. Not only Murdoch but the oil industry that funds Farage and GB "News".
    1
  2025. Cox annoys me because to me he dumbs down so much that it's useless for understanding.
    1
  2026.  @xantiom  The problem with that is that it doesn't include the content of the book unless you also reconstitute the entire environment associated with it, including language and a human like brain to read it. This is part of why it's a bad example. Even a reversible thermodynamic cycle runs into explanatory problems.
    1
  2027. I can't help thinking if they had to put big, expensive roller bearings at the end of the camshaft, there must have been a wear problem when there was a journal bearing. Because nobody does that unless there's no other option. Also I knew the guys who designed the first plastic bearing cages for Ford. That was over 30 years ago, it's a mature technology. They are light and they just have to stop the rollers bunching, no real loading. Lower friction than aluminium or steel. It looks like a pretty good design. In fact the worst thing about it looks like driving the balance shaft through the oil pump.
    1
  2028. Who is there to stop them? Musk has taken control of the finances. It's Successful Revolutionary Takeover Rule 1: get control of the money supply.
    1
  2029. Judging by the drivers I see around me every day, lack of reasoning ability is no bar to getting a licence.
    1
  2030. It was Boeing, and no they have not yet got back.
    1
  2031.  @stratvids  It would be very discouraging to people like me who have their own solar/battery plant and export the surplus to the grid. Why should the government own my roof? Nuclear, yes. Needs state regulation. Farmers should be allowed to own their own wind turbines and solar barn roofs.
    1
  2032. Climate engineering, carbon capture, claims that we aren't affecting climate - yes I expect there are lots of scandals to be found there.
    1
  2033. Back in the 1980s I was made redundant (as an R&D engineer) by a company which panicked when its share price fell and had a load of redundancies in the interest of short term profits. Six months later the share price fell catastrophically. The stock analysts said that the company had lost the capacity to develop and improve products in a fast changing market. They should have done proper diligence on whose jobs were genuinely redundant. They were bought out by a Canadian company. I am not making this up.
    1
  2034.  @AlbinoMutant  Socially the UK is far closer to Europe than to the USA. Copying your banking systems led to the 2008 financial disaster spreading here. Brexit was a terrible idea and we actually need to keep the USA much more at arms length. Your political and business class want to turn us into a Puerto Rico, not a New York. We should in fact be blocking your inadequately moderated social media that is used to promote American domination (like you do in your post) and actual fascism.
    1
  2035.  @helenamcginty4920  The Restoration happened because the Cromwells were incompetent, and Charles had a plan to deal with Dutch piracy. Not "The concept of a plan". And he was popular. He even had the sense to have a fun Royal mistress - Nell Gwynne. The last US attempt was Bill Clinton. Obama was OK but since then it has been downhill all the way.
    1
  2036.  @chronokoks  No different in principle from automatic thread turning, just with the variation on a different axis. And how it was being done on quite ordinary Diesel pistons in the 1980s. They didn't do 3000 rpm but the surface speed wouldn't be much different.
    1
  2037. Remember one of Hitler's first actions was to have Röhm assassinated so he could look more respectable.
    1
  2038. Small tornados (waterspouts) can be very destructive and also very small at water level, as well as being fast moving. They happen on land too. A couple of years ago we had a very small one, you could track it by the roof tiles that it removed from a succession of houses. It was no more that 4 tiles wide, missed us completely, clipped our neighbour, and removed the caps from the roofs of a couple of other houses.
    1
  2039. BYD is making plugin hybrids solely because they avoid the extra EU tariffs. It's stupidity, but it's EU stupidity. It's also Chinese engineering: Whatever you think of we will get a load of bright young graduates straight out of university and fix it in no time.
    1
  2040. Unfortunately too many of the Nobel committees consist of white men. Ever heard of Lise Meitner?
    1
  2041. We'd just have to rewrite the treaty between Alfred and Gudrun a bit. "OK Gudrun, you can have the whole country so long as you promise to defend us from the Western barbarians"
    1
  2042. I imagine Iran wants Trump for President. Why wouldn't they?
    1
  2043. Trump is trying to boost Musk because Musk let him back on X/witter. Trump is entirely motivated by hatred and greed, so his boosting of someone else implies trying to put someone else down. In this case Zuckerberg, who is by a visible margin less evil than Musk. Trump is not irrational except in the sense that he knows what he wants to achieve but his portfolio of ways to achieve it is very, very small.
    1
  2044. Yes, only 40 years of reserves left based on demand increasing. And how long till we run out of platinum and iridium for spark plugs? We're doomed, I tell you...doomed.🤪
    1
  2045.  @nicholasmuni7995  My car has one pedal driving as an option, I'd like to find a way to stop pressing the button by accident. Intelligent cruise control is just better.
    1
  2046. She's trying to get funding from the Taxpayers' avoidance Alliance, the IEA, the Cato Institute etc. Come the next election you don't think all that will be in the manifesto?
    1
  2047.  @chloe-stephlis6281  Roosevelt was allowed to continue, so there is precedent. Trump will just declare a state of emergency.
    1
  2048. Stochastic pre-ignition defeats knock sensors because by the time the sensor has detected the random knock, it has happened.
    1
  2049. Because the USA de facto controls the UN.
    1
  2050. Russia is not communist. China is not communist. But the current US Administration certainly resembles the Brezhnev era Soviet Central Committee covering up that Brezhnev was senile and incapable.
    1
  2051. How? Trump can stop him dead just by abolishing carbon credits and cutting the space program.
    1
  2052. The difference between Badenoch and Truss is not the silliness of the ideas but the ability to implement them. Even Badenoch knows that no matter how many votes are cast for a pointless opinion poll by Javascript bots working out of CCO, Labour is there for the duration unless another Catholic nutter is more successful than Guido Fawkes. She can say what she likes without consequences. Reform voters imagine Starmer is shaking in his boots at X million fake votes in a poll when in reality, if he even gets an update on the latest number, everybody just laughs and moves to the next item. In 4 years the US will have been fully converted to Trumpistan and Labour will be pointing out the parallels with what the Cons would propose. Heck, perhaps we'll be applying to join whatever BRICS has grown into when Australia, Canada, Mexico, the rest of South America and most of Africa have joined.
    1
  2053. Remember that "defense" spending has a lot of pork barrel subventions to companies like Boeing to try to keep them competitive against foreign competition. Musk wants to cut it so the money can go to his companies instead. He is not the taxpayers' friend.
    1
  2054. The US government was purely and simply out to get Lynch to cover up the incompetence of the poorly managed but iconic HP company. The CEO of HP who arranged the deal was pushed out barely two months after it took place: his other disastrous decision was to abandon the mobile phone industry, which gives you some idea. The fact that a jury was not taken in speaks volumes.
    1
  2055. In case you don't know, Palestine was a British protectorate for many years and we were supposed to keep the peace there. Then thanks to the US we had to hand it over to a lot of Eastern European thugs, since when we have done nothing to protect the Palestinians. In fact, we continue to support the Likudniks when we should be supporting organisations like Btselem. Palestinians have a strong case against both the UK and the USA.
