Ban on small engines in California

[lennardhme]

Hi all,
Dont you know that calling a young girl a hobgoblin could have a negative psycho impact on her for the rest of her natural ? life. In future kindly refer to the young thing as bloody hobgoblin.....what happened to ' children should be seen & not heard'?, although I would love to have her come up with some positive solutions.
By the way, the CO2 problem has been largely solved by British engineering ingenuity.
Google JCB, a company owned by Lord Cyril Bamford which makes back hoes & suchlike & sells worldwide.
He has perfected one of his modified diesels to run on Hydrogen, with spark ignition. It is economical, powerful & currently holds the world land speed record, so you can all sleep well tonight knowing that our beloved ICE will be around for a few more generations.
The Hydrogen for the UK will largely be produced in Australia.....done deal.
This is a very interesting story for engine afficianados & don' t miss the video, gives some insight into hydrogen fuel cells & why they are not suitable for some applications.
Cheers,
Lennard.

 

[skyline1]

And to paraphrase the Scandinavian hobgoblin: blah blah blah.

"Scandinavian Hobgoblin" that made me laugh ROTFL in fact ! But sadly I feel she is right

How many people will come to COP26 in Glasgow?

30,000 Delegates
10,000 Police Officers
Countless protesters
and all the transport to get them there, Biden's entourage alone probably produced as much CO² as a small country over the same period.

It's an awful lot of CO² to "solve" a problem which

A) May not exist
B) We may have little or no control over.

All we achieved was the wishy-washy compromise that everyone expected which will be either deliberately misinterpreted or outright ignored anyway

Vested interests and lying advertising execs have always needed a "bandwagon to jump onto" first it was health and safety, then equality and discrimination, now it's climate change and green issues. What will the next one be ?

Best Regards Mark

 

[GreenTwin]

Mennonites will sometimes build perfect structures......only to purposely introduce a glaring error to keep things spicy (or humble).

"Perfection is the enemy of good enough."

OCDness is quite prevalent in our small communities. I'm a nerd when I send texts with correct punctuation. When I come home though, I have to break some of the rules, or I'll drive my family insane. It's good to leave some grass uncut with my piston powered mower (tying it all back in, I promise) or a car parked crooked now and then. Pretty soon my new neighbors who escaped Cali promising not to repeat their previous flaws will be enforcing zoning laws on all my yard's imperfections.

I have to do the same thing.
My daughter has a new job, a new place to live, and is just getting on her feet, so she is short on money.
Her car broke down the other day, and it is perhaps 14 years old with a lot of miles.
I went to buy her a new car, and due to supply problems, the least expensive ones are not available.

They did have one with hail damage on the hood and roof, but no breaks or cracks in the paint, and it was the only new compact car they had on the lot. I bought it, and they took $4,000.00 off the price.
My daughter was more than excited to see it, hail damage and all.
I told her that the hail damage was a reminder that life is not perfect, and that is OK.
She loves her car, and is no longer in danger of breaking down in some unsafe part of town.

.

 

[Ken I]

Terry, Correct birds are killed by all sorts of things but the damage done by wind turbines is greatly underestimated for a whole host of reasons :-

See the following infrared video of typical bat behaviour around a wind-turbine – including curiosity touch and go exploration of the object (tower and stationary blade) as well as bats falling out of the sky without being actually hit (barotrauma) and of course direct strikes.



Scientists are also concerned why bats – which have excellent echo location sonar and should have no problem identifying a moving turbine blade – seem to be attracted to them.

One suggestion is that from a distance the wing tip vortices created by the blades may be mistaken by the bats for a swirling cloud of insects – or a rather attractive dinner.

Similarly large soaring raptors can be seen to “suicidally” circle wind turbines for no apparent reason. Again it is thought that the raptors pick up on the wingtip vortices and cruise around in them looking for a free “lift” as they do for thermals. Clearly seen in the video link below…..



Raptors wingtip feathers “sense” rising and falling airflow (like a glider’s variometer instrument informs the pilot) it does not consider the turbine to be the cause nor does the bird consider it in any way dangerous. It is simply responding to millions of years of evolution dancing through the turbulence.

