Andy Dingley wrote:
On 27 Oct, 11:40, "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

Except they wern't, their log fires were not releasing fossil carbon.
Now if they had found some black rocks and also discovered they
burn't well that would be a different matter.

Black rocks don't burn well, which is why coal wasn't seriously used
or mined until the Tudor period. You need to have a fireplace and
fairly well-designed chimney to burn coal. Even the first steam
locomotives couldn't burn coal, they had to use coke.


I dont think so.


Our use of coal for heat and power really is a very modern invention:
150 years for widepsread power, 100 for electricity. Be afraid. We
broke this place, and we did it very quickly.

yup.

Andy Dingley wrote:
On 27 Oct, 11:57, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Only coal and iron reduced that to the point we are now more wooded than
at any time in the last 300 years.

We're less wooded, in terms of native hardwoods, than we were in 1914


Dont think so. Another urban myth.


If we've gained any woodland, it's since 1947 and it's upland
plantation softwoods by the forestry commision

No, its mostly by simply not farming every inch, and leaving stands of
trees to develop on scrap land - like motorway junctions.

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:19:09 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:


It's releasing the carbon which was captured during the
carboniferous period which is (possibly) an issue. That's
carbon which was trapped during a 50M+ year period in coal
seams and the like, and resulted in mopping up the high level
of CO2 in the atmosphere at the beginning of the carboniferous
down to the levels at the end of the carboniferous, which are
nearer to what we have today. Rereleased over a 100 or 200
year timeframe, that is a potential cause for concern.

Yeah, then we all die and it starts all over?

T i m

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:16:55 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:


p.s. I normally write the install date on these CFL's when I install
them. I recently replaced one that was over 10 years old and it is
used every day for about 6 hours (it's on a time switch so ~22,000
hours). If it was a 20W CFL and gave off the equivalent light to a 60W
and if it cost me £5 10 years ago, would it have saved me any money
over a 60W incandescent?

(22,000 * 20)/1000 = 440kWhrs
@ 10p/unit = £44.00
+ £5 bulb = £49.00

(22,000 * 60)/1000 = 1320kWhrs
@ 10p/unit = £132.00
+ 11 bulbs @ 20p = £134.20

£85.20 saving.

Cheers. ;-)

So not a cost at least then (ignoring the actual production and
ecological cost differences etc).

T i m

In article ,
Huge writes:
On 2009-10-27, mark wrote:

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...
I was in Dunelm today. By the checkouts, were rack upon rack of those
little pieces of the devil's work known as CFLs. A large sign at each rack
proclaimed "11W CFL 99p each or 5 for 50p".

My immediate thought was that some little work experience erk had got this
wrong, and it should have read "or 5 for 50p *each* ". But no, it was
correct. Buy one for 99p. Buy five for 10p each. Now I can accept that at
99p each, costs of manufacture, shipping, distribution, and everyone
making their cut, might juuuusssst about work, but at 10p, we're
talking plain ludicrous. I'm pretty sure that even if these things are
being slave-made in China by the million, 10p is only going to cover the
costs of the materials,


Arfa



I think it may be due to a predicted shortfall in electricity production 'v'
demand in years to come. If the government spends a few million pounds on
getting us to use low energy bulbs and insulate our houses etc., then the
need for new multi-billion pound power stations can be delayed for a few
years.
Just a theory.

It's not just a theory.
I refer you back to a longer article I wront 3 years ago...
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....a4a9973c?hl=en

It's how the energy companies are satisfying their Government mandated targets
for reducing energy demand. IOW, not only are CFLs a con, but they're being
provided by gaming (ie conning) the scheme in the first place.

They've stopped posting out boxes of them, after some followup
research showed most of the recipients simply shoved them in
the cupboard and never used any of them, and next most common
was trying out just one and finding it was too dim, and shoving
it back in the cupboard with the rest of them, and households
who buy their light fittings from Ikea and don't have a single
bayonet cap lampholder in the house, and finally people who
couldn't get them to physically fit in their fittings.

Altogether, a stunning failure, but one which with even a tiny
little bit of better planning by someone with a clue (i.e. not
the government), could have worked much better.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On 27 Oct, 13:45, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Even the first steam
locomotives couldn't burn coal, they had to use coke.