    1
  2056.  @danielparker1540  Fair enough, but then Trump should not expect European investment in the USA. Let's call in all US loans.
    1
  2057. The reason they talk about Trump is because the huge political party that is voted for by half the USA is somehow totally in thrall to him. Future historians will be writing books about it, if books still exist. How could it happen? Auden asked of the German people and Hitler "What huge imago made a psychopathic God?" Future historians will ask whatever happened to America, whether or not it dodges a bullet in November.
    1
  2058. I think he doesn't want to talk about the blecks being allowed to take over, but he's already said that instead of democracy rich white men should run the world.
    1
  2059. Far right wing racist, misogynist South African wants to get rid of a UK PM? Badge of pride for Starmer I would think.
    1
  2060. No, "populist" means politicians who advocate doing what they think will get the votes of the uneducated, even when the results are harmful to the country. Doing what "the public" wants is likely to be disastrous, which is why we have representative democracy - as do just about all developed countries. Athens discovered this - initally the franchise was limited to the upper middle classes, people who could afford to take time off to attend debates. The test was being a freeman who could afford a hoplite panoply - equivalent today to being able to buy your own armoured car and lend it to the government. As the franchise extended down the social scale, to keep people supportive of the government, decision making got worse and worse, they were more likely to listen to Farage types and make really bad decisions, and as a result eventually lost the wars with Sparta and Athenian democracy was over. It lasted about 50 years.
    1
  2061.  @johnsmith8410  I am as much the British public as you are, except that I paid attention in political science class.
    1
  2062.  @paul.spanton.7  Good one.
    1
  2063. He isn't President yet.
    1
  2064. It will rise again on the third day after it goes to $1.
    1
  2065. As someone who knows a bit of Greek, to me it reads "KIL" which is unfortunate.
    1
  2066. Americans need to learn the history of King Charles 1st. It ended in a civil war which was won by the Parliamentarians against the equivalent of the billionaires and Trump.
    1
  2067.  @thegrandmuftiofwakanda  Have you checked how many of them have actually failed and had to be bailed out in this country? You might find it of interest.
    1
  2068.  @thegrandmuftiofwakanda  It's no good trying to write posh when your verb and subject don't agree and you don't know the singular of criteria. It just makes you look pretentious and not very bright.
    1
  2069. Musk only had to pay £250 million for the entire US government. Marshall obviously isnt a very good businessman.
    1
  2070.  @SigDigi  Just as well because outside the US that ridiculous wide wheelbase would be constantly colliding with bollards and street furniture, very expensively.
    1
  2071.  @_TDS_is_Terminal  You'd need a lot of citation for that. The actual answer is that nobody who wrote the Constitution ever imaged that citizens would vote for a tyrant, leaving loopholes. The German Grundgesetz (Basic Law) written after WW2 ensures that the President does not have the powers that enabled Hitler. The Germans learned from history, the USA didn't get the memo.
    1
  2072.  @iankuah8606  Oh, much faster than that. Price of lead goes up, if anything.
    1
  2073. I am so disappointed because when I read "Ni" I thought they were postulating a nickel plated universe. Nickel plating is normally stabilised against corrosion by adding a chromium layer, leading to a chrome-o-dynamic universe. I'm sorry, I've just had a big lunch.
    1
  2074.  @gswiftgs23  Chinese naval base definitely. Their government promises not to interfere with other countries' governments.
    1
  2075. Ford was overtly anti-Semitic and published a book about a supposed Jewish conspiracy for world domination. It didn't matter because at the time most Americans were anti-Semitic (and anti-Japanese, for that matter.) Musk has done the equivalent of publishing an anti-Semitic book if most of his customers were Jewish.
    1
  2076. So you're boasting about being a criminal and wasting police time, reinforcing the perception that all McLaren owners are crooks, bankers or drug dealers.
    1
  2077. I guess one downside of EVs is that they do not yield interesting desk ornaments.
    1
  2078.  @item6931  The name "Bacon" is actually a variant form of "Viking". His family came from a place in Norfolk called "Baconsthorpe" - Viking Village. (I'm a bit of a fan of Roger, he was extremely modern for his era.)
    1
  2079. That is why Musk is trying to shut down the transport safety agency and the FAA.
    1
  2080.  @blisseyran-dom6822  Works for a US "Think tank" probably.
    1
  2081.  @AdenoidHynkelThe2nd  That question was pre-scientists trying to think about the nature of matter and whether it was infinitely divisible. It was far from pointless. If matter was infinitely divisible then even the smallest pinpoint could host infinitely many angels, which made no sense. It was a start on arguments towards an atomic theory.
    1
  2082.  @CountJeffula  Which is what Kuhn wrote about how science really works, more than half a century ago. I feel old.
    1
  2083. I wouldn't be seen dead in one of those things, and if I was in one on the road I'd pretty much expect to be dead, the way some people drive.
    1
  2084. You knew in November Musk was trying to buy the election but oh no, can't have a woman president.
    1
  2085.  @shugieshugied2269  There are more than 40 Democrat senators, so no chance.
    1
  2086. Meanwhile the French retain a pointless verb conjugation system. Je regarde, tu regardes, il regarde, nous regardons, vous regardez, ils regardent. Are you suggesting we would all be better off if we reverted to Old English? Proper declensions and conjugations? Because retaining one special conjugation for the third person singular makes no sense at all.
    1
  2087.  @Pooter-it4yg  Знаю. See what I did there? English has evolved towards prefixes rather than suffixes. It's basically a commercial language evolved to be a lingua franca, if you see what I mean. Meanwhile the Germans keep having arguments about simplification and the French tinker around the edges so that these days I can't remember which words no longer have circonflexes and çedillas, let alone where ß isn't used any more. Our sentence structure is different from Slavic* languages because we rely on positional order. This presents a problem for Bulgarian which doesn't have Russian word order flexibility, for instance. You may find these things fun but if you need to get a job done they can be rather annoying. *As for the flavours of Slavonic, I'm not Othodox and thank Bog I don't need to know about them.
    1
  2088. @ By laying the Middle East waste to turn it into an enormous casino resort for the very rich.
    1
  2089. They did that years ago.
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  2090. Tariffs allow you to have tax rises while pretending to have tax cuts, so they are a good idea for people whose sole political ideas are tax cuts and hate foreigners.
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  2091. He is actually trying to get a bonus out of it which will basically make it nonprofitable and tank it. So far the judges have refused to allow it. He wants to walk away with over $50 billion in cash and then he can buy the entire government and doesn't care any more. $10 million per bribable politician, $4 billion and he has basically bought the country.
    1
  2092.  @bbcblibberbroadcastingcorp2651  Obviously well qualified for a peerage.
    1
  2093. Musk reminds me of a former colleague with a very high IQ who was open to absolutely every conspiracy theory going. His ability to spout sales bull** was astonishing and people were often convinced. A lot of people do not understand that a science or engineering degree doesn't make you better at everything. If he knew about X surely he knew about Y? Well, no. I do think Musk is so delusional he reads some bro/far right nonsense and just believes it because he thinks it validates his idea of his own superiority. He may be immensely rich but he understands nothing about society and psychology outside his echo chamber.