Theoretical wake vortex of a wind turbine.

Actual wake vortex made visible by unusual weather conditions.

It is quite possible that raptors intercept these “false thermals” and unintentionally “surf” them to their doom (as can be seen in video link above).

Glider pilots will tell you they share the airspace with soaring birds (modern gliders have better “sink” rates than birds) and you can watch them adjust their flight to remain in the thermal and the glider pilot following his variometer finds himself flying the same course as the birds.

A soaring bird crossing the downwind vortex trail would, on exiting an area of lift will turn back in to it and on subsequent crossings reverse the direction of turn – by this navigation method it zig zags or circles up towards the turbine. Once the bird passes the turbine it turns once again to find the “thermal” it was using. This then becomes the “suicidal” behaviour we see.

Clearly the fatal footprint of a wind turbine is very much larger that the physical space it occupies.

It has recently been discovered that birds flying in typical “V” formations do so for reason of energy conservation – stealing a little bit of lift from the wing vortices of the bird diagonally ahead – this behaviour was previously thought to be a line of sight issue.

This behaviour is typical for large migratory bird species – also at risk from the presence of wind turbines.

Migratory birds travelling over water typically adjust their flight paths to fly over islands to gain the benefit of any thermal lift. An offshore wind turbine would look like a tree, obviously must be supported by an “island” – so they adjust their flight path – through the rotating turbine which in most cases are large enough to transect the typical flight altitude of migratory birds. Again birds adopt these altitudes to best make use of thermals and conserve energy.

The above behaviour patterns explain the disproportionate mortality for larger birds, particularly large soaring birds like raptors and migratory species.

Because these are "Eco-friendly" projects the environmental impact study is either glossed over or by-passed completely in spite of the fact that a typical wind farm involves a hundred of these intrusive towers each with a 2500-3500 Ton foundation, about a kilometre of road per tower and extensive power grids.

A great number of wind and solar projects have in fact been built in “Bio-diversity” and “Wildlife Sanctuary’s” – where no building is normally allowed – see the following link :-

BBC Admits: Green Energy Plants Threaten Wildlife Habitats

It looks like environmentalists are starting to wake up to the fact that wind and solar are in no way “Eco-Friendly” !

Wind Turbines chop birds & bats to pieces (even the endangered ones - seems they don't differentiate) are noisy (infrasound), generate annoying “light flicker” and universally detested by the neighbours. Property values diminish with the presence of wind farms.

Britain's Wind Farm Scam Threatens Economic Recovery

Wind power is endangering species that have survived numerous ice ages, sea level changes etc - Global Warming poses no threat to them - Wind Turbines are positively lethal - refer the following link that suggest that environmentalists are in a state of denial over this inconvenient truth.

Refer to the following article in which windpower companies are using bird mortality figures and sampling guidelines for 50-60m high wind turbines on 100-130m wind turbines in order to “gloss over” the damage being done to bird (and particularly raptor) populations. They also indulge in wishful thinking such as 30 day periods between surveys when they know from other studies that most carcasses are removed by scavengers within 10 days thus underreporting avian mortalities by anywhere from 2 to 10 times the real values.

Wind turbines kill up to 39 million birds a year! - CFACT

The Irish Sea is festooned with offshore wind farms and sea bird numbers have fallen drastically – the greens are in denial and are trying desperately to find some other plausible cause – preferably finding some way of blaming man/climate change as the cause.

Admittedly causality remains unproven but a drop of 50 to 80% in some seabird populations, concomitant with the growth in offshore wind farms, is certainly alarming.

As Wind Farms Overwhelm The Irish Sea, Isle Of Man Seabird Populations Plummet

It is impossible to determine mortality rates caused by offshore wind turbines as carcasses are simply lost to the sea. I’m sure they could study it if they tried but I suspect lack of motivation to go looking for evidence that runs counter to their belief system / narrative.

Two sides to every story.

