Quote from: K-Dog on Nov 29, 2024, 11:52 AMI can't watch the video, I tried.  Looking at that thing made one of my brain wiggles do some unconscious math which generated a gut reaction of strong revulsion.  Having to do with battery energy density considerations and energy flight requirements. 

Too bad.  There's other stuff besides the obvious energy density problem that would at least raise an eyebrow, if not make you gag.

The vid begins with the "Blackbird" leaving out of the Garage of a suburban house.  The designers didn't even put it on wheels so you could taxi out of the garage to open space and then lift off.

Now, can you imagine the backwash of air bouncing off the ground underneath the machine then further bouncing off the walls of the garage? Anything not bolted down inside the garage would be flying around like pieces of roof flying around in a hurricane or tornado.  The vehicle itself would be buffeted by the air blowing around in all sorts of crazy directions.

Basically, it is pictured as taking off like an imaginary anti-grav type shuttle from sci-fi movies.  The rotors are pictured working like Iron Man style Repulsor devices that generate propulsion without action-reaction in violation of Newton's 2nd Law.  Even if it flies, there's just no way you could take off from inside an enclosed garage like that.

Besides that, the complexity of those rotors with the pivoting airfoils is astounding.  Each of those little winglets would need its own little servo-motor to change its angle of attack because they're all spinninbg at high speed and only connected at the hub of the whole spinning assembly.  How long before one of them fails?  If just one of those blades is at the wrong angle, the vibration would about instantly cause the whole propeller assembly to break itself apart.

I would find the whole design more believable if the designers dropped hydrogen fueled mini jet engines for those rotor thrusters.  As I mentioned, it's suspicious that they don't even demonstrate a scale model.  You can make anything magically fly in 3D virtual space, the sci-fi movie industry has been doing that since Buck Rogers.  Building real world VTOL aircraft that can hover is a tad more difficult without the magic of anti-gravity and/or disregarding Newton's laws of motion.

RE

So who's expert do you think is closer to the target?  You're supposed to be the best suit at the table according to you.  Inquiring minds want to know.   If you don't answer or equivocate, you get cooler time.  What good is having an expert here if we don't get expert opinions?

RE

I can't watch the video, I tried.  Looking at that thing made one of my brain wiggles do some unconscious math which generated a gut reaction of strong revulsion.  Having to do with battery energy density considerations and energy flight requirements. 

The thing would make as much noise as a jet taking off.  A hundred of them would cause a city to go deaf.

Tech wont save us but it is a essential ingredient in our delusional soup.

I'd call it the work of Guy Debord instead of philosophy.  Reason being Debord sudied real world material facts.  'Philosophy' not needed.  This is not a matter of opinion.


Tech provides, and is part of the spectacle.

In dystopian novels where industrial tyranny defines life, such as Orwell's 1984 being only but one example the world portrayed is dark and miserable.  The reader can feel the tyranny.  That is the point.  The author makes you aware of the tyranny.

Reality is different.  Feeling tyranny would cause system failure.  In a successful dystopia you do not feel tyranny. You become an instrument of it.

Lost in the bubble of your fantasy world you leave reality behind without a second thought.

Quote from: RE on Nov 29, 2024, 08:47 AMIf BoA thinks the price is gonna be $65, they're not gonna float loans to anyone who needs $75 to make money.  This indicates that the Reuters experts are the SUITS sitting on the driller's side of the loan officer's table and the BoA expert sits next to the loan officer on his side of the table. The expert the driller's hired has to convinmce the loan officer that the expert they hired is wrong. lol.

Only lol to those who have never played the game perhaps. Both sides pay well, but obviously those with a widely known reputation and past performance to back it up tend to be taken more seriously than Joe Expert. Because not all suits are created equal.   

Not the first article to bemoan the sad reality of modern Amerika, and it won't be the last.  Definitely gets to the heart of the tragic condition of our society though.

https://jalopnik.com/buc-ees-is-the-sickness-at-the-heart-of-america-1851683139

Buc-ee's Is The Sickness At The Heart Of America

RE

Generally speaking the whole flying car thing doesn't interest me much and I seriously doubt we'll ever see them cruising the canyons between the skyscrapers  in various vertically organized traffic lanes like you see portrayed in a few sci-fi movies.  Just another Billionaire toy for the most part.  However, the design on this one is so cool I just had to share it.


The video here is a CGI promotional, they haven't actually built this thing in full scale yet.  The article says they have scale models built, but they don't show any vids of those which is suspicious.

The energy questions are obvious.  You have at least 4 healthy size electric motors and all the batts you have to lift off the ground along with the two passengers and the body of the vehicle.  Then there are those cool rotors with all the tilting wings on them.  That is a lot of surface area spining at high speed, lots of friction with the air.  Those winglets would get quite hot I think.  I at least need to see that design work on a scale model to lift the thing off the ground.

Anyhow, even if the rotor design does work, the energy demands of this vehicle are enormous.  How much flight time could you get with the best currently available Li batts?  30 minutes maybe?  For all of these flying cars which mostly are just scaled up drones the flight times are always under 1 hour.  Speeds usually under 80 mph so the range is very limited before it needs a charge up.