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  2094. @ You remind me of trying to set up strain gauges on aluminium where we didn't have an air conditioned lab (45 years ago) and the moment the last ether evaporated, the aluminium would instantly become damp. The test pieces had to be warmed very cautiously to about 40C. Even so there were failures.
    1
  2095. @ "Recovery gap" might apply to single cylinder dirt bikes, but surely not to cars where the total angular momentum of the rotating system is extremely high.
    1
  2096. No, they wouldn't vote for Corbyn because the Murdoch, Rothermere, Barclay and Reach Group media said he was associated with terrorists.
    1
  2097. Not me personally, but a colleague drove his new Merc into a deep ford and hydrolocked it. Mercedes didn't want to know, said it was his problem driving into water. But his lawyer was very smart and found a TV advert by Mercedes which showed the same model of car driving into water which, he was able to prove, was deeper than the ford had been. Mercedes caved before it ever reached court and fixed everything under warranty. I'm guessing either the advert was faked or was using a different engine variation in the same model. Elon Musk wouldn't be happy if he made his claims about his cars in the UK, where advertising is expected to be truthful. He would be in serious trouble.
    1
  2098. Any minute now hes going to swallow the magic potion and turn into Mr. Hyde. Oh sorry, he already did that.
    1
  2099. Wasn't Laura Loomer the one of Superman's girlfriends that got dumped after one episode?
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  2100. I think I can summarise the first part. We tell the Yanks everything, they tell us as little as possible. Trump has surrounded himself with incompetents and has shown he is dangerous if allowed access to secrets and the probability that he won't leak stuff to Putin for bragging rights is zero. Apart from that everything is OK.
    1
  2101. Yes.
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  2102. If Truss did not have her unearned huge pension to fall back on, I think she'd be delivering for a pizza shop.
    1
  2103. @rebecca_noble You speak for the entire voting population of the UK? Who are you exactly?
    1
  2104. @ I don't pretend to speak for a majority of the population.
    1
  2105. @rebecca_noble France is at 110%, Italy 138%. The EU does not have a US-style religious Constitution. Look up "derogation". It's a nice Latinate word that describes what the EU does when the facts on the ground differ from the ideal.
    1
  2106. @rebecca_noble What is "Copilot"? I have never heard of an EU body of that name.To me it means the other guy in the cockpit.
    1
  2107. It isn't to show anybody anything. How many corrupt Popes died of old age? Same for the "Reverend doctor" Ian Paisley. Evangelical Christianity is possibly the biggest irrational conspiracy theory out.
    1
  2108. Vance wouldn't off Putin - he'd suck a portionof his anatomy. People like Vance worship people like Putin.
    1
  2109. A lot of those people really do not want to spend time with their families.
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  2110. The helical mechanism for the valve timing dates back to the Kommandogerät - literally "control gadget" that was an early mechanical-hydraulic ECU used on WW2 BMW engines. It gave them a big advantage because US planes needed multiple engine adjustments while a German just had a throttle lever. A faster in theory US plane might get shot down while the pilot was trying to get the engine set for the correct height. BMW like to stick to things they made work.
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  2111. Assuming this is not sarcasm, individual accounts are worthless. I've had covid twice, obviously different strains. The first one (imported from the USA) made me ill for 2 weeks. The second tested extremely positive for two days during which I felt mildly ill, and then recovered fast. This was 10 months after my last vaccination. Only statistical analysis of a large number of cases can yield meaningful results. Your example is about as valid as proposing being placed in a stone tomb for three days as a cure for crucifixion.
    1
  2112. She has a personality all right, and Marjorie Taylor Greene wants it back.
    1
  2113. It's an asynchronous induction motor, if the shaft turns faster than the field surely it should not regen?
    1
  2114. With his desire to employ Indian wage slaves as H-1Bs, what exactly justifies you in thinking Musk doesn't want white domination? As for tax efficiency, this is the man who thought blowing up rockets was clever.
    1
  2115. Neighbour bought a cheap Peugeot one for his wife. The roof stuck open. It would have cost more to repair than the car would be worth (unless you could fix it yourself). It seems to be a problem with all these mechanical hardtops. Complex, expensive mechanisms. I went off the motorised sunroof on my Scorpio years ago when it stuck open in bright sunshine in France and then it snowed on the trip back to England.
    1
  2116. VP is only there for casting vote in Senate and in case President dies or is incapacitated. They have no other government role.
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  2117. Gold like houses is a commodity whose price is controlled by artificial supply and demand (i.e. most of it is buried in vaults and sales are controlled to keep the price up.) So it is meaningless. If all the gold was in circulation and it was a true currency, its price would be very different.
    1
  2118.  @Jokershadow696  Not my job to teach you economics, buy a textbook about money.
    1
  2119. More or less what people said when Porsche brought out the 944. But actually there are good engineering reasons for modern 4 cylinders. If you can get the power and reliability out of 4, why add more especially with a much more complex engine layout?
    1
  2120. My garage floor is epoxy coated. It isn't difficult. I had a factory floor coated back in the mid-90s, so 30 years ago, and it's one of those things that is just worth it. No dust, less damp, easy clean and easy to spot small screws and the like.
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  2121. As someone who on the face of it is very similar in background and identity to you (except that I didn't watch TV in my 50s because I was too busy) I regard that as a pathetic whinge with no real content. The rule is simple. It is OK to make jokes about your own ethnicity etc., or about people more powerful than you. Since this country is still more or less completely run by white men, minorities are free to make jokes about them.
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  2122. And all the disadvantages of short drive shafts which have to move through large angles to give sufficient suspension, making CV joint design difficult and expensive.
    1
  2123. Kensington and Chelsea? You are surely peddling disinformation.
    1
  2124.  @ziploc2000  Scorpio. It was a lot more accurate than the fuel gauge, too, and the MPG estimate was also accurate as confirmed by the fleet manager.
    1
  2125. I'm not quite clear on how Trump thinks that large tariffs on countries he disagrees with is "economic freedom". To my simple mind it looks like protectionism. If he tries to get the EU to impose bigger tariffs on China, that's a Mafia style racket. The thing is, the UK has a trade surplus with the US but does several times more business with Europe. If Trump plans to remove that surplus, then we are pushed towards the EU. Obviously whoever sat his exams for him at Wharton didn't bother to try to teach him any of the course work at all.
    1
  2126. But Musk's wealth is based on stock market prices of companies that don't make any money. He would hardly pay any tax.
    1
  2127.  @rogerc23  90% of the industry is Chinese because 45 did not prioritize it. And not will 47.
    1
  2128.  @sypherthe297th2  The last intelligent, benevolent dictator was Augustus. His departure led to some of the worst years of the Roman Empire (Tiberius, Nero, Caligula.) When a benevolent dictator goes, he leaves a vacuum.