P.S. I believe the term Margerine comes from the Greek Margeron - for Pearl -apparently because under a microscope the inverse emulsion looks like pearls.

https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/what-is-margarine#:~:text=Margarine's%20name%20derives%20from%20the,milky%2C%20pearl%2Dlike%20drops.&text=Modern%20margarine%20is%20usually%20made,oils%20that%20have%20been%20hydrogenated.

Regards, Ken

 

[davidyat]

Mennonites will sometimes build perfect structures......only to purposely introduce a glaring error to keep things spicy (or humble).

"Perfection is the enemy of good enough."

OCDness is quite prevalent in our small communities. I'm a nerd when I send texts with correct punctuation. When I come home though, I have to break some of the rules, or I'll drive my family insane. It's good to leave some grass uncut with my piston powered mower (tying it all back in, I promise) or a car parked crooked now and then. Pretty soon my new neighbors who escaped Cali promising not to repeat their previous flaws will be enforcing zoning laws on all my yard's imperfections.

Zeb, is your Avatar a WWII English Fighter Pilot, Spitfire or Hawker Hurricane? My Dad was a WWII B-24 top turret gunner and was shot down and a POW for 15 months. I'm a WWII history buff.
Grasshopper

 

[ajoeiam]

Hi Richard,
Please don't take this the wrong was but I'm sorry to rain on your parade as many of your statements here are quite wrong. For example people do not 'die out' because of inability to eat butter. In fact approximately 65% of the world population are lactose intolerant after infancy, especially in East Asia so cannot consume most dairy products, however some of those are able to tolerate fermented diary products such as cheese or yoghurt. I personally know Thai and Chinese who think that cheese etc are disgusting describing them as 'rotten milk'.

snip

TDx

Hmmmmmmmmmm - - - - - "many of your statements here are quite wrong." and you yourself are continuing the spread of same.

Please do some research - - - - butter contains at best a tiny fraction of lactose - - - if any - - - butter is a FAT product.
A good cheese - - - - SAME - - - now watch out because much of the mozzarella in north america is made using an acid rather than culture and then it does still contain lactose. As far as an intolerance to 'lactose' - - - - I think (because I am not 100% sure) in most cases this is an inability to digest some of the milk proteins - - - which is just a wee bit different than being lactose intolerant. In fact - - - if one were lactose intolerant - - - well - - - then one would have to be glucose intolerant as well for lactose is a disaccharide formed by glucose and galactose.

As to the 'Asian' dietary thinking - - - -well they consider shark's fin a delicacy as well as a certain kind of bird's nest also eating giant slugs and maggots and a few other things that I think most of us would find quite revolting so they may label cheese as rotten milk but then if I enjoy it - - - - it is to me like their choice to eat things I find disgusting.

Sorta easy to understand their food predilections as they have been extremely heavily populated for so long that they don't have a cultural memory of having enough space to raise things like beef easily. Beef does take more space as grass doesn't produce the same volume of stuff as do maggots or even pigs fed on wastes.

 

[Richard Hed]

Hi Richard,
Please don't take this the wrong was but I'm sorry to rain on your parade as many of your statements here are quite wrong. For example people do not 'die out' because of inability to eat butter. In fact approximately 65% of the world population are lactose intolerant after infancy, especially in East Asia so cannot consume most dairy products, however some of those are able to tolerate fermented diary products such as cheese or yoghurt. I personally know Thai and Chinese who think that cheese etc are disgusting describing them as 'rotten milk'.

The 'facts' you state about margarine are actually myths. They are a result of some so called 'facts' that have been circulating on the internet for some time based on propaganda from the dairy industry in the US. Basically they are essentially the result of conspiracy theories. Firstly, 'oleo' was not discovered by scientists in WW2 looking for plastics materials. The word oleo is derived from the Latin 'oleum' which is a word for edible oils especially olive oil. Early margarines were called oleomargarines to distinguish them as plant based and the term 'oleo' was used in the US colloquially to refer to margarine made from plant based oils such as rapeseed, sunflower and olive oil which themselves have been consumed for centuries by us humans. You may also have been confused by the fact that in Germany in the 1930s there were experiments done to produce edible fats from paraffin wax by a chemical process, apparently hte resulting product was nutritious and palatable, but it was a deliberate process, during a time of poverty in that country when they were rebuilding following the devstation as a result of WW1, and there was a shortage of expensive butter as farming practices had not flly recovered and there was a need for high energy nutritious foods. It was not an accidental discovery.