I dont think so.

Well I know you don't think so, but what does that change?

The first coal-fired steam locomotive was Stephenson's Rocket, the
crucial innovation being the use of a blastpipe to encourage draught
on the fire. It's possible that Hackworth's could have burned coal
earlier, as they also had blastpipes, but there's no record that they
did so. Similarly Marc Seguin's locomotive with the fan-assisted
draught.

On 27 Oct, 08:36, Tim W wrote:

Has been my experience of similar cheap ****e from Tescos.

Tesco's full-size muti-tube CFLs seem reasonable, but their SES
candles lasted a couple of weeks and were barely detectable when they
were on.

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:53:57 -0000, Ash wrote:

Except they wern't, their log fires were not releasing fossil
carbon.
Now if they had found some black rocks and also discovered they
burn't well that would be a different matter.

So ... if they were not releasing fossil carbon, didn't have power
stations, cars, industry belching out pollution etc etc then what made
the earth warm up and bring the ice age to an end?

We are still in the last ice age. The world has been an awful lot
warmer for very long periods of time in the past. The ice ages are
relatively short.

And if the earth can heat up then why can't it now and if so there's
nothing that we can do to stop it ... or for it to return to another ice
age.

Do nothing, climate change happens:
- we run out of fossil energy
- we lose big time

Do nothing, climate change doesn't happen:
- we run out of fossil energy
- we lose

Do something, climate change happens:
- the affects might be reduced
- we migrate to a sustainable way of life
- we win

Do something, climate change doesn't happen:
- we migrate to a sustainable way of life
- we really win

--
Cheers
Dave.

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

I have a cupboard half full of the things which have come free in the
post, or similar. They're all far too low power to be useful. If they
were 23-25W, then I could use them as 100W lamp replacements. I don't
think there's anything over 11W.

They are available but relatively expensive and not very common. Anything
over 11W needs to run cap down to avoid frying the electronics. I imagine
many shops are wary of people being unaware of the need to be cap down and
returning 20W lamps which fail rapidly when used as replacements in pendant
fittings.

--
Mike Clarke

On 27 Oct, 15:55, Mike Clarke wrote:

They are available but relatively expensive and not very common. Anything
over 11W needs to run cap down to avoid frying the electronics.

Is this true of all of them? I thought it applied to the sticks, but
there were now spirals that were deliberately arranged to cope with
this.

Andy Dingley wrote:

On 27 Oct, 15:55, Mike Clarke wrote:

They are available but relatively expensive and not very common. Anything
over 11W needs to run cap down to avoid frying the electronics.

Is this true of all of them? I thought it applied to the sticks, but
there were now spirals that were deliberately arranged to cope with
this.

Well the 25W Crompton spiral I bought earlier this year had a warning on the
box to not use it cap up. No problem in this case because it was for an
uplighter.

--
Mike Clarke

The free bulbs should all be 25W soft-tone round-top in BC & ES (equiv
to 60W).

The soft-tone shell costs you some watts, but avoids the UV "bare
tube" issue and creates a more pleasant light for living areas
(basically like the incandescent philips soft-tone).

The wattages are more practical for real-world equivalence - go by the
box figures and it's simply a joke.

It would get much better market uptake - avoiding the "that feeble
thing couldn't light up Gordon Brown's head".


Of course electricity companies prefer not building new plant, so
shovel out ridiculous 4W 5W 7W 9W 12W bulbs. They are quite useless
and the light can be very harsh on the eyes compared to a proper soft-
tone shell.

In article ,
Andy Dingley writes:
On 27 Oct, 15:55, Mike Clarke wrote:

They are available but relatively expensive and not very common. Anything
over 11W needs to run cap down to avoid frying the electronics.

Is this true of all of them? I thought it applied to the sticks, but
there were now spirals that were deliberately arranged to cope with
this.

It's not true at these power levels at all.
It starts to become a concern over 25W, which are pretty
impossible to find in the UK without going to mail order,
and getting some make which won't know how lamp life is
calculated in the EU.

Lamp life of GLS BC lamps has to be measured cap-up, and
that's also true of CFL retrofits. This is probably the
reason you don't see many above 25W. (This doesn't apply
to ES lamps though, and that's probably why I can buy
a 30W ES CFL in homebase, but not a BC one.)

