>> Well said - guess there isn't a convenient modality for backing up 
>> 500GB of
>> data?
> 
> Yes, there is.  Buy two.  :-)  I don't know about elsewhere in the 
> world, but 2 1-TB drives would run you <$400 here.

Let me go check the exchange rate...

...yep, that's about £240, *way* more money than I can afford to spend.

(Then again, I don't have anywhere approaching 1TB of data to store.)

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>> ...yeah, shopping online tends to be cheaper. Quality is another matter,
>> of course.
> 
> Buy from reputable dealers, and quality isn't an issue.

I don't mean to imply that quality is *necessarily* an issue, just that 
it *can* be more of an issue. As you say, it depends who you buy from.

I often buy from Maplin because 1) I don't have to wait for it to be 
delivered, 2) their staff actually have a frickin clue, and 3) they 
don't argue about returns.

Then again, ebuyer.com are usually very good, so...

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> Yeah, I agree. I'm amazed at the fuel consumption levels a modern
> computer-controlled ignition system and fuel injection system can deliver.

Me too - my car has 180 BHP, yet when I drive carefully my record is 960 km 
on a single 50 litre tank!  To me that is just amazing, a car I had that was 
20 years older had only 60 BHP and could do only 400 km on a tank (probably 
a bit smaller tank as well though).

> I vividly remember vacations as a child, when we went down to the coast 
> and
> my dad had to manually adjust timing on the old Ford we had once we were 
> at
> sea level to prevent "pinging" when accelerating. And the joys of Saturday
> afternoon carburettor cleaning, blowing out a jet (NEVER use a wire to
> clean a jet!) etc. etc.

I think the biggest improvement is that today, even if you haven't used your 
car for 2 weeks and it's -15 degrees outside, you can turn the key and the 
engine will fire up perfectly within a second and then idle smoothly.  My 
dad had a car (actually he still has it) that has no choke at all, not even 
a manual one, starting that is a PITA unless you are very good friends with 
the accelerator pedal - and it won't idle at all until warmed up fully, so 
you need some tricks with your feet when in traffic to stop it stalling!

> I wonder... I'm guessing that the RAF radar was a bit more powerful than
> you'd get a hand-held "speedcam" like unit to be.

I wonder how long the "pulse" of radar would need to be - the engine could 
charge up a big capacitor to discharge in a roof mounted dish - hmm maybe 
not that sounds a bit too much James Bond :-)

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>> Yeah, I agree. I'm amazed at the fuel consumption levels a modern
>> computer-controlled ignition system and fuel injection system can 
>> deliver.
> 
> Me too - my car has 180 BHP, yet when I drive carefully my record is 960 
> km on a single 50 litre tank!  To me that is just amazing, a car I had 
> that was 20 years older had only 60 BHP and could do only 400 km on a 
> tank (probably a bit smaller tank as well though).


then drive it for 400 miles before needing to fill up again.



> I think the biggest improvement is that today, even if you haven't used 
> your car for 2 weeks and it's -15 degrees outside, you can turn the key 
> and the engine will fire up perfectly within a second and then idle 
> smoothly.

My dad has had more old bangers than I've had hot dinners, but I've 
never seen problems starting the car because of the weather. (Except 
when it's actually snowing.)

Then again, in the UK the temperature never, ever, for any reason, 

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> My dad has had more old bangers than I've had hot dinners, but I've never 
> seen problems starting the car because of the weather.

I can't believe anyone who has lots of old bangers has never needed to get 
out the WD-40 in wet conditions to start the engine.  In cold conditions the 
oil just gets thicker, if the engine is a bit "temperamental" then a very 
cold morning can make it difficult to start.

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>> My dad has had more old bangers than I've had hot dinners, but I've 
>> never seen problems starting the car because of the weather.
> 
> I can't believe anyone who has lots of old bangers has never needed to 
> get out the WD-40 in wet conditions to start the engine.  In cold 
> conditions the oil just gets thicker, if the engine is a bit 
> "temperamental" then a very cold morning can make it difficult to start.

Oh, he's had plenty of cars that *never* start properly. But I guess in 
the UK it just never gets cold enough to significantly effect things one 
way or the other...