By the way you should know that the term 'plastic' is a property of materials (plasticity) - e.g. wet clay is described as being 'plastic' during the stage when it can be moulded, say by a potter. The term has been hijacked as a noun to conveniently describe polymerised materials that have been shaped by moulding, casting or some other forming process during a 'plastic' state before solidifying.

Margarine was indeed developed during the war - the Franco-Prussian wars in 1869 as a cheaper. longer lasting (no portable refrigerators then) substitute for butter as a high energy food for the French troops. It was originally developed - as a response to a French government competition - from solid animal fats but that's another story, before using plant based oils after the discovery that hydrogenation 'firmed up' the oil. It was first sold in the US in the 1880s and it was so popular that the powerful dairy industry lobbied the US government to tax and restrict the sales of margarine (land of the free) by introducing expensive 'licences' for wholesalers and retailers who sold margarine. That same dairy industry also circulated the myths you quote about margarine to deter people from using the butter substitute which have been continued by the magnifying glass that is the internet.

On another tack, could you let me know the source of the research on the IQ levels of machinists, I'd love to impress my family and prove them wrong.

TDx

My degree is in Psychology. I doesn't remember where I got the info on the IQs, however, I'm quite sure it is as accurate as any information can be (???). However, as we all know, psychologists are all crazy anyway and as you have shown above, I probably got my facts wrong. I absolutely loathe margarine and truly believe it is a hazard to the health.

As for the statement about evolution, it is a general truth, if you cannot tolerate milk products, you are less likely to live longer. When dealing with 100,000s of peop.le 40,000 years ago, this would be life extending or threatennig to an individual and so with tribes of 250 or so people.

I have more to say, but I have to go to work. More after work (oops, I mean werk for those of you who are trying to learn to 'unspell').

 

[Nerd1000]

Hmmmmmmmmmm - - - - - "many of your statements here are quite wrong." and you yourself are continuing the spread of same.

Please do some research - - - - butter contains at best a tiny fraction of lactose - - - if any - - - butter is a FAT product.
A good cheese - - - - SAME - - - now watch out because much of the mozzarella in north america is made using an acid rather than culture and then it does still contain lactose. As far as an intolerance to 'lactose' - - - - I think (because I am not 100% sure) in most cases this is an inability to digest some of the milk proteins - - - which is just a wee bit different than being lactose intolerant. In fact - - - if one were lactose intolerant - - - well - - - then one would have to be glucose intolerant as well for lactose is a disaccharide formed by glucose and galactose.

As to the 'Asian' dietary thinking - - - -well they consider shark's fin a delicacy as well as a certain kind of bird's nest also eating giant slugs and maggots and a few other things that I think most of us would find quite revolting so they may label cheese as rotten milk but then if I enjoy it - - - - it is to me like their choice to eat things I find disgusting.

Sorta easy to understand their food predilections as they have been extremely heavily populated for so long that they don't have a cultural memory of having enough space to raise things like beef easily. Beef does take more space as grass doesn't produce the same volume of stuff as do maggots or even pigs fed on wastes.

Ok so I'm a biochemist and need to correct you here.

Lactose is indeed a disaccharide, but your body can't use it as-is, it must be cleaved into its glucose and galactose components before your cells can absorb it. There is an enzyme that does this called lactase (or beta-galactosidase if you want to get technical) that is universal in mammals, because we all drink milk when we're babies. Most mammals, however, don't drink milk when they are adults, so making lactase would be a waste of energy and protein. Evolution hates such inefficiency, so in most mammals including humans after a certain age the gene that encodes this enzyme gets switched off and you stop being able to break down and absorb lactose. Your gut bacteria also have the gene for this enzyme, but regulate it differently (Google 'Lac Operon' for info on that) so if you don't absorb it the lactose passes through to your large intestine where the bacteria ferment it and make you sick.