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:24:01 -0700 (PDT), "js.b1"
wrote:

Of course electricity companies prefer not building new plant, so
shovel out ridiculous 4W 5W 7W 9W 12W bulbs. They are quite useless
and the light can be very harsh on the eyes compared to a proper soft-
tone shell.

Ooo, where can you get 4W BC CFLs from as the 8Ws we have on
dusk_to_dawn auto switches in the front and rear lobbys are way too
bright. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.co.uk...
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:14:56 -0000, Ash wrote:

I wonder if the cavemen in the south of England 10,000 years ago knew
that their little log fires were melting the glaciers?

Except they wern't, their log fires were not releasing fossil carbon.
Now if they had found some black rocks and also discovered they
burn't well that would be a different matter.

--
Cheers
Dave.


How'd you know they didn't Dave ? The coal's been under the ground for
millions of years not thousands, and not all of it is a mile down ... ;-)

Arfa

T i m wrote:
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:24:01 -0700 (PDT), "js.b1"
wrote:

Of course electricity companies prefer not building new plant, so
shovel out ridiculous 4W 5W 7W 9W 12W bulbs. They are quite useless
and the light can be very harsh on the eyes compared to a proper soft-
tone shell.

Ooo, where can you get 4W BC CFLs from as the 8Ws we have on
dusk_to_dawn auto switches in the front and rear lobbys are way too
bright. ;-)

Cheers, T i m
CPC have some 3W BC candle (ish) lamps at 95p in their latest flyer
part no LP0264703

Bob

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.co.uk...
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:34:28 +0000, T i m wrote:

FWIW we don't have central heating either and haven't had any heating
on this year yet. There were days when we probably would have turned
it on but we just put a jumper on instead.

We put jumpers on as well but even so the heating is now starting to
kick in fairly regulary and the oil consumption is now at double the
summer use per week but still only about half that of the winter use
level.

Seems to me that this is a valid point, and one that is totally
ignored
by the green mist brigade, when they vilify the humble, simple and

cheap tungsten lamp, for its claimed planet-damaging inefficiency
....

I don't think it's relevant. The amount of heat given off by a
tungsten lamp will be lost if you open the door. It's a tiny amount
compared to that required for space heating.

p.s. I normally write the install date on these CFL's when I install
them. I recently replaced one that was over 10 years old and it is
used every day for about 6 hours (it's on a time switch so ~22,000
hours). If it was a 20W CFL and gave off the equivalent light to a 60W
and if it cost me £5 10 years ago, would it have saved me any money
over a 60W incandescent?

(22,000 * 20)/1000 = 440kWhrs
@ 10p/unit = £44.00
+ £5 bulb = £49.00

(22,000 * 60)/1000 = 1320kWhrs
@ 10p/unit = £132.00
+ 11 bulbs @ 20p = £134.20

£85.20 saving.

--
Cheers
Dave.

I don't think that electricity was 10p a unit ten years ago, was it ? It
only went up to this level when we started importing the stuff from Johnny
Foreigner, and the greedy energy companies started claiming a link to the
price of oil to justify ridiculous price hikes ...

Arfa

"Clive George" wrote in message
o.uk...
"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

But my point is that a friend of mine got nicked there a few days back.
He was coasting down from the preceding 40mph limit, to the 30mph one he
was entering.

Why wasn't he coasting down to hit 30 at the sign, rather than later?



Because for the 35 years that we have both lived here, the 30mph limit
started at a sensible place just outside the village limits, and where there
was no habitation. Then, a few weeks ago, they decided to revise all the
limits, and their positioning, and have now moved this limit back a
ludicrous distance until it starts probably a quarter mile outside the
village on a piece of road that was formerly limited at 50mph. When you've
been used to driving on a particular piece of road in a particular way, for
35 years, it's actually quite difficult to adjust without having to think
about it all the time. Plus of course, we all live in the real world, where
theory is fine, but often not quite so realistic in practice ...

Arfa

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"Clive George" wrote in message
o.uk...
"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

But my point is that a friend of mine got nicked there a few days back.
He was coasting down from the preceding 40mph limit, to the 30mph one he
was entering.

Why wasn't he coasting down to hit 30 at the sign, rather than later?