So, even if it works, best case it's just a toy for billionaires.  It sure looks cool though.

https://www.livescience.com/technology/electric-vehicles/meet-blackbird-a-flying-taxi-that-spins-and-moves-in-any-direction-thanks-to-new-propulsion-system

RE

Well, that's a good deal higher than the BoA estimate.  Who is closer to the mark?  $74.53 for Brent according to the Reuters pol of expert analysts or the BoA analyst's price of $65 for Brent?  That's nearly a $10 difference. WTI @ $70.69 or $61?  Since we have our own world class expert, finally here's something we can hear a worthwhile opinion from him about. 

A difference this big obviously has a huge impact on how many holes will get drilled and how much money the banksters will dish out.  If BoA thinks the price is gonna be $65, they're not gonna float loans to anyone who needs $75 to make money.  This indicates that the Reuters experts are the SUITS sitting on the driller's side of the loan officer's table and the BoA expert sits next to the loan officer on his side of the table. The expert the driller's hired has to convinmce the loan officer that the expert they hired is wrong. lol.

Or more likely, they don't even bother going to BoA for a loan, because BoA has telegraphed to everyone what price they will loan money for, so if you can't come in with oil at that price, don't bother coming in for a tet a tet.

In any event, at least we can leave the Peak Oil question behind at last, although I'm sure the term will still pop up from time to time.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Analysts-Cut-2025-Oil-Price-Forecasts-Again.html

Analysts Cut 2025 Oil Price Forecasts Again

RE

Just back inside the Gulag after a smoking break while burning the midnite oil working on my designs.  Got some new ideas so I'm going back and overhauling some of the basic stuff.  I still have a lot of tweaking to do.

Temps have dropped to the negative digits Farenheit tonight after being in the single digits the last 2 nights.  Now the real test of this year's shelter system for the homeless gets rolling.  Also the test of the electrical grid and the NG supply to run the power plants and provide the juice that makes living in AK reasonably comfortable in the modern era.  The 15 minutes outside smoking at these temps reminds me quickly why only around 60K people liked up here  when the Europeans first arrived.  You just can't spend much time outside unless you're seriously bundled up in layers, and you need a good insulated habitation to hibernate in.

The fact it's only Thanksgiving and we still have a solid 4 months of this weather ahead is annoying, but then I think about what it would be like living down in Houston with no A/C when the power goes out and it's 98F with 90% humidity.  At least in the cold you can keep adding layers. Hot & humid, once you're naked that's it.

RE

I have successfully printed my first 3D object, which appears at right.  lol.

The success is that I actually got the thing to turn on, heat up and detect the filament and then go through a 10 minute calibration cycle.  What you see at right is the stuff that squited out of the nozzle after it finished dancing around in 3D space.  Obviously however, this isn't anything useful.  I'm just happy I  got it to do anything at all.

Now the failures.

So far, despite the fact I have it networked up on the wifi wth my computer, the computer doesn't see it.  It's not in the list of available devices.  I will attempt to contact support, howwever it's the holiday weekend so I'm not too hopeful there.

I ordered a USB male-male cord to try and hardwire it, which I prefer anyhow.  Probably will not make further progress until that arrives.  I've never had a new device for my computer that didn't have glitches and give me headaches in the setup phase.  I'll work it out eventually.  I know it works to do the core function of squirting the plastic onto the build bed.  Just a matter off getting it to go in the right direction.

RE

Quote from: TDoS on Nov 28, 2024, 01:30 PM

Quote from: RE on Nov 28, 2024, 10:34 AMWe know Russell was killed by Ruskies.  They are being prosecuted for it.  They mistakenly believed he was an Amerikan spy.

I am aware of his story. I simply noted that ISN'T what you said on the video in terms of who killed him. You said the Ukrainians did.

At the time I made the video, I wasn't aware of the details of the incident.

Quote from: TdosOf course. But they aren't all pompous assholes and stuffed shirts, and the ones that aren't are better ones to know than the kind you are apparently familiar with. I rarely have to deal with the types you mention nowadays because these things sort themselves out with time and ability. Folks know folks. And the ones that aren't stuffed shirts find their own sources and experts that aren't stuffed shirts and pretty soon you've got two distinct populations. Stuffed shirts and folks who get it done...with the former really wishing they could figure out how to become the latter.

The reason they earn the epithet "Suits" is because so many of the folks who wear that uniform are pompous stuffed shirts.  Just as so many who wear the motorcycle uniforms of studded denims or leathers are macho assholes.  Are ALL of them this way?  I'm sure there are statistical outliers, just as there are girls who ride motorcycles.  However, since I am going to be dealing with a subset of Suits called LAWYERS, the chances are better than even they'll be exactly the type of person who most grates on my nerves.  Perhaps I'll luck out and find one who is halfway human and not an alien lizard, but I'm not counting on it.

QuoteDitch that half laugh you insert randomly in the way you narrate in front of them. Seriously. Regardless of the type of money people you meet, all of them pick up on oratory extras like that and take it as a form of unseriousness.

Not sure exactly what this "half laugh" is, but I doubt I'll find anything funny dealing with these folks so I won't be laughing halfway or full on.

RE