Some time in prehistory, probably 8000-12000 years ago, someone was born with a mutation (DNA base 'C' at position 13910 on chromosome 2 was switched to 'T') that breaks the control system that disables lactase production in adults. This mutation would be a slight disadvantage to a hunter-gatherer, but to a farmer who kept cattle, sheep, goats etc it was an enormous genetic advantage. As a consequence it soon spread and became the dominant genotype in Northern Europe, which is staggeringly fast by evolutionary standards. However due to geographic barriers and different conditions it didn't make it to Asia or Africa until much later, and never 'took off' to the same degree.

 

[Zeb]

Zeb, is your Avatar a WWII English Fighter Pilot, Spitfire or Hawker Hurricane? My Dad was a WWII B-24 top turret gunner and was shot down and a POW for 15 months. I'm a WWII history buff.
Grasshopper

@Grasshopper I remember being in awe (90's) talking to some B-24 airmen that went through the Stalag Luft. They will be missed. My avatar is from a drawing of a Mustang pilot.

Regarding the amount of CO2 emissions being emitted to support COP24, I'd like to proudly remind our international members that US hunters spend approximately 1.6 billion yearly towards habitat and wildlife conservation. I think the actual output is probably worth around 10% of that, but that's still a big chunk of change. And we do spend a lot of time walking. hehe

 

[Richard Hed]

@Grasshopper I remember being in awe (90's) talking to some B-24 airmen that went through the Stalag Luft. They will be missed. My avatar is from a drawing of a Mustang pilot.

Regarding the amount of CO2 emissions being emitted to support COP24, I'd like to proudly remind our international members that US hunters spend approximately 1.6 billion yearly towards habitat and wildlife conservation. I think the actual output is probably worth around 10% of that, but that's still a big chunk of change. And we do spend a lot of time walking. hehe

So you hunt in eastern Washington, do you?

 

[Zeb]

Negative, I try to shy away...except maybe for Alcobra. I still need to check that place out.

 

[Richard Hed]

Negative, I try to shy away...except maybe for Alcobra. I still need to check that place out.

Yes, I need to get some 1/2X3/4" brass and maybe some bronze too. Boy alive, that stuff is expensive. I was there a mnth ago and could have bought a piece but it was only about 18" long and cost 80$!. I let it go at that time as I wasn't sure I would have enough moolah in the old bank account to get my other purchases. Now I'm sorry I did not get it.

 

[ajoeiam]

Ok so I'm a biochemist and need to correct you here.

Lactose is indeed a disaccharide, but your body can't use it as-is, it must be cleaved into its glucose and galactose components before your cells can absorb it. There is an enzyme that does this called lactase (or beta-galactosidase if you want to get technical) that is universal in mammals, because we all drink milk when we're babies. Most mammals, however, don't drink milk when they are adults, so making lactase would be a waste of energy and protein. Evolution hates such inefficiency, so in most mammals including humans after a certain age the gene that encodes this enzyme gets switched off and you stop being able to break down and absorb lactose. Your gut bacteria also have the gene for this enzyme, but regulate it differently (Google 'Lac Operon' for info on that) so if you don't absorb it the lactose passes through to your large intestine where the bacteria ferment it and make you sick.

Some time in prehistory, probably 8000-12000 years ago, someone was born with a mutation (DNA base 'C' at position 13910 on chromosome 2 was switched to 'T') that breaks the control system that disables lactase production in adults. This mutation would be a slight disadvantage to a hunter-gatherer, but to a farmer who kept cattle, sheep, goats etc it was an enormous genetic advantage. As a consequence it soon spread and became the dominant genotype in Northern Europe, which is staggeringly fast by evolutionary standards. However due to geographic barriers and different conditions it didn't make it to Asia or Africa until much later, and never 'took off' to the same degree.

OK - - - - so one can be lactose intolerant due to a lack of lactase.

Still doesn't remove the fact that there should be zero lactose in butter - - - and in a good cheese.

So what causes the issues when butter is used or a good cheese?
(Not talking about when a pasta filata produced using the acid process is involved.)

 

[Nerd1000]

OK - - - - so one can be lactose intolerant due to a lack of lactase.