    1
  2129. Except that Grove was a far better engineer than Musk, and a much better human being. When first in the US he worked as a waiter. Rather than play silly right wing politics on Twitter, he lectured on computer science at UCB and business at Stanford. My favourite Grove story? He took on a new PA. As he left the office at lunch time, he flicked a rubber band at her. Somewhat shocked, she asked someone else what she should do. "Flick one back at him" was the reply.
    1
  2130. I think the Inuit merely need to ask their neighbours to the West how they got on with the white invaders before offering a middle finger to Trump.
    1
  2131.  @mellarner8253  Quick way to tell us you know f**k all about computers and car electronics. ODB2 scanners on EVs will tell you the state of every individual battery cell, even a complete electrical numpty can work out that if one or more cells are lower voltage than the others, it's bad. ODB2 scanners on ICE vehicles often throw up lots of fault codes that are hard to interpret and take time to work though. New carbon filter or loose fuel cap? Leaking injector or defective spark plug? Has the engine ever overheated and warped the head? Dead oxygen sensor or failed cat? Endless things can be wrong.
    1
  2132. In Dante's Inferno there are people walking around in Earth whose souls are already in Hell, and their bodies are operated by demons. Dante knew what he was writing about.
    1
  2133. But all democracies also fall given time, as we are seeing with the US Federal Government right now. Athenian democracy lasted about as long as the Assad dynasty or the Omrid dynasty in Palestine.
    1
  2134. It isn't even on my top 10 list for the replacement of our current EV. I guess you're in the US and have very little choice.
    1
  2135. It isn't just the UK but the entire EU and Japan. Wasn't one removed from the roads in the Czech Republic recently?
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  2136. You've never been to Parliament? Back in the day before the IRA you could almost walk in (our local MP being very supportive) and we watched him, Heath, Wilson and others from the Strangers' Gallery, all in our school uniforms of course. Terrorists have done immense harm to democracy.
    1
  2137.  @pierre1514  er. That's the joke.
    1
  2138. Porsche's problem is that their customers increasingly don't want their conventional cars and SUVs. Are you in the market for a new Cayenne or 911?
    1
  2139.  @cblack1green  And how many do they sell new each year?
    1
  2140.  @cblack1green  In short, hardly any by modern standards.
    1
  2141. Starmer needs the support of the bankers just as we needed the support of Stalin in WW2.
    1
  2142. No. If she was she would be exposed to the relentless attacks of the media, GB "News", Musk etc. All of these people hate women in positions of power unless their name is Thatcher or {current Conservative leader}. Starmer is the crap deflector, he went to Oxford, he's a lawyer, which is disconcerting because they think he should be one of them. He's the ideal person to stand up to Murdoch, Marshall, Tice and Retch Media.
    1
  2143. Badenoch does resemble Trump. Both of them have to read from a script, both complain if other people do. And neither of them make a lot of sense. The Conservatives have a simple solution that will work. First, issue all their supporters with blue baseball hats with MEGA on them (Wales and Scotland don't count.) Second, completely cover stages with England flags. Third, demand that all school pupils have to salute the flag and swear a loyalty oath to Tommy Robinson every morning. That'll get Reform voters back.
    1
  2144. @ The 944 was disapproved of by Porsche enthusiasts because it didn't have a flat rear engined design, but it was a genuine sports car - light for its power, compact. The Cayenne is basically a van with a big engine.
    1
  2145. You just inflicted Murdoch on the world and he is the root cause of MAGA.
    1
  2146.  @IMBlakeley  Though it's not something that attracts me personally, I suspect some UK politicians enjoy being the sub in the dom/sub relationship. "Whip me again, mistress!"
    1
  2147. Do you spend a lot of time with the engine idling? I look at these pistons and I think that's what it looks like - carbon builds up in the top land and then when the engine gets going it gets pushed into the rings. Then it soaks up oil. People who don't idle excessively may get much better engine life.
    1
  2148. What will we do with the Gaza refugees when Trump takes his cut from it being cleared to build beachfront hotels, condos and golf courses? Trump-Bibi Towers Golf Resort, watch out for the landmines.
    1
  2149. Yes, people forget that Jaguar's perpetual problem, like Aston, was they didn't sell enough to take care of the design details. Constant problems as a result.
    1
  2150. He is but is too senile to understand it.
    1
  2151.  @DirkGently-km3hn  DNA would not agree with you, so pinching the name of one of his characters is a bit off.
    1
  2152. Cutting off people who copy/paste Jordan Peterson word salad is just avoiding waste of energy going down rabbit holes. What exactly has he contributed to society?
    1
  2153. Margaret Thatcher is dead, so no point asking her for an opinion on Geoffrey Howe.
    1
  2154. Just like 1934 all over again, members of the SS being sent out to the offices of German companies to check the books (and in that case take bribes as well.) Is the head of the agent force named Corleone by any chance?
    1
  2155.  @katrinabryce  I suspect I've hd a bit more to do with hazardous chemicals than you have. 50 years ago I got pneumonia from a sodium and water hydrogen explosion, never again! Yes lithium reacts with water to produce hydrogen. However when a lithium battery starts to burn, what you are mostly seeing is burning electrolyte and separator. Immediate dumping in water drops the temperature. The first lithium batteries had solid lithium in the anode which was dangerous. The invention of the carbon anode largely fixed that. The lithium is stored in the electrodes and isn't immediately available to the water, so the reaction rate is limited unless the lithium melts out. Which cooling it with water is intended to prevent. Unlike sodium or potassium, lithium doesn't normally self-ignite on the surface of water. If it is producing hydrogen, that too needs a spark or high temperature to cause ignition. What's more, hydrogen diffuses very fast, so ventilation gets rid of it quite rapidly. In short, the way to deal with a lithium battery fire is to get it into cold water as quick as possible, keep the water coming and ventilate, whereas with an oil fire you need to exclude air and not apply water because the oil simply floats on top of it, and it can make the fire spread. Solid state batteries are regarded as the long term answer because they do not contain the flammable electrolyte. Dealing with them would be basically like dealing with a "normal" fire - exclude air.
    1
  2156. @janegreen9340  Mguy exaggerates for clicks. And most EVs have perfectly normal door handles, if you buy a Tesla it's a cult.
    1
  2157.  @Hickalum  I do like precision in hazard analysis, yes. I mentioned elsewhere that lithium batteries need to be suitably ventilated because of the hazards of the gases. However, the same kind of risk exists for petrol vehicles, a fire under the bonnet in a garage can result in an explosion of petrol vapour mixed with air. In fact, a fire in a Diesel vehicle in a multi-storey car park can result in widespread destruction due to heated Diesel oil igniting. And serious and fatal ship fires have been caused by oil collecting in ring belts, and even chains rubbing on metal and causing sparks which ignited vapours in the crankcase. If the new problems of lithium battery safety cause a general review of fire safety around vehicles, and better fire mitigation in garages and multistorey car parks, that will be a good thing.
    1
  2158. @Hickalum  No boats with inboard petrol engines? News to me. They are much less common these days but they exist.
