>> I thought that was fibreglass...
>
> For very low production volumes it could be, but for any car that
> everyone has heard of it will be moulded plastic. Note that high
> strength plastics are usually glass-filled, so in a way they are the
> same as fibre-glass.

Both are the same.

Traditionnal fibreglass = sheets of woven glass fibre dipped in eposy resin.

Newer high strength plastics = bits of glass or carbon fibre sprinkled 
in epoxy or polyacetate resin.

Also, car manufacturers (and patio furniture manufacturers, for some 
reason) do not like to call them plastics because people have a tendency 
to associate the word with cheap and flimsy polymers like polyethylene 
or polypropylene, so they'll use words like "polymer", "DuraFlex(TM)", 
or "synthetic resin".

>> What I did see, that was quite interesting, was a guy who "studies
>> nature" to try to look for clever ideas that we can copy. One of his
>> suggestions was to create colour by diffraction rather than using
>> chemical dyes. Chemicals degrade in the Sun, but a grating doesn't
>> suddenly change size just because you hit it with a ton of UV...
>

Officer:  Ma'am, what color was the car that hit you?
Woman:  All of them.
Officer:  WAT?
Woman: Well, you know how a CD changes color when you move them in your 
hand, the car was like that!

>> My understanding was that displays aren't increasing their ppi rating
>> because 100% of all Windows software assumes a fixed 72ppi, and if you
>> increased the dot pitch everything would become too tiny to see.

Most LCD screend have had 96ppi dot pitch for over 15 years. The IBM 
9513 T55A monitor I have on this desk, which was bought as part of my 
personal Y2K remediation plan is running at 96ppi and I don't remember 
having issues with badly designed dialox boxes.  Unless 100% of the 
software you use is made for Windows 3.1, this would be 
Yet-Another-Bogus-Assumption-Made-By-Andy.

>> Fibre to the house is a simple concept. Why didn't they do this before?
>> Oh, yes, that's right - because fibre is so astronomically expensive
>> that nobody can afford it...

No.  Because they didn't have BW issues with the copper cabling that was 
already installed, so there was little justification to rewire eintire 
neigborhoods (the expensive part is the two guys moving around people's 
backyards with ladders, not the orange tube and the 2 or 4 fibre strands 
in it).  The advent of HD TV has changed that.  There is now a need for 
higher BW to each home - instead of just to the neighborhoods' junction 
box - so telecoms are rushing to put fibre to the home.




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