Because for the 35 years that we have both lived here, the 30mph limit
started at a sensible place just outside the village limits, and where
there was no habitation. Then, a few weeks ago, they decided to revise all
the limits, and their positioning, and have now moved this limit back a
ludicrous distance until it starts probably a quarter mile outside the
village on a piece of road that was formerly limited at 50mph. When you've
been used to driving on a particular piece of road in a particular way,
for 35 years, it's actually quite difficult to adjust without having to
think about it all the time.

So, he was driving on autopilot rather than thinking about what he was
doing? You're not selling this too well.

New speed limit a few weeks ago - are you at all surprised they're checking
a bit more vigorously than normal? It should be a clue to take special care,
not do what he's done for the past 35 years. If he can't adjust, he
shouldn't have a licence - how on earth will he cope with a strange road?

Plus of course, we all live in the real world, where theory is fine, but
often not quite so realistic in practice ...

All that means is "Bugger, got caught due paying insufficient attention".
Real world - keep an eye out, or accept the fines which can result if you
don't.

Note at no point in this post do I make any justification for the limit or
the copper being there. The fact is they were both there, and he didn't take
the appropriate action to avoid getting nicked.

Andy Dingley wrote:
On 27 Oct, 13:45, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Even the first steam
locomotives couldn't burn coal, they had to use coke.
I dont think so.

Well I know you don't think so, but what does that change?

The first coal-fired steam locomotive was Stephenson's Rocket, the
crucial innovation being the use of a blastpipe to encourage draught
on the fire. It's possible that Hackworth's could have burned coal
earlier, as they also had blastpipes, but there's no record that they
did so. Similarly Marc Seguin's locomotive with the fan-assisted
draught.

Well I dont suppose you have ever actually tried to burn coke. I can
assure you that coal is a LOT easier in an open hearth, and with a
chimney, is capable of white heat temperatures. Coke will not normally
burn except in a stove with controlled draught. Coke has never to me
knowledge been used in steam engines; its main use is steelmaking, and
it was a by product of town gas production by and large.

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:53:57 -0000, Ash wrote:

Except they wern't, their log fires were not releasing fossil
carbon.
Now if they had found some black rocks and also discovered they
burn't well that would be a different matter.
So ... if they were not releasing fossil carbon, didn't have power
stations, cars, industry belching out pollution etc etc then what made
the earth warm up and bring the ice age to an end?

We are still in the last ice age. The world has been an awful lot
warmer for very long periods of time in the past. The ice ages are
relatively short.

And if the earth can heat up then why can't it now and if so there's
nothing that we can do to stop it ... or for it to return to another ice
age.

Do nothing, climate change happens:
- we run out of fossil energy
- we lose big time

Do nothing, climate change doesn't happen:
- we run out of fossil energy
- we lose

Do something, climate change happens:
- the affects might be reduced
- we migrate to a sustainable way of life
- we win

Do something, climate change doesn't happen:
- we migrate to a sustainable way of life
- we really win

Life is inherently unsustainable.
Industrial Life is completely unsustainable. We all need more energy to
stay alive in cities now at current population densities, than we ever did.

Andy Dingley wrote:
On 27 Oct, 11:40, "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

Except they wern't, their log fires were not releasing fossil carbon.
Now if they had found some black rocks and also discovered they
burn't well that would be a different matter.

Black rocks don't burn well, which is why coal wasn't seriously used
or mined until the Tudor period. You need to have a fireplace and
fairly well-designed chimney to burn coal. Even the first steam
locomotives couldn't burn coal, they had to use coke.

Our use of coal for heat and power really is a very modern invention:
150 years for widepsread power, 100 for electricity. Be afraid. We
broke this place, and we did it very quickly.

So why did the Thames freeze over 200 years ago then?


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:42:28 +0000, Bob Minchin
wrote:

T i m wrote:
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:24:01 -0700 (PDT), "js.b1"
wrote:

Of course electricity companies prefer not building new plant, so
shovel out ridiculous 4W 5W 7W 9W 12W bulbs. They are quite useless
and the light can be very harsh on the eyes compared to a proper soft-
tone shell.