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> It always amuses me how film writers seem to think that turning an
>>> electronic device off makes it immune to an EMP... I thought the idea
>>> was that an EMP will physically fry the thing like a microwave oven
>>> fries CDs. :-P
>> 
>> I've got it that way too. No matter if you turn it off, the level of
>> magnetic pulse coming in from say, a megaton nuclear blast will anyway
>> induce such a level of current in almost any conductor in range that it
>> will start carrying hundreds, if not thousands of volts?
> 
> Interesting thing: According to Wikipedia [which is never wrong], a
> nuclear explosion only generates an EMP because of the Earth's magnetic
> field. Like, if it was in space, it wouldn't do that...

Huh? That doesn't sound right. An old strategic option the USSR apparently
had was to detonate a -real- big (50 megaton) thermonuke over the US, but
out in space / low orbit. The idea was to melt all radios and computers,
the entire US telephone network, etc. As far as I know EMP damage is caused
by the massive radio waves generated by a nuclear explosion (besides all
the "hard" gamma radiation, and other nasty stuff besides heat and light).
These induce current in conductors (i. e. they fry microchips).

Radio definitely travels in a vacuum where there is no magnetism - IMO,
magnetism CAN effect radio but just to distort or interfere with it. So I'd
think that a magnetic field will -moderate- or interfere an EMP pulse a
bit, not be the part-cause of it?

-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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scott wrote:

>> Yeah, I agree. I'm amazed at the fuel consumption levels a modern
>> computer-controlled ignition system and fuel injection system can
>> deliver.
 
> Me too - my car has 180 BHP, yet when I drive carefully my record is 960
> km
> on a single 50 litre tank!  To me that is just amazing, a car I had that
> was 20 years older had only 60 BHP and could do only 400 km on a tank
> (probably a bit smaller tank as well though).

Not sure what it is in BHP (oh you continentals!) but my car has a 1595cc
engine with max. output of about 71KW (kilowatts). In city driving I get
about 680km to a tank (40 liter capacity, unleaded, o' course) and on the
freeway it does about 810km on 40 liters. Guess it doesn't compare as
linearly, but the Ford I referred to in my post is a 2995cc V6 (the so
called "Essex big six" - 101.5KW at 5900 rpm) dating from 1969 with a
double-barrel Webber and mechanical ignition. It struggled to do 400 kilos
on a 65 liter tank even when it was new. Yup, he still has it.
 
> I think the biggest improvement is that today, even if you haven't used
> your car for 2 weeks and it's -15 degrees outside, you can turn the key
> and the
> engine will fire up perfectly within a second and then idle smoothly.  My
> dad had a car (actually he still has it) that has no choke at all, not
> even a manual one, starting that is a PITA unless you are very good
> friends with the accelerator pedal - and it won't idle at all until warmed
> up fully, so you need some tricks with your feet when in traffic to stop
> it stalling!

I KNOW THAT FEELING! The Ford Cortina I refer to above behaves much like
that too. Once it is running though it is quite ok, but I've also had to do
the "pedal dance" with it once or twice when I cranked it up to take some
trash away. Its got one of those "auto chokes" Ford used to have where you
depress the gas pedal all the way to the floor, firmly, then try to start.
But often its better to pop the hood and set it manually on the side of the
carb before even thinking of cranking it in cold wheather. It also likes
priming - i. e. it is much easier to start if you pump the pedal ten times
or so before trying to start, especially if it was standing for a week or
more.
 
> I wonder how long the "pulse" of radar would need to be - the engine could
> charge up a big capacitor to discharge in a roof mounted dish - hmm maybe
> not that sounds a bit too much James Bond :-)

Maybe not, that's sounds like a good idea! If you can aim and modulate it
right a one-second high intensity burst might do the job on a computerised
injection and ignition system... You'll just have to deal with the lawsuits
and damage claims if you zap somebody's car who is innocent...!

And hope the criminal isn't wise to the deal and driving a mechanically
ignited and carb'ed vintage model. Or a diesel!
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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> I've seen quite a few programs (mostly stuff ported from Unix, oddly 
> enough) which don't like spaces in pathnames.

Yeh an old CAD program we had here (ported from Unix) worked like that. 
You'd navigate using some standard Windows file open dialog box (at least 
they managed to use that) then when you chose the file it would give a "File 
not found" error!  If you didn't remember this then you'd be sat there 
thinking WTF why can't it open this file...

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Stefan Viljoen wrote:

> Not sure what it is in BHP (oh you continentals!)

Brake Horse-Power.

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