    1
  2159. Napoleon was an emperor who made his relatives kings. Mexico, Canada, Panama, Greenland, Gaza are all going to be Trump monarchies.
    1
  2160. Something not widely understood: Back in the late1960s (when I started working) there were a lot of simple, manual repetitive jobs. I had a vacation job with a pharmaceutical manufacturer, and before I started the chief chemist gave me quite a lecture. He said he had had enough of students who looked down on the line workers. What they needed for these jobs was people - mostly women - with IQs low enough to find their jobs just difficult enough to need some concentration, but not too much. Say around 85-90. They kept them happy with little rewards, gave them good quality work uniforms, and basically the goal was to send them home at the end of the shift feeling they had accomplished something. In another world they would be knitting things for people. They were valued employees. I learned that lesson. American employers tend to be abusive of their workers because they did not. Unfortunately the media has given people unrealistic expectations - and produced a generation who overestimate their own abilities, without having the attitudes that could fit them for roles like that. If your parents were peasants scraping a living from growing rice, vegetables and chickens, you probably have the attitude that could make you a happy employee in that kind of work. Your children may benefit from a city education and go on to achieve more. But if your parents were in the US and got better paid than the rest of the world for a given job, and then you had to pay for that with high house prices and tuition fees, you would be very dissatisfied. And I think this is what is happening.
    1
  2161. What happened? Having stopped all the investigations into his companies and their allegedly dodgy dealings, Musk is done and now wants no publicity for the lives he has wrecked, the research he has ruined and the damage done to the US reputation abroad. When the enterprising burglar's not a-burgling (not a-burgling), when the felon isn't occupied in crime*...he doesn't want the police taking an interest. *W S Gilbert.
    1
  2162.  @ninjadudeofficial  And you would cause a run on the pound because of breaking commercial agreements.
    1
  2163.  @gbone7581  Before that there was hard chrome plating. Worked well but environmental problems in manufacture.
    1
  2164.  @JSmith19858  I can see you don't know much about Eastern Europe, not surprised your posts get deleted.
    1
  2165. The North Sea oil and gas isn't ours, we get a pittance back in licensing fees. Its extracted by foreign companies.
    1
  2166. I like many others followed the whole story in Computer Weekly and The Register with growing disbelief at HP's apparent incompetence. It seems a jury agreed. I've done another post which provides some background, but most people I've discussed it with think the problems lay with Leo the Chemist (Leo Apotheker, CEO of HP) and his CFO. They wanted Autonomy, come hell or high water.
    1
  2167.  @kyojitsu1  It's also a common US problem: engines are really too big for the engine compartments.
    1
  2168. Sharpen drills and use a little lubricant and they will last a lot longer. I pity their poor wives.
    1
  2169. The TO3 look like nothing so much as a cross between a Smart Forfour and the front of a Fiat 500.
    1
  2170. ...that's the Urquehart/Motteux translation, brain going soft.
    1
  2171. @ Weight has little to do with it due to regen. As an example, the journey from our house to the nearest main road is up a variable slight incline for 3km. On the way out electricity consumption is higher than on the flat, but on the way back it is zero because of regeneration. Same with braking; if you anticipate (as I do), then half the kinetic energy is recovered. Wind resistance of EVs is lowered because they do not have to have a broken airflow cooling the catalytic converter and the exhaust system, so the vehicle underside can be smooth and only a single air intake for the radiator is needed.
    1
  2172. @LovelyBassGuitar-uw2yc  Given the overall inefficiency of transporting one person in an SUV, the battery makes little difference.
    1
  2173. The need for the inverter makes it uneconomic. The little panels you see on things like remote gas sensors are only driving 12 volt electrics. However, all our local street lights are already LED, and that is a big energy saving over the sodium ones.
    1
  2174.  @Iazzaboyce  Remember the old saying: If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they wouldn't reach a conclusion.
    1
  2175.  @Iazzaboyce  No, it really doesn't work like that. The case would be defamation and she would have to prove that not only was she right but she had suffered materially from defamation. Arguing that she lost her seat as a result would go nowhere because (a) "that's just politics" - the argument used successfully by Farage and Johnson, and (b) other MPs also lost their seats without similar accusations. It would be a very silly case.
    1
  2176.  @Iazzaboyce  Coming as I do from a family with lawyers, I know full well the meaning of the term "fishing expedition", and the number of occasions I've heard someone say "what were their solicitors thinking?" The KC in the family regularly used to get called up with the ridiculous demands of clients - it's almost always clients - by a solicitor who knew it was nonsense but was only too happy to bill the hours. I don't know everything but I do occasionally follow "reputation management" cases where public. They can be very funny.
    1
  2177. More down to your corporate near-fascism, lack of worker rights, and privatised medicine.
    1
  2178. The best thing about this is that Farage won't even realise what is going on. The Marriage of Faragio where he doesn't realise what the Count is planning for him.
    1
  2179.  @Paul-je7bo  The Conservatives told the same lie about Labour supposedly causing the 2008 slump that was in reality a world one caused by the overheating of the US economy. History is repeating itself.
    1
  2180.  @uanime1  Unemployed inactive people capable of being doctors, nurses, computer scientists? You might have a bit of Dunning -Kruger there.
    1
  2181. @ This is a bit different from the old way of spray coating. It appears to be closely controlled and with an optimised alloy.
    1
  2182.  @BillDavies-ej6ye  Who would have thought the little troublemakers at school who disrupted classes would tend to take a dim view of teachers? See also drug dealers' views on the police.
    1
  2183.  @jamesbeeching6138  So you think blaming teachers for the failings of society is a good thing? You ought to read Marx.
    1
  2184. @paultaylor7082  One of the people I worked with left MG because he said all the staff did at lunchtime was play bridge.
    1
  2185. Our last census showed that more than half of us are not "religious" and of those who are, few belong to extreme sects. Remember that the initial US colonists were religious extremists. That means that they were gullible (willing to believe charlatan preachers) and authoritarian. We got rid of them and dodged the thrown brick. You got them.
    1
  2186. My daughter's first car was a Kia. She did 50 000 miles in it in 4 years, it needed a new fuel pump just before the warranty ran out and it was replaced while she waited. She sold it when she got married because her husband wanted a Skoda estate. Which was a scrap job at 60 000 miles.
    1
  2187. Yes indeed, send Mrs. Trump back.
    1
  2188.  buildinganewworld2682  Is hydrogen flouride what they use to make those tasteless and near-weightless US burgers? If you want to sound as if you know something, better learn some actual chemistry first.