Ooo, where can you get 4W BC CFLs from as the 8Ws we have on
dusk_to_dawn auto switches in the front and rear lobbys are way too
bright. ;-)

Cheers, T i m
CPC have some 3W BC candle (ish) lamps at 95p in their latest flyer
part no LP0264703

These:?

http://tinyurl.com/yktgn38

They look like they would be ideal but I've not ordered from them for
yonks. What are the delivery costs like?

Cheers, T i m

The Medway Handyman wrote:
Andrew Gabriel wrote:

I have a cupboard half full of the things which have come free in the
post, or similar. They're all far too low power to be useful. If they
were 23-25W, then I could use them as 100W lamp replacements. I don't
think there's anything over 11W.

Conspiracy theory - foil hats on lads.

The Greenies clearly want us to live in mud huts without any power. These
11w lamps are so we get used to the light of candles gradually.

By introducing bus lanes, speed cameras, speed bumps, cycle lanes etc they
are attempting to get us used to travelling at the same speed as a horse
drawn vehicle.

Starting to make sense innit?

You are not being a tad cynical, are you Dave? :-)

Dave

T i m wrote:
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:19:09 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:


It's releasing the carbon which was captured during the
carboniferous period which is (possibly) an issue. That's
carbon which was trapped during a 50M+ year period in coal
seams and the like, and resulted in mopping up the high level
of CO2 in the atmosphere at the beginning of the carboniferous
down to the levels at the end of the carboniferous, which are
nearer to what we have today. Rereleased over a 100 or 200
year timeframe, that is a potential cause for concern.

Yeah, then we all die and it starts all over?

Would it be green, or not, to use our human form to self combust and
create electricity?

Dave

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:26:59 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

In article ,
"Arfa Daily" writes:

So there we have it. Lots of responses in 12 hours, and not a single one
seems to be in favour of these dreadful things, so why are we all sitting on

Well, actually I do favour the things, but this government
initiative, just like all government initiatives, is a complete
failure, and much more likely to have the opposite effect than
the one desired.

If they gave me some form of cost breakdown of materials
extraction/processing, manufacture, delivery, and disposal for both CFLs
and incandescents I'd be happier. As it stands, "CFLs use less energy
in use" just leaves me wondering about the bigger picture (particularly
as we need the heating on for 6 months of the year around here).

cheers

Jules

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:55:11 -0700, Andy Dingley wrote:
The first coal-fired steam locomotive was Stephenson's Rocket, the
crucial innovation being the use of a blastpipe to encourage draught
on the fire.

What did Trevithick's efforts use, then? I did did some googling but
couldn't find any mention of the actual heat source used.

T i m wrote:
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:42:28 +0000, Bob Minchin
wrote:

T i m wrote:
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:24:01 -0700 (PDT), "js.b1"
wrote:

Of course electricity companies prefer not building new plant, so
shovel out ridiculous 4W 5W 7W 9W 12W bulbs. They are quite useless
and the light can be very harsh on the eyes compared to a proper soft-
tone shell.
Ooo, where can you get 4W BC CFLs from as the 8Ws we have on
dusk_to_dawn auto switches in the front and rear lobbys are way too
bright. ;-)

Cheers, T i m
CPC have some 3W BC candle (ish) lamps at 95p in their latest flyer
part no LP0264703

These:?

http://tinyurl.com/yktgn38

They look like they would be ideal but I've not ordered from them for
yonks. What are the delivery costs like?

Cheers, T i m


I think it is post free over £50 vat ex.
They have so much useful stuff though it is almost impossible not to
spend £50!!
Part numbers are two letters and 5 digits
The extra two digits of the part number are the promotion code -
currently 03. So what ever you are considering buying, put 03 on the end
and it might be cheaper.

If you don't want to fill up the order value to £50 then Toolstation
have similar lamps at £2.98 retail at the shops and post free over £10
HTH

Bob

In article ,
Bob Minchin writes:
T i m wrote:
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:42:28 +0000, Bob Minchin
wrote:

T i m wrote:
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:24:01 -0700 (PDT), "js.b1"
wrote:

Of course electricity companies prefer not building new plant, so
shovel out ridiculous 4W 5W 7W 9W 12W bulbs. They are quite useless
and the light can be very harsh on the eyes compared to a proper soft-
tone shell.
Ooo, where can you get 4W BC CFLs from as the 8Ws we have on
dusk_to_dawn auto switches in the front and rear lobbys are way too
bright. ;-)

Cheers, T i m
CPC have some 3W BC candle (ish) lamps at 95p in their latest flyer
part no LP0264703

These:?

http://tinyurl.com/yktgn38

They look like they would be ideal but I've not ordered from them for
yonks. What are the delivery costs like?

