h a l f b a k e r yA few slices short of a loaf.
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Vehicles using internal combustion engines often have a surprising amount of electrical equipment in them.
We propose a competition to design an build a car which has no electrical equipment whatsoever.
Any mechanical or chemical system can be employed, but nothing electrical.
The engine is
easy; a fully mechanical diesel. The starter system can be run by compressed air, as can items like the windscreen wipers. The ventilation system can have a mechanical fan with a clutch, and indeed air conditioning is practical. Other systems may choose to use hydraulics, or direct mechanical linkages.
Illumination may be problematic, but the obvious starting point is acetylene. Flashing turn signals can be implemented by mechanically sparking an acetylene flame, then obscuring it with a rotating shutter. Side and head lights are amenable to similar solutions.
A prize would be awarded to the best overall design; while it may attract steampunk enthusiasts in droves, it may also spur some genuine innovation, or a rethinking of earlier technology that may have been abandoned but is now worth a second look.
The Harvard crest featuring a drunk lion stumbling to his car trying to find the keyhole after an all night drinking binge.
https://www.google....lCkMLON7nFrM:&vet=1 [doctorremulac3, Jul 07 2019]
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Feeding a magnesium cable into a grinder could be used for
the headlights. Maybe blowing oxygen over it to make it
brighter? When you're turning the lights off just have an
asbestos lined clamp smother the flame. |
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Isn't this basically an army-modded Land Rover? |
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I trust you will be installing a phonograph. |
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[+] hmm, chemical systems, trained animals. It's a Borg prototype build session. |
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[+] I'm big on engineering competitions with
arbitrarily
set limitations to how you can achieve a certain
outcome
and wish schools would use this to teach students
to
apply a little creativity rather than just being
mindless little playback machines that study what
their told and repeat their instructions like flat
headed little drones. |
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See my previous rants on "Harvtards". (Harvard
graduates that fuck up everything they get their
grimy little hands on due to a false sense of worth
because they have memorization skills and are
trained to
never, EVER say "I don't know." which is the
concept all
true knowledge begins with.) |
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You can look it up in the dictionary. It's called:
"Moronopathic
Harvtardary". That being said, technically there's
nothing
you CAN'T look up in the dictionary. |
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That other thing being said, I do know one Harvard alum
who's
a very
good person but they'd probably agree with me
although I
haven't brought this particular subject up. |
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And the winner of this week's "Young people these days, eh?"
award goes to... |
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Not talking about the young ones, they're just following
orders and good for them for getting into Harvard. |
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I'm talking about the old ones that, after their
indoctrination, get out and rise to power
causing many of America's problems with their elitist
swinery. |
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I'm pro working class, pro minding one's own business, pro
minimal government and pro not running up trillions of
dollars in debt to destroy and enslave the middle and
working classes of America. |
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The Harvard crest actually has symbols for all those things
being eaten and stomped on by a dragon, or a lion or
something. One of those stupid fire breathing lions
standing all, Egyptian hieroglyph style. |
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Think I'm lying? Look it up. |
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Now I'm not anti elite universities. Stanford and MIT are
awesome but Harvard and Yale are suction producing
organizations. I think MIT in particular would eat this idea
up. |
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And I'm sure your school is very good Max. You're a good
guy so I assume you keep them in line. |
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I have no school, I'm glad to say. I wouldn't want a position
at Cambridge these days - wayyyyy too much pen-pushing,
admin and box-ticking. |
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I did do an undergraduate lecture series (standing in for a
buddy), and I have to say I was horrified at how little detail
students are expected to absorb these days. I mean, yes,
internet, but that's not at all the same as having the
information floating around in your head, ready to connect
with other stuff it bumps into. |
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Young people these days, eh? |
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Design competitions at my school were frankly
disappointing. 'Construct a device that uses
mechanically-stored energy to move a popcan from
the edge of a basketball court to the halfcourt line
and back again that shall weigh no more than x and
fit in y space.' |
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Despite the rather unusual approaches tried for
bonus points, (one team tried to fly it over), the
solution was obvious--a spring unwinding a string,
wound 2 directions on the car axle with a nail to
provide the winding direction change. |
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//I was horrified at how little detail students are
expected to absorb these days.// |
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Gotta wonder how much we'll depend on our digital
implants to do our thinking for us someday. |
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They'll look back at when we used to be the light screen
people and laugh, that is if humor is still a thing. |
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I've mentioned before that we're the light screen people.
Hunter gatherers hunted and gathered, civilized man
built cities, industrial revolution people walked on the
moon and the light people look at light screens. |
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Here's a future history lesson about us. |
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"What was life like for these ignorant, smelly creatures of
the Light Screen Epoch? Light screen man would wake up,
check his pocket light screen before going off to his home
desk light screen to look at pictures of cats, dogs smoking
cigars and pornography, usually all featured together on
the same websites. As they readied for work, often they'd
have a big light screen in the main gathering area
featuring news anchors who would relay information
about cats, dogs smoking cigars and pornography. Soon it
was time to drive their smokemobiles to work where they
would sit in front of another desk sized lightscreen for the
duration of the day. But it wasn't all work for the
lightscreen
people though. On special occasions they'd gather in large
halls featuring a massive light screen several yards tall.
They'd enjoy all manor of entertainment in the form of
what was called "movies" featuring car chases, explosions
and dogs smoking cigars. Live
entertainment endured for many years in sports stadiums
that featured the biggest light screens of all, sometimes
several stories high. On these light screens would be
shown video of the people playing various games right in
front of the crowd so they wouldn't have to stop looking
at a light screen by distracting real life for any longer
than
necessary. |
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Truly a repulsive people but they were our forebearers so
we shouldn't be too judgmental. " |
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// so we shouldn't be too judgmental. // |
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Sorry, these are human beings you're talking about ? |
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Contemporary humans are noticeably judgemental about slave owners, whalers, dodo eaters, buffalo hunters and cotton mill owners ... who by the accepted standards of their time were behaving in a perfectly acceptable way and indeed were often lauded as entrepreneurs and good businessmen and employers. O Tempura ! O Moules ! |
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Why have any combustion at all when a large
internal fly-wheel will store enough energy to get
the car from one "cranking up" point to another?
(the cranking would be carried out by politicians
chained into treadmills for their sins - ie existing)
{+} |
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Actually, a vehicle powered by winding up environmentalists (perhaps by showing them pictures of dolphins caught in nets, jungle deforestation, and signs saying GM Crop Trial Area) would have considerable merit. |
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