Buy

Books
Click images for more details

Twitter
Support

 

Recent comments
Recent posts
Currently discussing
Links

A few sites I've stumbled across recently....

Powered by Squarespace

Unthreaded

Having accidentally caused one talking point I'll throw another into the mix and run away again.

Next week sees the 54th anniversary of the publication ot "The Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson (27th September 1962). Think of all the mosquito and other insect borne diseases and how many they've killed or permanently disabled. Malaria, dengue fever, West Nile Fever and Lyme disease come to mind. Is there any more deadly creature/organism than the mosquito alive today?

Sep 23, 2016 at 8:02 AM | Unregistered CommenterSandyS

ACK,
Sorry about late reply, our French neighbour had a fall (he's 85) and is wife can't drive at the moment so we've been taking her to visit him, he's broken is hip/thigh so not looking good. You're right about running onto rocks, but it's usually the crew not looking at the radar and sailing blithely into the storm/onto the rocks despite having plenty of warning to change course. At the moment the ST UK Limited seems to be sailing into port with little or no plan where to dock.

I'm in the Lady MacBeth (a much maligned woman) camp on how quickly things should happen, the longer it takes to dock the more time there is for abandoning ship.

Sep 23, 2016 at 7:55 AM | Unregistered CommenterSandyS

Ravishing Rattie. Every now and then I read or see something, commonly something I knew before, that stops me short and causes me to examine it from a new viewpoint. Such was the case when I read what you wrote about supertankers taking two miles to come to rest if engines are turned off. Rather than thinking how short this was I began to think about this in terms of how long it was. It means that the enertia (or is it the momentum? Physics was never a strong suit) is able to displace a volume of water equivalent to the cross sectional area of the supertanker times two miles. That's an awful lot of water. Given how energetic you need to be to swim across a pool, I'm right impressed.

Sep 23, 2016 at 7:12 AM | Unregistered CommenterACK

Radical Rodent, the Herald of Free Enterprise was human error, compounded by human systems error. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the sea, sea conditions, the sea bed, navigation or buoyage etc.

A vessel in shallow water will cause draught to increase as the vessel squats down a bit. This was looked at in this instance, but was not relevant to the cause of the disaster, it may have hastened it. Better compartmentalization of the car decks on Roll-On Roll-Off Ferries was introduced as a result, to reduce capsize due to water slopping about.

Sep 23, 2016 at 12:30 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

http://www.thegwpf.com/electric-car-sales-drop-after-uk-government-cuts-subsidies/

Green Economics relies on taxpayer funding and subsidies. Take them away, and Green Economics does not exist.

Sep 22, 2016 at 11:52 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

When one considers the number of Ro-Ro crossings per day between GB and NI, GB & RoI, GB and continental Europe, the HoFE error is a statistically insignificant occurrence and not worth being unduly concerned about.

Lesson learned, safety improved.

However, one must always consider: is the additional cost of a safety improvement to save a life worth the cost?

Some will say "Yes", but every activity involves risk - eg walking up/downstairs - stumble, fall & die; choke on food & die; fall out of bed, break neck & die. Thus, there must be a cost which is not worth paying.

Sep 22, 2016 at 11:43 PM | Registered CommenterPcar

Minty: a supertanker will turn quite quickly, within a mile, and will turn a full circle in about 10 minutes – oddly, probably faster than many container ships. Stop the engine, and it will continue for several miles; put the engine astern, and it will stop within 2 miles.

Like almost all disasters, the Herald disaster was caused by human error, both in the operation of it (by not having a positive reporting system that the doors were shut), and in the design, by not having visual indications on the bridge that the bow doors were still open. The Master of the day had been in trouble with the company by pushing for a simple switch system being fitted, giving red and green lights on the bridge, costed out at about £100. There was one theory at the time that the combination of the hull form, the sea state, and the ship’s interaction with the sea bottom would have caused the disaster, whether the doors were open or not. I have no idea how far that research went.

Sep 22, 2016 at 11:18 PM | Registered CommenterRadical Rodent

@Ross Lea, Sep 22, 2016 at 11:08 AM

It seems Soros is trying to influence the US Presidential Election after failing to win the UK referendum for the Remain side.
https://sputniknews.com/politics/20160903/1044937321/us-soros-election-pope.html

As Soros' manipulation is being exposed he is becoming unpopular in other countries too:

Polish MP Demands ‘Pest’ Soros Is Stripped Of Country’s Highest Honour

imho About time.

Sep 22, 2016 at 10:01 PM | Registered CommenterPcar

@AK, Sep 22, 2016 at 7:16 AM

Stewgreen. Interesting information. Apparently there is a substantial debate out there about nuclear graphite burning. One reference I've come across that supports graphite burning is
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/stni/2011/589747/

Paper cited:

1.para5: Graphite burning by air occurred two times in graphite-moderated reactors, which were however of different design in comparison with modern HTRs: Windscale 1957 and Chernobyl 1986.

As the above ascertains are false, the paper has no credibility.

Sep 22, 2016 at 9:54 PM | Registered CommenterPcar

@AK, Sep 22, 2016 at 10:52 AM

What would have happened if Lehman Brothers had been rescued like Lloyds and RBS? Who can tell?

"Who can tell?" - anyone with a brain and rudimentary understanding.

Let's do this first: RBS & HBOS were (mostly) retail banks, Lehman Brothers was an investment bank. Investment bank collapsing should be no big deal. Retail bank collapsing is a big deal. Hence why retail banks have Gov't depositor protection.

In retrospect, the other investment banks should have bought Lehman Brothers and admitted their & USA Gov't errors in sub-prime mortgages for USA residential property. Sadly, they would probably have carried on kicking the can down the road resulting in an even worse crash later. In that respect Lehman Brothers collapse forced them to face up to reality which was good.

At the time they were all in denial of the impending disaster of the Clinton/Obamma mandated mortgages to unsuitable USAians who would not be able to meet repayments when the initial discount repayment/interest-rate expired.

They also failed to realise that the CDOs from bundled mortgages could be shorted, unlike property, to reflect their inherent risk and expectation that USA residential property was overvalued. Once Lehman Brothers collapsed, other investment and retail banks were forced to review the true risk and value of the CDOs they held as assets resulting in the failure in UK of RBS and HBOS. Note: Northern Rock was a different situation.

This had all been predicated for several years - notably by Liam Halligan in The Telegraph. As usual, "the experts" disagreed and said all was good. Again, as often, the "experts" were wrong.

Quick summary E&OE.

It's drama, but explains reasonably well: The.Big.Short.(2015)

Sep 22, 2016 at 9:27 PM | Registered CommenterPcar

PostCreate a New Post

Enter your information below to create a new post.
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>