Cheers, T i m


I think it is post free over £50 vat ex.

It's over £45 ex VAT (unless it just went up).

However, for the last several weekends, it's been post free for
orders placed over the weekend if you use some magic words which
they give on the home webpage (or might have been post free over
£20 - I can't recall exactly).

They have so much useful stuff though it is almost impossible not to
spend £50!!

Yes. I started doing an order a couple of weekends ago, but missed
the Sunday 24:00 deadline. A couple of days later, the order went
off, having crept up to £120 (not all of it for me though;-)

Also watch out that they seem to regularly take their systems
down for maintenance on Sunday evenings.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:31:50 +0000, Bob Minchin
wrote:


http://tinyurl.com/yktgn38

They look like they would be ideal but I've not ordered from them for
yonks. What are the delivery costs like?

Cheers, T i m


I think it is post free over £50 vat ex.
They have so much useful stuff though it is almost impossible not to
spend £50!!

It is if you haven't got it. ;-(

Part numbers are two letters and 5 digits
The extra two digits of the part number are the promotion code -
currently 03. So what ever you are considering buying, put 03 on the end
and it might be cheaper.

Crafty. ;-)

If you don't want to fill up the order value to £50 then Toolstation
have similar lamps at £2.98 retail at the shops and post free over £10

Ah, cheers and we have one of them fairly local, thanks.

http://tinyurl.com/ykdfwjw

T i m

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:59:55 -0000, Arfa Daily wrote:

+ £5 bulb = £49.00
snip
+ 11 bulbs @ 20p = £134.20
snip
£85.20 saving.

I don't think that electricity was 10p a unit ten years ago, was it ?

My records only go back to Jul 2000 and it was 5.94p/unit + VAT(*)
from PowerGen. I currently pay 9.281p/unit + 5% VAT from Scottish
Power. I switched in Sep 2004 from 6.34 down to 5.01p/unit.

Last time I looked around the switching sites 18p/unit was not
uncommon with most being pence over 10p/unit. That 9.281 is still at
the cheap end of the prices available.

Even if you take 7.5p/unit as an "average" price there will still be
savings using that 20W CFL v 60W tungstens.

(*) When did VAT come in on domestic fuel?

--
Cheers
Dave.

Jules wrote:

What did Trevithick's efforts use, then? I did did some googling but
couldn't find any mention of the actual heat source used.


The first run was on 21 February, and was described in some detail by
Trevithick:

"...yesterday we proceeded on our journey with the engine, and we
carried ten tons of iron in five wagons, and seventy men riding on them
the whole of the journey... the engine, while working, went nearly five
miles an hour; there was no water put into the boiler from the time we
started until our journey's end... the coal consumed was two hundredweight".

http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/rhagor/article/trevithic_loco/

--
Rod

Jules wrote:
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:26:59 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

In article ,
"Arfa Daily" writes:
So there we have it. Lots of responses in 12 hours, and not a single one
seems to be in favour of these dreadful things, so why are we all sitting on
Well, actually I do favour the things, but this government
initiative, just like all government initiatives, is a complete
failure, and much more likely to have the opposite effect than
the one desired.

If they gave me some form of cost breakdown of materials
extraction/processing, manufacture, delivery, and disposal for both CFLs
and incandescents I'd be happier. As it stands, "CFLs use less energy
in use" just leaves me wondering about the bigger picture (particularly
as we need the heating on for 6 months of the year around here).


Well that energy is all used in China so its Not Out Probolem, and the
things are probably disposed of in china, too..

cheers

Jules

"Clive George" wrote in message
o.uk...
"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"Clive George" wrote in message
o.uk...
"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

But my point is that a friend of mine got nicked there a few days back.
He was coasting down from the preceding 40mph limit, to the 30mph one
he was entering.

Why wasn't he coasting down to hit 30 at the sign, rather than later?

