Comments on: Open thread 9/4/21 https://thenewneo.com/2021/09/04/open-thread-9-3-21-2/ A blog about political change, among other things Mon, 06 Sep 2021 22:22:47 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.2 By: Richard Aubrey https://thenewneo.com/2021/09/04/open-thread-9-3-21-2/#comment-2575252 Mon, 06 Sep 2021 22:22:47 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=110167#comment-2575252 Z.
Point of the museum issue is to demonstrate to kids what power really is and how it is, in effect, relative to the work it’s doing. You can’t just turn on another machine without…something happening. Which is why I inquired.
Stayed, this was thirty years ago, more or less, at the Yorkville Venture Inn. Rooms had a few books. Closest I’ve come to larceny was when I started on Gibbs’ “Now It Can Be Told”.

]]> By: Zaphod https://thenewneo.com/2021/09/04/open-thread-9-3-21-2/#comment-2575187 Mon, 06 Sep 2021 07:02:29 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=110167#comment-2575187 @Richard Aubrey:

I’d say yes. The AN-2 was designed for and fitted with piston engine to operate as a very robust STOL aircraft. It really was pretty much a tractor that flew with nasty old 1940s tech Soviet piston engines. With a modern turboprop configuration there’s going to be a lot more power available to play with for less engine weight. I believe that turboprops usually have variable pitch propellers so that can be run at constant speed, so diverting available power from main prop to auxiliary electric props would be trivial.

I don’t know anything about aeronautical engineering, but am guessing that the idea is to increase airflow around the bottom wing and force more of it to be laminar thereby lowering the stall speed so that the thing can get off the ground in less distance and at lower takeoff speed. If the thing can be made to react to dynamic situations might also help prevent some wind shear accidents? Anyone who *does* have a more educated clue please feel free to chime in!

There are some really quite heavy lift capable drones with multiple props powered entirely by batteries…. Problem is flight time given relatively low energy density of even the best batteries cf. hydrocarbon fuels <— what we have here.

Re the cycling at the museum… we humans are pretty puny. 150W pedaling effort is no joke for a child and that’s two big old lightbulbs in series and worse because of all the mechanical inefficiencies in a kid-proof one-size-fits-all demo rig. The best Tour de France riders can manage ~600W sustained for several hours. Interestingly the current distance record for human-powered flight dates back to 1988:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_human-powered_aircraft#Kremer_speed_prize_and_later_flights_by_MIT_team

]]> By: Richard Aubrey https://thenewneo.com/2021/09/04/open-thread-9-3-21-2/#comment-2575181 Mon, 06 Sep 2021 04:28:28 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=110167#comment-2575181 Z.
Some time back, took my kids to the Toronto Children’s Museum. One of the exhibits was a foot-pedal-powered generator.
The kid peddled away and the tech hooked in a light bulb. Peddling was marginally harder. Another bulb, tougher yet. A dozen, could hardly move the wheel.
So, is there enough power to use all those extra blades?

]]> By: Zaphod https://thenewneo.com/2021/09/04/open-thread-9-3-21-2/#comment-2575180 Mon, 06 Sep 2021 03:27:50 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=110167#comment-2575180 Here’s something different in STOL aircraft:

https://youtu.be/sI32NIvjvic

It’s an AN-2 biplane with a pretty standard modern turboprop upgrade. AN-2s were designed to be a kind of Soviet Aerial Tractor and to have very short take off and landing capabilities from the get go.

But then they’ve gone and added 4 electrically powered propellers to each lower wing in order to increase lift for takeoff and reverse thrust when landing. Presumably the 8 auxiliary props can be disengaged and collapsed during cruise — see configuration at start of video when plane is being pushed out on the ramp.

There’s been lots of blah recently about battery powered aircraft, but it hadn’t occurred to me that there might be advantages to having a bunch of small and light electrically powered props or fans powered by the same turbine which drives the plane’s main propellor.

]]> By: Zaphod https://thenewneo.com/2021/09/04/open-thread-9-3-21-2/#comment-2575174 Mon, 06 Sep 2021 01:47:52 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=110167#comment-2575174 And here is Ms Wang Toning it Down for the Taliban:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD5pqlDPCHc

Or she’s starting to feel her age. Or her previous dressmaker had a stroke.

]]> By: Zaphod https://thenewneo.com/2021/09/04/open-thread-9-3-21-2/#comment-2575173 Mon, 06 Sep 2021 01:41:54 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=110167#comment-2575173 @Huxley:

Moving right along from nuclear-armed folk dancing Levantine Oneida Communities, I give you Koreans taking a break from Domestic Violence in order to engage in some Peaceful Cultural Appropriation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seV1NBVYQPM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYj7ipc7XQI

Is there nothing this garlic-fueled People cannot do?

If I do have a soft spot for the ROK, it’s that they have some very well-planned cycling routes and make some of the best bling and accessories for Brompton and Moulton bikes.

]]> By: Richard Aubrey https://thenewneo.com/2021/09/04/open-thread-9-3-21-2/#comment-2575172 Mon, 06 Sep 2021 01:23:39 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=110167#comment-2575172 I notice in the still neo posted that some of the women have quite long necks.
Is this sought, or is it more common in the body type which can make the top end of the enterprise?

]]> By: huxley https://thenewneo.com/2021/09/04/open-thread-9-3-21-2/#comment-2575170 Mon, 06 Sep 2021 00:59:05 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=110167#comment-2575170 Peak Kibbutz and Peak Hava Nagila … now those were the days! Copped the end of them ca. 4th grade curriculum and extra-curricular activities in second half of the seventies. And then, Children, the Left Moved On. As it always does.

Zaphod:

Yes, I caught the earlier part of the wave. Some of those I danced with had already done their stint on an Israeli kibbutz.

Back then a young American could volunteer at a kibbutz. In exchange for work, one would be given room, board and trips around Israel.

Sorry to hear Israeli folk dancing is no longer a thing beyond Jewish community centers.

]]> By: Zaphod https://thenewneo.com/2021/09/04/open-thread-9-3-21-2/#comment-2575168 Mon, 06 Sep 2021 00:34:39 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=110167#comment-2575168 Those Slavic not quite so Untermenschen developed a mighty good way to demonstrate reproductive fitness. You just can’t fake being able to get down and boogie like that.

]]> By: Zaphod https://thenewneo.com/2021/09/04/open-thread-9-3-21-2/#comment-2575167 Mon, 06 Sep 2021 00:28:04 +0000 https://www.thenewneo.com/?p=110167#comment-2575167 @JimNorCal:

Shibboleths FTW.

Time to break out the Chicken Dance in that case!

Echt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TThZwOHdP6k

Ersatz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkW8_I3grZw

Anyway… Happy thoughts… Happy thoughts…. This one goes out especially to Avi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g44C_d9qgTo

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