On 29/04/2014 9:23 AM, scott wrote:
> What you see today is them used in many places where they simply
> couldn't be used 30 years ago because plastics with the required
> performance didn't exist or were too expensive to manufacture. Car
> bumpers were metal or fibre-glass that got dented or cracked, pipes in
> your house were copper,

Go back another twenty years and they would be mostly lead popes. :-(


> Then there are all the things the consumer doesn't even notice. Like
> plastics that are easier to mould (more complicated shapes are possible
> to be made faster with finer details), possible to process in thinner
> films, flame retardants that are environmentally friendly, stronger and
> stiffer plastics that enable things to be made with less plastic for the
> same performance etc.

You did not mention easier to join and repair. No soldering and the 
compression joints are barely tighter than finger tight. Small Stillsons 
or pipe wrenches are all you need.

You don't often here anyone or anything being described as plastic in a 
derogatory way, nowadays. The image has changed.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.

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On 29/04/2014 9:09 PM, Stephen wrote:
>
> Go back another twenty years and they would be mostly lead popes.

I think I meant pipes. Lead pipes not lead Popes. :-)

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Regards
     Stephen

I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.

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On 29-4-2014 22:19, Stephen wrote:
> On 29/04/2014 9:09 PM, Stephen wrote:
>>
>> Go back another twenty years and they would be mostly lead popes.
>
> I think I meant pipes. Lead pipes not lead Popes. :-)
>

Somehow, those /lead popes/ trigger my imagination... :-)

Thomas

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> Go back another twenty years and they would be mostly lead popes. :-(

That's a good one :-)

> You did not mention easier to join and repair. No soldering and the
> compression joints are barely tighter than finger tight. Small Stillsons
> or pipe wrenches are all you need.

Two more. No annoying metal banging noises when the heating turns on or 
off (light sleepers can have the heating come on before they wake up). 
And because the pipes are somewhat bendy you can move things about 
without having to disconnect pipes. Painting behind my radiators is 
easy, I can just lift them off, rotate through 90 degrees and rest them 
on a bucket or something, no plumbing needed.

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On 2014-04-24 14:32, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Andy has also assured me that iPads, Kindles, Nooks, and the various
> android-based thingamajigs weren't tablets at all, because tablets were
> 2 inch thick laptops that weigh 20lbs and on which you write with a
> Palm-Pilot stylus.

Hear, hear!  Well, augmenting the specifications a little, but I concur 
that these newfangled touch-only widgets aren't REAL tablets...my 
current dream machine is the Fujitsu Stylistic Q584.  2560x1600 screen, 
10.1"x7.12"x0.39" with proper Wacom pen input, weighs 1.4 lbs.

...oh, and it has loads of other bells and whistles, if you're into 
those things.  But dat display...over four times the resolution of my 
Fujitsu Lifebook (which, at six years old, is rather closer to your 
referred attributes, ahem), in a smaller area.  And it's less than a 
thousand dollars!

Mind, the Q584's specs are rather unusual and extravagant; most 
pen-input tablets are still poking around the 1280x800 neighbourhood.

Also, re. OP:  It's the future.  I was promised flying cars!  But I 
don't see any.  Why?  WHY?

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.sjcook.com

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>> OK, really ancient plastics weren't very good. But the plastics I see
>> today and the plastics I saw 30 years ago seem pretty much identical in
>> every respect. What's changed?
>
> Since Francois mentioned 3M, that reminded me they make lots of
> *plastic* optical films that are used in your mobile phone to improve
> brightness, viewing angle and sunlight readability. Another area that
> has been continuously improving over the last decade and will continue
> to, but which most consumers wouldn't know about.
>
> Or surely you've heard about 3D printers recently? The materials they
> use (the professional ones, not the hobby ones) are state-of-the-art
> polymers to give the final piece properties as close as possible to
> traditional injection moulded plastics. It's not like those materials
> existed 30 years ago.
>

At this point, this becomes obligatory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk

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/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
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/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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On 30/04/2014 2:33 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:
> At this point, this becomes obligatory:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk

Kudos for dredging up that connection. :-)


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.

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On 30/04/2014 8:14 AM, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> On 29-4-2014 22:19, Stephen wrote:
>> On 29/04/2014 9:09 PM, Stephen wrote:
>>>
>>> Go back another twenty years and they would be mostly lead popes.
>>
>> I think I meant pipes. Lead pipes not lead Popes. :-)
>>
>
> Somehow, those /lead popes/ trigger my imagination... :-)
>
> Thomas

Edgar Allan Poe, anyone? ;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.

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On 30/04/2014 8:40 AM, scott wrote:

>
> Two more. No annoying metal banging noises when the heating turns on or
> off (light sleepers can have the heating come on before they wake up).
> And because the pipes are somewhat bendy you can move things about
> without having to disconnect pipes. Painting behind my radiators is
> easy, I can just lift them off, rotate through 90 degrees and rest them
> on a bucket or something, no plumbing needed.
>

I've never heard of plastic piping for radiators. O_O

The flexibility of plastic piping is great. I had to do some pipework 
when I worked offshore. 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" stainless steel. You had to 
be very accurate with your measurements. It looks better, though.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.

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> I've never heard of plastic piping for radiators. O_O

Nor had I until I moved into a house built in this century! The pipes 
are on 90 degree exit from the bottom corners of the radiator and bend 
back behind in to the centre and through a hole in the wall, it's all 
very neat with virtually no pipes visible (and no annoying pipes going 
down through the floor).

> The flexibility of plastic piping is great. I had to do some pipework
> when I worked offshore. 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" stainless steel. You had to
> be very accurate with your measurements. It looks better, though.

You can get chrome plated plastic covers to go over copper pipes, to 
match fancy bathroom radiators and that sort of thing :-) But I guess 
you were using stainless due to its corrosion resistance rather than its 
looks. The stuff we make here is mostly stainless too for the same 
reason, but we are gradually changing over to PEEK, I wonder if you can 
get PEEK pipes <quick google> yes of course you can, first hit is for 
off-shore applications!

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