Because for the 35 years that we have both lived here, the 30mph limit
started at a sensible place just outside the village limits, and where
there was no habitation. Then, a few weeks ago, they decided to revise
all the limits, and their positioning, and have now moved this limit back
a ludicrous distance until it starts probably a quarter mile outside the
village on a piece of road that was formerly limited at 50mph. When
you've been used to driving on a particular piece of road in a particular
way, for 35 years, it's actually quite difficult to adjust without having
to think about it all the time.

So, he was driving on autopilot rather than thinking about what he was
doing? You're not selling this too well.

New speed limit a few weeks ago - are you at all surprised they're
checking a bit more vigorously than normal? It should be a clue to take
special care, not do what he's done for the past 35 years. If he can't
adjust, he shouldn't have a licence - how on earth will he cope with a
strange road?

Plus of course, we all live in the real world, where theory is fine, but
often not quite so realistic in practice ...

All that means is "Bugger, got caught due paying insufficient attention".
Real world - keep an eye out, or accept the fines which can result if you
don't.

Note at no point in this post do I make any justification for the limit or
the copper being there. The fact is they were both there, and he didn't
take the appropriate action to avoid getting nicked.


Ah. I see that you're one of the people who doesn't live in the real world,
and never does anything wrong. Of course he was in the wrong by strict
letter of the law, but any reasonable person would understand how it
happened, and have a degree of sympathy, rather than indulge in pious
preaching about "driving on autopilot". We all do that at some time, and if
you claim that you don't, then I'm afraid that I am not going to believe you
....

Looking at this from a different angle, do you believe that having to drive
whilst continuously monitoring your speedo, due to the nonsense speed limits
and moneymaking cameras that are being introduced all over the place, is
making driving safer ? IMHO, anything that causes your attention to be
divided whilst driving, is dangerous. Having to drive with one eye on the
speedo all the time, for fear of being nicked at a couple of mph over the
(often arbitrary) speed limit is, in my belief, actually negating any
perceived improvement in safety on any stretch of road, that strictly
enforcing these speed limits is intended to do.

My friend was clearly not a boy racer, and was clearly not 'speeding'. It
was a totally pointless exercise nicking him. If he was near a school or
actually even in the village, fair enough, but this was at a place where a
long standing sensible limit, had been arbitrarily moved to satisfy some
traffic calming directive that some university dropout had come up with to
justify his job, and not for any practical or demonstrable safety or
accident prevention reasons.

Arfa

In message , Tim W
writes
The Natural Philosopher
wibbled on Tuesday 27 October 2009 08:54

candles produce lots of CO2.

But if you make them by stuffing a wick down the throat of a little bird,
they are technically CO2 neutral.


Paedo ...


--
geoff

In message , Dave
writes
T i m wrote:
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:19:09 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

It's releasing the carbon which was captured during the
carboniferous period which is (possibly) an issue. That's
carbon which was trapped during a 50M+ year period in coal
seams and the like, and resulted in mopping up the high level
of CO2 in the atmosphere at the beginning of the carboniferous
down to the levels at the end of the carboniferous, which are
nearer to what we have today. Rereleased over a 100 or 200
year timeframe, that is a potential cause for concern.
Yeah, then we all die and it starts all over?

Would it be green, or not, to use our human form to self combust and
create electricity?

Try it and report back ....

--
geoff

In message , Bob Minchin
writes
T i m wrote:
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:24:01 -0700 (PDT), "js.b1"
wrote:

Of course electricity companies prefer not building new plant, so
shovel out ridiculous 4W 5W 7W 9W 12W bulbs. They are quite useless
and the light can be very harsh on the eyes compared to a proper soft-
tone shell.
Ooo, where can you get 4W BC CFLs from as the 8Ws we have on
dusk_to_dawn auto switches in the front and rear lobbys are way too
bright. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
CPC have some 3W BC candle (ish) lamps at 95p in their latest flyer
part no LP0264703

I like the way they have brought out the preview of the 2010 catalogue


Which begs the question - how many prices will be obsolete before the
catalogue is actually issued ?


--
geoff

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"Clive George" wrote in message
o.uk...
"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

"Clive George" wrote in message
o.uk...
"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...

But my point is that a friend of mine got nicked there a few days
back. He was coasting down from the preceding 40mph limit, to the
30mph one he was entering.

