It really was 40 years ago...

The solar constant is the mean power falling on the earth from the
sun. It's about 1.4kW/m^2.

 

It was a bit more than forty years.

Actually, Concorde was a bit pointless and really a rather silly
aircraft from an engineering point of view.

We shouldn't. We can't.

There are lots of things we could be doing. I think the next big one
that will really impress me will be this:

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/front/d...l?siteSect=105&sid=7118024&cKey=1159613846000

 

So how many hamsters in a wheel would we need to come up with the
equivalent of the solar constant. The hamster variable if you will, or
would we consider gerbils to be more energy efficient?

 

You're always doing this, aren't you?

 

Those crazy Swiss - they do love their tunnels.

But did you look at the date of the article?

 

Oh ye of little faith in the stupidity of man.

You want photographs and an affidavit signed by Stu the publican.
Or are you going to tell everyone I believe everything I am told at the
pub.
Parochial! Scheesh!

Shepway Council offices, not a million miles away from the pub which is
The Rose and Crown.
They are in the phone book give him a call.

Yes apparently. To qualify this they only turn up when it rains hard as
do the builders to looking for the leaks.

F**K knows.

Then the builders don't turn up either.

 

Other planets are OK. Uncle Sam could put a man on Mars in ten years if he wanted to,
if there were any commies who needed a demonstration of superior technology.

 

I still don't understand how they see the leaks from outside, unless the
entire pub is under water and there is air bubbling out.[/QUOTE]

This point had me asking questions.

Stu said it's all down to the age of the pub and the roof construction.
The repair is down to Punch Tavern the pub group that own it.
The only way their man said it could be done was from the outside.

We now need a surveyor to tell us why, because I don't know why.

 

So why did no airline buy it other than those that had to?

Thermodynamics trumps everything.

Vanloads of Paddies and Pavels on their way to build the solar
collectors in the Sahara.

 

If a hamster can generate half a Watt [1], you would need 2800
hamsters per square meter. If a wheel is about 300mm diameter and 50mm
across, you can fit about 60 hamsters per square meter, so you would
to stack them up about 40-50 deep to get the same power per square
meter. No allowance has been made for the gearboxes.

[1] http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19325862.300

 

That's the thing, isn't it? There just aren't any proper, serious
justifications for spending billions on doing big, interesting stuff
any more.

 

I though tthe whole point of digging in was against harder radiation
than mere UV & IR; insulation isn't the only issue.

Feel free to tell me I've been whooshed.

 

Lack of avaiable routes for one: no-one wanted sonic booms over their
cities, so the Atlantic was really the only major route available. I
dunno if it could ever have been made cheap enough for package holiday
operators, too.

If you really want to travel fast around the globe, you need to get
out of that pesky atmosphere IMO. Either go ballistic or take the
Tube.

Shouldn't? Good grief!

 

Presumably only the energy that hits the Earth's atmosphere. How much
actually hits the surface?

 

Just tell the White House there's a Taliban training ground there,
they'll be invading it within days.

 

On Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:12:58 +0200, Pip Luscher

[Mars habitats]

Yes. The problem with Mars is that it does not have a magnetic
field, and thus no Van Allen belts, and it does not have any appreciable
atmosphere either. Which means that hard radiation and charged particles
from solar flares will make any potential colonists who are not
dug pretty much dead.

Thermal insulation is just an added bonus.

Leslie

 

Five times the fuel cost per passenger of a 747 on a transatlantic
flight. Useless to package holiday operators because the routes aren't
long enough to make it worthwhile. Expensive to buy and maintain.

If we can't, we shouldn't.

 

Damn! References. That makes it a bit difficult to argue. However they
state quite clearly that no two people agreed on the figures but 1/2 a
watt per hamster seems like a reasonable figure.

We would make a loss of energy on the gear box thus increasing the
required number of hamsters from an impractical number to a really
impractical number.

Damn! Hamsters are out then!

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, M J Carley

What fucking sort of engineer are you?

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - "He's hopeless, but he's honest"

I have already made the greatest contribution to the fight against climate
change that I can make: I have decided not to breed. Now quit bugging me and
go and talk to the Catholics.

 

In my old place I used a pre heat of 40 gallons and a main heat tank of
80 gallons and would have hot water on a *bright* cloudy day. Water from
the well was at a constant 10 deg C. It warmed up a bit in the internal
holding tank.

I was thinking of using a long parabolic reflector in the roof area with
a movable motorised piped receiver element so it would always be in the
focus point. Use the output heat to drive a sterling engine for
electrical power.
But I never got around to it.

From the web site I put together to sell it.
http://www.whittinghamsite.fsnet.co.uk//house/details.htm

Excuse the crude HTML I wrote it 'knife and fork' fashion. No clever
programs available then.