    1
  2189.  @MrMatt531  " you’re welcome for all our medical innovations. Ones your nation doesn’t create" Well, it's true we didn't invent the wallet biopsy or the electronic credit check. However, the UK was the first to develop an affordable covid vaccine, the first to work out the structure of DNA which has led to many medical advances, and the first to sequence the human genome so one of your billionaires could not patent it and make Musk look poor. The University of Cambridge earns billions of pounds every year from its medical research and biotech companies (I know because I'm a graduate and get the data regularly). And one thing our NICE repeatedly does is check US studies and debunk expensive new treatments that actually don't work - but which you guys have to pay for. As for extreme wait times, from getting worried about a skin lump to surgery to remove it took all of 5 weeks, and my wife had to wait about a month each time for hip replacements. Total cost? Car fuel to and from hospital. Yes we've paid into the British system all our working lives. We pay about as much as Americans do in Federal tax that goes to the NIH, veterans, Medicare and so on. But then you have to pay for insurance and "co-pay" on top. I won't say Americans are unbelievably ignorant, because I do believe it, since you voted for Trump.
    1
  2190. This is exactly how they repair rails except using thermite.
    1
  2191. It's probably a good time to sell a Tesla before people (most of whom don't know what goes on in the US) really start to notice.
    1
  2192. You need a law like our UK one, that has just sent someone who abused and threatened a woman politician to prison. If Musk lived in this country, he would have been arrested on the same charge. Free speech should not mean the right to threaten and abuse. It means the right to call out government corruption and dishonesty. Or it did till the dvertising industry got to it.
    1
  2193. Pound to dollar $1.22 at the time of the US election, $1.35 now. Still paying same amount to US companies in £. The US relies on purchase of services from abroad, they are not feeling the effects of Trump.
    1
  2194. You know computer science is not physics? Because a lot of CS people seem to think that computer design models work for the universe.
    1
  2195. Mugs who believe the stock hypers that now is good time to buy when prices are low. (Except that my shares aren't low because they are on the Euro market.)
    1
  2196. Our electrician friend has three phase charging at his office and 4 electric vans, as well as a cheap overnight charging arrangement. None of his customers are more than about 30 miles away and he doesn't do small jobs. What's the problem?
    1
  2197. Basically if you do a lot of short journeys like us, pure EV rules. If you do long journeys and few short ones, Diesel. If you do a mixture of long and short, hybrid. If you only do a relatively low mileage but all rural or longer journeys, petrol. London taxi driver, EV these days. City taxi otherwise, hybrid. Horses for courses, though at this point horses are pretty obsolete.
    1
  2198.  @Shahvez-jr1nn  Jesus was speaking specifically of the accusation of the Pharisees that he was driving out demons because he had Satanic power, and the OP is just writing typical Biblically ignorant "christian" nonsense.
    1
  2199. There is something that needs to be said about Giuliani. Over 20 years ago he was treated for prostate cancer. This can have a number of somewhat devastating effects - the treatment that is - that have psychological consequences for the victim. It wasn't that long after treatment that Giuliani started to endorse right wing conspiracy theories, including repeated lies from a right wing "think tank" that his prognosis would have been much worse under "socialised medicine", citing made up statistics. However, we might consider the possibility that Giuliani's strange behaviour was caused by the treatment, just as Jordan Peterson's increasingly strange publications follow his alternative medicine treatment for severe drug addiction.
    1
  2200. They have enriched themselves, their families and contacts. To them, that is not a mistake.
    1
  2201. "And if you don't pay your shareholders loads of dividends, how much will your prices increase then?"
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  2202. I am sure that 20% of British, German and French voters agree with him, the thing is, they probably can't afford his cars.
    1
  2203. Italian grandstanding prosecutors at work. They infest the US too - think Rudy Guiliani.
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  2204. If they are anything like the British voters who voted to leave the EU, they will be happy that people better educated and better paid than they are will lose their jobs. The MAGA mindset is to drag everybody down to their level except, of course, the billionaires who control them.
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  2205. The issue is that unlike the RoW, the US allows manufacturers to self-certify. In Europe you have to have type approval testing by the government for everything from a 50cc motorbike up. Which is one of the reasons US cars really don't sell there.
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  2206. They couldn't admit that they lost. The biggest problem the US faces is that its permanent state of boosterism means it cannot face up to reality. If reality is bad, just lie about it in the media.
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  2207. I predict that within 4 years it will be the Jews - you know, Soros and Goldman Sachs - and my relatives will be applying for refugee status in Canada.
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  2208. @ Probably not since military history is a major interest of mine. However, we're talking about modern history, and why the British Army is not large. The UK withdrew from India in 1947 and since then has largely decolonialised. The US has been constantly invading and destabilising other countries. What happened in the 18th, or even the 19th, century is not relevant. Now go and wave your revolutionary flag and kid yourself you're still fighting King George (when you should be fighting King Donald.)
    1
  2209. She's a physicist so it's the average over all piston engines.
    1
  2210. Funny thing is I once knew someone who did have a hole in their CV, in the 1950s. He had a rather good job in the car industry. Then his company wanted him to go out and help with a joint venture in Russia. Shortly afterwards his boss told him that someone had come round from a government department and told him my friend wasn't going to Russia, his job must not be affected as a result and no, no explanation would be forthcoming. I guess spying on the Soviet Air Force is a bit of an improvement on belonging to a political party which was apparently trying to sell the economy to Putin.
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  2211.  @ultonian63  The people who were saying "We won get over it" after the referendumb are now saying "you didn't really win, you should go" because the election didn't go their way. We now have a big problem in this country with the anti-democratic forces unleashed by Farage.
    1
  2212. And European countries need our own Asterixes to resist the American invasion. The Asterix books have a wide range of slimy traitorous types to fill the Farage/Tice/Johnson roles, too.
    1
  2213.  @lucweyn4268  Да, знаю. Я понимаю только немнога русский. Вас тоже?
    1
  2214.  @firstlast-hj2sb  I assumed it was a misprint for EFTA. There is no international trade group NFTA.
    1
  2215. @Esemptius  They are not inside the EU on trade and free movement
    1
  2216. The "member of the public" had just thrown an egg over him. I'm not sure you understand the meaning of "honour". It meant the requirement to preserve your status by retaliating to attacks, and honour based societies are much more violent than law-based ones. In an honour based society, Prescott would be applauded while Johnson would be disgraced for lying. Now if you said "standards of behaviour have got worse" I would agree with you.
    1
  2217.  @willieckaslike  I once worked with someone who had been a senior Army officer in WW2. One of his occasional remarks was "dignity doesn't get things done." It's a difficult one, to be sure. Jacob Rees-Mogg is extremely dignified, but he's still as big a clown as Johnson. The 18th century used to use the term "bottom" which I like, it implies that someone rested on solid foundations and wasn't a lightweight.
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  2218.  @georgejones3526  No, when I was at school in the 1960s it was 20 years and we all needed to do physics and chemistry so we'd get well paid jobs in the nuclear power industry.
    1
  2219.  @adrianthoroughgood1191  What is the advantage of thorium reactors?
    1
  2220.  @mikeguilmette776  Uranium reactors were developed first to make plutonium for bombs. Unfortunately 75 years have gone into their development. Although thorium may be better, the cost of finding out would be enormous. In another field, both spark ignition and Diesel engines were developed pretty much in parallel. After the oil crisis in the 1970s a lot of effort went into small Diesel development. The problems didn't really appear till after 2005, and small Diesels are on the way out. This is always the worry with an unproven technology like thorium, that a problem down the line will prove unfixable economically.