Why wasn't he coasting down to hit 30 at the sign, rather than later?

Because for the 35 years that we have both lived here, the 30mph limit
started at a sensible place just outside the village limits, and where
there was no habitation. Then, a few weeks ago, they decided to revise
all the limits, and their positioning, and have now moved this limit
back a ludicrous distance until it starts probably a quarter mile
outside the village on a piece of road that was formerly limited at
50mph. When you've been used to driving on a particular piece of road in
a particular way, for 35 years, it's actually quite difficult to adjust
without having to think about it all the time.

So, he was driving on autopilot rather than thinking about what he was
doing? You're not selling this too well.

New speed limit a few weeks ago - are you at all surprised they're
checking a bit more vigorously than normal? It should be a clue to take
special care, not do what he's done for the past 35 years. If he can't
adjust, he shouldn't have a licence - how on earth will he cope with a
strange road?

Plus of course, we all live in the real world, where theory is fine, but
often not quite so realistic in practice ...

All that means is "Bugger, got caught due paying insufficient attention".
Real world - keep an eye out, or accept the fines which can result if you
don't.

Note at no point in this post do I make any justification for the limit
or the copper being there. The fact is they were both there, and he
didn't take the appropriate action to avoid getting nicked.


Ah. I see that you're one of the people who doesn't live in the real
world, and never does anything wrong. Of course he was in the wrong by
strict letter of the law, but any reasonable person would understand how
it happened, and have a degree of sympathy, rather than indulge in pious
preaching about "driving on autopilot". We all do that at some time, and
if you claim that you don't, then I'm afraid that I am not going to
believe you

Actually I tend not to speed on autopilot. I try my darndest to not drive on
autopilot either. I'm _very_ keen on people actually concentrating on their
driving, and I'll give short shrift to people say "we all drive on
autopilot". I know it takes effort, but it's important that people actually
do put that effort in.

Looking at this from a different angle, do you believe that having to
drive whilst continuously monitoring your speedo, due to the nonsense
speed limits and moneymaking cameras that are being introduced all over
the place, is making driving safer ?

Look at the paragraph I wrote beginning with "Note". I'm not interested in
that argument.

IMHO, anything that causes your attention to be divided whilst driving, is
dangerous. Having to drive with one eye on the speedo all the time, for
fear of being nicked at a couple of mph over the (often arbitrary) speed
limit is, in my belief, actually negating any perceived improvement in
safety on any stretch of road, that strictly enforcing these speed limits
is intended to do.

I could point out that I don't actually have a problem with speed limits
changing - I look for the road signs, I don't stare at the speedo all the
time, yet manage to keep in the limits if I want to. It's just practice.

My friend was clearly not a boy racer, and was clearly not 'speeding'. It
was a totally pointless exercise nicking him. If he was near a school or
actually even in the village, fair enough, but this was at a place where a
long standing sensible limit, had been arbitrarily moved to satisfy some
traffic calming directive that some university dropout had come up with to
justify his job, and not for any practical or demonstrable safety or
accident prevention reasons.

The guy was in a new speed limit, where there's obviously an increased
chance of being nicked. By your account he was on autopilot. He ****ed up.
Apparently he accepted this, but you don't appear to be doing so.

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:03:41 -0000, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

The primary suspects would have to be either our government, or some
faceless eurobollox department in Brussels, but where is the money coming
from ? Out of our taxes ?

Arfa


Lets have a think.

Oil price goes through the roof.
Gas/electric price goes through the roof.

Government mutters about Windfall Tax.

Suddenly goes silent. (The old and hard up can freeze)

The utilities start becoming very benevolent and doing all kinds of
free crap for us.

Or perhaps I am just being mean.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Tim W wrote:

It's the subtle introduction of "though crime" that's most worrying. You
try
to start a reasoned and balanced debate on "Is excessive immigration bad
for Britain" without being instantly labelled as BNP.

WEll that is changing. Its not immigration per se, its too many people
full stop.

No, it's immigration. There's too many foreigners in this country.

Mind you, the other thing is that the current system encourages the workshy
and the stupid to breed like rabbits. When these lasses get pregnant just to
get a council flat they should be send back to mum and dad with a flea in
their ear. Child benefit should be abolished.

Bill