Still doesn't remove the fact that there should be zero lactose in butter - - - and in a good cheese.

So what causes the issues when butter is used or a good cheese?
(Not talking about when a pasta filata produced using the acid process is involved.)

In an ideal world there should not be lactose in butter or cheese, in practice there is usually going to be some carry-over, in the butter because some small amount of the non-fat milk components sneak through, and in cheese because the bacteria don't manage to eat it all before conditions stop them growing.

People were eating yoghurt and cheese for a long time before they were eating other dairy, precisely because the much lower lactose content made it tolerable (also no refrigeration or pasteurisation means milk turns into one of these products rather quickly after it comes out of the cow, whether you want it to or not).

Going back to the start of this conversation, a lot of what is seen as 'bad' about margarine comes from its trans-fat content. Animal fats like butter are mostly saturated fats, which are known to not be great for cardiovascular health. Vegetable oils are mostly cis- unsaturated fats, which are better, but the bent shape of a cis-unsaturated fatty acid means the molecules don't pack together into a solid so easily as saturated fats, causing the fat to be a liquid at room temperature. To make margarine (as opposed to something with the consistency of mayonnaise) from vegetable oils the usual practice is to hydrogenate the oil, turning it into a saturated fat. No worse than butter so far, but the conditions of the hydrogenation can also catalyse a side reaction that flips cis unsaturated fatty acids into trans unsaturated fatty acids, which are now known to cause lots of cholesterol problems.

 

[willray]

As for the statement about evolution, it is a general truth, if you cannot tolerate milk products, you are less likely to live longer.

Quite obviously, this "general truth" is something other than true. The fact that the large majority of the earth's population is "lactose intolerant", suggests that lactose intolerance is not even remotely an impediment to fitness in an evolutionary sense.

 

[davidyat]

@Grasshopper I remember being in awe (90's) talking to some B-24 airmen that went through the Stalag Luft. They will be missed. My avatar is from a drawing of a Mustang pilot.

Regarding the amount of CO2 emissions being emitted to support COP24, I'd like to proudly remind our international members that US hunters spend approximately 1.6 billion yearly towards habitat and wildlife conservation. I think the actual output is probably worth around 10% of that, but that's still a big chunk of change. And we do spend a lot of time walking. hehe

Zeb, I didn't know Mustang pilots (USA I assume) wore British style skull caps and oxygen delivery systems. I thought they wore headgear more like this. I'm assembling a mannequin with all the equipment I believe my Dad wore during His time in the B-24. In 2019, I was lucky enough to be on a 75th Anniversary of D-Day tour in Europe and afterward, visited the sites of 2 of His Stalag Lufts. Luft IV and 11A
Grasshopper

 

[Ken I]

I think it more likely that they were British pilots flying Mustangs. Mustang MkIII's were used by the RAF.
IIRC Stanford Tuck's squadron flew them for a while.
Regards, Ken

 

[Henry K]

Years ago, there was a large ( 2 units each 300 megawatt) coal fired electric generating plant a few miles away. It used water from an adjacent river for cooling. My friend worked for the utility. One time they had an environmental problem - a large fish kill. It was winter (air temperature 20 to 30 degrees farenheight) and the plant had to shut down for some repairs. The very large volume of bathtub temperature water stopped coming into the river. Fish that were used to the warm water were now in ice cold water - big fish kill.

 

[Richard Hed]

Quite obviously, this "general truth" is something other than true. The fact that the large majority of the earth's population is "lactose intolerant", suggests that lactose intolerance is not even remotely an impediment to fitness in an evolutionary sense.

It's true for Europeans. It's very much like when nomads learned to use wheat in a flour to make breads. THis gave them more energy to breed more and live longer too.

 

[Steamchick]

"Vive la difference!".. But these same nomads also found that where grasses grew well was a more temperate climate, the dried seeds could be stored easily through "non-growing"
seasons, making winter survival better, and a host of other reasons. Including genetic changes to have less pigment to block UV in the skin, differences in eyes, liver, and other organ details, etc.
And grass seeds can make beer! - Yummy!
K2