    1
  2221. Due to the enormous weight and low capacity of lead acid batteries, actually. They really were milk floats. And at the time a generating station was a small fraction of the size it is now. The first Porsche was a hybrid with a short electric range and weighed over 3 tonnes, despite which it was moderately successful.
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  2222. One was the head of a political party during a GE and so got to form a government. The other was the owner of a limited company which did not get elected to form a government but was promoted by every right wing media owner and billionaire in sight.
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  2223. How about academics who have a brilliant idea, build up a large company, employ lots of people on high salaries? I object to people walking in (e.g. to top job at HP or IBM) to existing companies and being paid telephone numbers. But when someone builds up a company from scratch, that's a very different matter. The fact that HP screwed the pooch is neither here nor there. Lynch's work was important and it added value to society. It is childish to confuse someone like him with a leech like Musk who got rich off other people's work.
    1
  2224. This is how the conservatives stay in power: persuade poor-ish people in the C1C2 groups to keep voting for them on the basis that they are the well off people who would suffer from a Labour government. Hyacinth Bouquet, spelt Bucket.
    1
  2225. He can bankrupt them with legal costs which has always been his technique.
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  2226.  @The-Pullet-and-Duck  Just remember that the Hurricane and Spitfire were also considered obsolete by 1940, but the war and production needs delayed their replacements. It turned out the war didn't go as planned. The replacement for Swordfish turned out to be the helicopter. The Spitfire replacement was a jet fighter.
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  2227.  @brianb-p6586  Correct except that they always had an odd number of cylinders as otherwise they would have needed two expensive magnetos. My WW1 textbook refers only to 3, 7 and 9 cylinder engines.
    1
  2228.  @dn822  Hitler and Mussolini got along because they were both politically astute. Trump and Musk are salesmen, which is how they get along, but sooner or later they will want to sell competing products.
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  2229. The Pinto tank was in the rear and got split in some crashes. In fact many other US cars were the same but it was Ford who got caught out. Every single vehicle feature has a cost of failure analysis ssociated with it, and there is a cost of human life calculation involved. It isn't nice but that is how it has to be as the alternative is driving around in 10mph armoured cars. Ford got it wrong. But they all do the same.
    1
  2230. Well, the Monroe Doctrine (whichis actually a military threat) threatens Europeans not to get involved in the Americas. It didn't mention China.
    1
  2231. Наижел Фараж любит Ванц и Трамп - Pravda exclusive.
    1
  2232. To be fair, many modern headlamps are computer controlled and do more than just turn on and off. Some of them are linked to the steering and even have adaptive patterns that avoid oncoming traffic. New software may make use of programmable features, so using the wrong lights could cause a malfunction due to sending the wrong signals down the CANbus. Should we have this level of complexity? That's a separate issue. But it isn't as simple as "manufacturers evil".
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  2233. Gaslight? Tallow candles more like.
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  2234. Why is Trump allowed to be President? He's a convicted criminal. Same logic, same answer "because that's how it is when you have the power."
    1
  2235. Why do you think Musk wants Harris assassinated? Like Trump he's a mafiosi at heart and he wants his followers to remove a threat to his business. Meanwhile in this country (UK), the New Hampshire Libertarian Party would be explaining itself to the police - we have laws against making terrorist threats against individuals. After all, what they did is not different from the Ayatollah Khomeini issuing the fatwa agains Salman Rushdie, and we agree that was evil. Don't we?
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  2236. Banks already rely on AI but it is based around generated models more than throwing instances into a blender and seeing what comes out. How do you think they work out your credit score?
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  2237. Who would buy it?
    1
  2238. I think Musk is being told what to say by Cummings, based on getting the maximum number of views on Twitter. He's trying to talk up his platform, basically. If he buys the US end of TikTok from the Chinese, Chairman Xi will probably break out the champagne.
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  2239. Where do you empty your dustbins? In someone else's garden or alongside the road you don't use becuse it's council maintained?
    1
  2240.  @user-ud6zu7ye7q  Leaving the WHO means less employment for US medical academics, and more countries looking to buy medicines from, e.g. India rather than the overpriced US. So leaving the WHO could reduce US income significantly.
    1
  2241.  @andyhoward940  No, he retired to be near the rest of his family in Kent. Nowadays most of our family live in London and West Kent. Your point is?
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  2242.  @LMCRecords  Really? What's your evidence for that?
    1
  2243.  @henklee7395  You need to explain that. We are still in retreat.
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  2244. Nonsense. The varieties of canola that were used as lubricants had to be chemically treated to get the right composition. The very different varieties used for food are simply extracted.
    1
  2245.  @Yearofthebunny6789  It would help if Americans who don't even know that Labour have only been in power for 5 months didn't try to comment on our affairs. And, you see, unlike the US this country has direct experience of what happens when a country has a leader rather than a competent administrator. Or don't you know what "Der Führer" means in English? Or the job title of the North Korean dictator? Enjoy the rule of your own Orange Leader.
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  2246. It's an utterly tedious bit of special pleding to keep the rich happy. Get out and read some more and you'll understand why Rand ended up on benefits.
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  2247. Leveson 2 Mail 0 is the headline I want to see.
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  2248. It's only the roads where the signs are still in miles because the British public is not as intelligent as Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders. I would like Starmer to announce that road signs will be in km starting on 1st Jan 2028. Start with distance signs, then change all the speed limits. Make the motorway limit 120kph and tell motorists this is an increase. Get rid of confusing 20 limits in town and have a blanket 40kph limit. Most modern cars can be switched to kilometres in setup. And watching the tabloids, Farage and Rees-Mogg collectively melt down into a small blue puddle would be delightful.
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  2249. The Conservative problem is the same as the Republican problem - the headbangers drove out all the sensible people and now they have nobody who understands how to unite rather than divide. They preferred David Davis over Cameron not realising Cameron would run the government with a very small Etonian clique (and a couple of oiks like Osborne). They eliminated Stewart and Tugendhat, both of whom would have been "safe pairs of hands." In the past they have chosen Hague, IDS, May, Johnson, Truss ffs, and then a banking apparatchik. In about 1970 I was asked if I wanted to join the Young Conservatives. I said that I really didn't want to get into student politics. "Oh", they said, "we don't do politics. No ideologies here." And that is the lesson the new Cons, with their two right wings, have forgotten.
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  2250. When Putin was first asked about Trump, he used a term which on the face of it meant "smart businessman", but in Russia had the colloquial meaning of "mobster".
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  2251. Reform is not a political party, Farage's wheeze to get around that.
    1
  2252.  @SabineHossenfelder  Wasn't there a problem with a fruitcake lawyer (not that uncommon) who tried to litigate against the LHC starting up?
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  2253. We in Europe kept getting told that Americans needed guns to defend against tyrannical governments. Now you have the tyrannical government and it is supported by the people with guns. We did warn you but instead you listened to the NRA.
