The weird, long nose & tail on the train are Very Interesting Aerodynamically. ( I'm an amateur but very into it ) It's not the Least Drag shape, which you'd expect, it's meant to ease the flow as the train goes in & out of tunnels, ( Japan is Mountainous, LOTS of tunnels ) as the sudden change in pressure makes a LOT of noise, like Large Explosion bangs, and also can cause a sudden G load on the train and passengers.
Naturally, a multi-discipline crazy like me sees parallels in "low sonic boom" supersonic aircraft research, Armor piercing projectile design, ( Note 1 ) and the ads for sex toys Google keeps sending me because I saw a dragon shaped thing I though was decoration and clicked on it.
( Note 1 ) It's interesting the Tank Killing fin stabilized dart used by the M1 tank is very similar in shape and function to an armor piercing arrow used in Medieval times. Form & Function!
I'm told the company problems are a bean counter CEO issue, which we here know a bit about.
I'm going to wish Boeing well. They do need a shake up, obviously. But they've made good stuff.
I think sending the capsule back empty is the smart move. NASA is understandably intolerant of risk, plus half their funding is based on a con, that Ice Age threat thing, but it's understandable. Space and Sky are unforgiving. And Congress loves to blame people.
Launching the thing without fixing the problems, that's a screwup. Money and contract pressure be damned, if it's not right, it shouldn't fly with people.
Part of the problem is they are risk averse to bad press, so a scrub for a technical/engineering/operational issue is bad juju. They need to own these issues so they can fix them. This is a management problem, not an engineering one.
Some years back, it might have been Car & Driver, they came up with the 0-100-0 test. Stomp from stopped, up to 100 mph, then brake until stopped. Note time. The rationalization was that 0-60 times were nice, but failed to give a broader performance idea in one number. 0-100-0 at least addressed 2 metrics in one number, and was easy to do. ( if the car could do 100, which many couldn't at the time with pollution control engines and mileage regs )
Bottom line unfortunately without a number, for the YangWang U8 is... "Wheee...oh sh#$!!"
Note that this MASSIVE shift in life, atmosphere, and lands was a generally rejected hypothesis less than 10 years ago, and is still being argued and refined. Local or Planetary? Cause?
The idea that it was caused by huge lava flows in Alaska and Western Canada/U.S. seems solid, today. No mention of extraterrestrial materials in the above article, so a comet strike is maybe not the initial cause but it's Early days and still leaves the breakup of Pangea a bit of a mystery.
Remember the Aero-bean shape of some years back? Pinched in at the lower side door, Cam back ( Because length matters, parking, etc. and there's wasted space in a teardrop ) all curves?
Posted on Thursday, September 19, 2024 - 07:47 pm:
I wondered the same. His ignorance (feigned or real) of heat pumps is a bit surprising. This is not new technology. Also, the hvac guy telling you that you need an entirely new system, ducts included, is standard in the industry. 1. They want to maximize the bill, and 2. they do not want to warranty existing crap they know nothing about.