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  2254. All roller bearings need oil, they just don't need as much. I had a Velocette motorcycle, there was a little jet squirted oil into the crankshaft and then it was centrifuged into the big end and out into the roller bearing, no pressure feed.
    1
  2255. Actually, rebooting it is pretty much military SOP when things stop working. Have they tried rebooting Trump and Musk?
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  2256. The background noise you can just hear is Tony Vandervell, up in Heaven and crying.
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  2257. Trump's advisers seem to have tried to coach him in certain complete sentences and talking points but he gets confused, gets them out of order, mixes up ideas. Without a teleprompter he's nothing. Basdically if Trump is elected again, whoever operates the teleprompter will be the real President.
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  2258.  @jenniferjean  Improvement surely?
    1
  2259. The driver is actually above the crumple zone in collision with a car.
    1
  2260. The Monty Python slogan literally was "Hilter für ein besseres Meinhead", which is pretty much the same as MAGA but relating to a grotty seaside town in England.
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  2261. The country that refused to sign the treaty against landmines is now sending them to Ukraine which means there will be minefields in Europe, as in WW2. It also means civilians will die in American minefields, again. Now the significance is obvious. If Ukraine intends to mine the edge of the Donbas, they have accepted they cannot retake it. You don't crap in your own garden. It was the same in the Falklands; when the British Army realised that Argentina was spreading landmines, they knew that the junta had no intention of occupying the Falklands, it was purely a vanity project to try to get public support. The de facto border will end up like the old East German one whatever Zelensky says about retaking land.
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  2262. Yes, also Stalin and Hitler.
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  2263. So long as you confine your driving to international waters, you won't pay any tax. The emissions from ships have improved so much in recent years that global warming has increased. If that sounds wrong, it is because they are no longer emitting the sulfur dioxide and carbon particles that had a cooling effect.
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  2264. The US military thinks it is above the law, especially since 20th. January.
    1
  2265. As someone outside the US I can only express my gratitude to the American people for electing incompetent would be dictators (plus the unelected African one) rather than competent ones. I guess he'll be going after the Euro next.
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  2266. How do they gain access? Putin has had a backdoor installed.
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  2267. ICE has pretty much reached the hard technical limits of chemistry, metallurgy and thermodynamics. In fact, in aircraft it reached that by 1946. There's a lot of R&D but it goes where there is still headroom - ship engines. In 1980 it looked like it was game over for R&D but then CAD came aong, engines improved, better turbochargers. Variable valve timing and automated engine management was invented by the Germans in WW2 but wasn't economic in cars for decades. The Citigo does 55mpg because it is tiny and with a small front area. VW spent vast amounts of money trying to develop a "3 litre" engine - which translates as 95mpg. They failed and gave up.
    1
  2268.  @jamesclark6104  0 MPs doing the job though. Dine and do nothing.
    1
  2269.  @Joeblogs999  I agree. It is funny how the same people who want cannabis to stay illegal also object to any restrictions on tobacco. It's almost as if the huge extremely rich tobacco industry was bribing politicians to protect its profits.
    1
  2270.  @ipohtennischannel5482  It was last week
    1
  2271. Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I like paying taxes, they buy civilisation."
    1
  2272. @ Not all societies are civilisations. Civilisation means cities (Latin civis), you can have a rural society with no cities.
    1
  2273.  @honkhonkler7732  It wasn't modified for mass production, this is a myth. It was modified to suit the US preference for off the shelf machine tools. RR used mass production but they had dedicated tools for each part. The myth seems to have arisen when Packard got some prototype engines from the UK and thought they were production versions. RR made more engines than Packard.
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  2274.  @karlhulme8014  Yes - they want to charge me less for overnight EV charging, but then the daily rate goes up a bit so with solar panels, it isn't worth it.
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  2275. @ More complicated than that. The more expensive alloys are required to have lower impurity elements. It's the electrochemical reactions with the impurities that cause the staining.
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  2276.  @timonsolus  Scaling to a BMW G73 it would weigh around 7 tonnes, drastically reducing range. But as someone who once worked in tank R&D let me point out that the near-vertical front and sides would be penetrated by even small bore cannon, a large sheet of armoured glass gives very limited protection, and you're not going to support that thing with puncture proof tyres. A Warrior IFV, which is about 50% bigger, and is a real armoured car, has a mass of 25 tonnes.
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  2277.  @timonsolus  That's why I also compared to the BMW politician carrier. It's 4 tonnes with a petrol engine, and smaller than a CT, so extrapolating to allow for the battery and extra space I got around 6-7 tonnes. The Warrior is an IFV - infantry fighting vehicle. I was giving an example of a serious armoured car. The protection given by the BMW one - well, hope someone never gets to use HEAT or even an APFSDS round on it, it wouldn't be happy.
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  2278. The US is a collection of States, some of which are far from failed, but which are part of a rapidly failing federal government.
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  2279.  @michaelmather7352  That'll restrict their supply of anti-tank munitions.
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  2280.  @frogger2011ify  Nitrogen is insignificantly larger than oxygen and diffuses more, not less, easily because it is less reactive.
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  2281.  @beckettcohen5493  Nitrogen obeys the same gas laws as air. I don't know who told you that but you have been suckered.
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  2282. @ And as most of the shares are not traded, the true price cannot be evaluated.
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  2283. His facial expressions mean "I don't believe a word of this but I know Trump will."
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  2284. If Trump is a stable genius, what does that make Musk? A money obsessed video game playing law breaking unstable social and political ignoramus?
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  2285.  @sissyroxx  All European countries do evaluate the cost/benefit of treatment, however, and assign a value to human life based on age and capacity. For instance, if someone's life can be extended by a month by a €50 000 treatment which has side effects, it won't be approved. There are limits to treatment. There have to be, otherwise we'd be spending our entire GDP keeping people with almost no quality of life alive.
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  2286.  @ThomasLloyd-w5q  My grandson is doing pretty much the same stuff I did in the 6th form at the same level, 50 years apart.
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  2287.  @davidfgranger  Johnson and his entire family are very weird, but they have the ability to appear normal. Musk does not.
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  2288. Isn't Farage monoorchidaceous, like Adolf?
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  2289.  @robfinch1522  I was just observing that things had changed due to ASLEF. But since you didn't like being replied to I will delete it.
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  2290. Trump must be aware at some level that if he pardons them, the next riot might be against him.
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  2291. I suspect even the members realised that Jenrick had things in his past that might ome back to bite him. In Badenoch's case her problems will be the things in her future.
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  2292. I suspect they think that if Badenoch runs the Conservative Party, people will desert it for Reform.
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  2293. The NRA kept on about "good guys with guns" to conceal the fact that it was mostly the bad guys that had them. And it is coming home to roost.
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  2294. Regressing. Post WW2 a lot of the British Empire that went backwards did so because with independence came democratic deficit. It's just taken the US longer than Zimbabwe to elect a senile autocrat and suffer the consequences. Look up Zimbabwe, it has parallels.
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  2295.  @andrewbailey5480  Gove giving pillocks a bad name almost since birth.
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