Christchurch Treehouse of Awesome-Where everyone knows your name

[Obble]

how did I not know that?

Because nobody ever gets that close to people they snap. Right...?


;c

[Growler]

Got my car!!

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Craigor]

Got my car!!

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

*likes this*

[Pyromanik]

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

psh?

[Growler]

no psh.....

just supercharger whine and turbo spool, which will be louder when I take off all the well designed German sound proofing cases on the intakes.

But the real reason is so it will run cooler on the intake and thus more effcient, I mean who wants to hear a supercharger roar......

18" black GTI rims then I am done with it. Will run stock otherwise.

[Pyromanik]

[Pyromanik]

Re-bot will like this one:

So work used to publish a bi-monthly magazine for employees as a form of internal communication - what's the company been up to, how is it doing, what interesting things have happened, who has done some good shit, etc.

Now we have an intranet and that is mostly used instead.

So now they've decided to do a bi-annual one instead (that's twice a year, not every second year). It's bigger, shinier and supposed to be a bit more 'professional' looking. It's compiled by the marketing department.

It was released today, and was instantly sought through for shit to have a bit of banter about by my team. It had a full page front cover spread of some lad who won an award but wasn't all that photogenic. It contained a forward by the marketing director who had her picture at the abse of it... she's a reasonably large lass, and the picture had her looking about 5 years younger and 10+Kg thinner... It was filled with the usual bollocks about some of the upper management playing golf, some award winners having a track day... and then towards the end it had a wee bit of a cartoon spread of the marketing department (which has ballooned in staff recently).

The very team who put together the magazine, made the cartoon selves, and edited the mag let this slip through:

One might say it was a wee bit of a cockup.

Spoiler :

Literally almost ANY other colour of shirt would have been FAR better...

Most of our department ended up in hysterics for about quarter of an hour because of it. Fuck'n hilarious.

[Retardobot]

Hahaha, thats awesome.

Reminds me of a typo one of the designers here made. A study guide went out - they misspelled humanities; humantitties.

Also, it seems to be a common problem with large companies and institutions. They massively bulk out marketing departments, hire morons and end up inflating marketing budgets to cover the grossly over-inflated pay checks of said morons. I've never seen so much concentrated incompetence before.

[Dr Woomanchu]

Check this out for a cheap entry level quad copter with rave reviews

http://www.tinydeal.com/Hubsan-X4-H107C-2-4GHz-4-CH-LCD-RC-Quadcopter-UFO-Aircraft-with-0-3Mp-Camera-6-axis-Gyro-Random-Color-p-126288.html

Gonna buy me one to learn to fly. Then buy a bigger one, fit paint ball guns , and secretly hunt and shoot down growlers copter when he's piercing at the neighbours sunbathing

[Pyromanik]

I've had one for a while. Good fun, but not particularly stable (compared to the thing G-dizzle got, which I've also used) - mostly due to it's size I guess. Still good kit for what it is though :>

In short, they're not really comparible at all. The Phantom is much much easier to control and fly, even in a reasonable breeze. I spend most of my time with the Hubsan trying to keep it away from the walls (it's more of an inside toy).

It'll give you a taste I guess, but if you're thinking of going large, just go large IMO.

***

I guess a fitting analogy might be something like: X4 to Phantom2 is comparible as shed tuned V8 datsun to new Bentley.
ie. Twitchy sports model to the gentleman's limosine (but still has plenty of grunt).

Hubsan is pure fantasticness for the spend though. Just don't fly it before putting the rotor guards on, or you'll be replacing them flat tac (especially when new)

[Pyromanik]

I think Spacemonkey will like this - http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2015/07/17/elon-musk-tesla-gets-battery-electronics-upgrade-to-ludicrous-mode/

[Retardobot]

I can't help but think the Musk's attempt to make fossil-fuel-free cars is actually worse than what we already have.

The manufacturing that goes into producing all those electronic parts including the batteries creates so much waste. And then expand that every time more and more of his cars hit the road.

[Bounty Hunter]

I can't help but think the Musk's attempt to make fossil-fuel-free cars is actually worse than what we already have.

The manufacturing that goes into producing all those electronic parts including the batteries creates so much waste. And then expand that every time more and more of his cars hit the road.

Yeah, though I get the feeling that our current method is always bad, it's will always trend downwards.

Making electric cars will be downward to begin with, maybe even at a steeper slope, but eventually it'll flick over and begin trending upwards.

It's like the first step in breaking the downward spiral, though it all hinges on a better energy storage technology.

[Dr Woomanchu]

There's nothing wrong with internal combustion as a power source. liquid fuels are a highly efficient energy storage mechanism. The problem is teh fuel source. We're taking billions of years worth of carbon sink and releasing it into the atmosphere in an eyeblink.

We already have the technology to produce liquid fuels either from bio sources ( although there are issues with arable land use ) or Audi has been experimenting with  fuel directly from H2O + CO2 + energy. So build fucking big solar stations ( or nuclear) in the middle of deserts and build big arse refineries right next to them, then ship the resulting carbon neutral fuel into an existing infrastructure.

This all will happen eventually as fossil fuels deplete, but it would be simplicity itself to accelerate the process. Just use taxation as a method of giving carbon neutral liquid fuels a price advantage. the market will take care of the rest.

All that's missing is the will.

[Pyromanik]

All that's missing is the will.

Greed and 'every man for himself' mentality kills that.

[Bounty Hunter]

There's nothing wrong with internal combustion as a power source. liquid fuels are a highly efficient energy storage mechanism. The problem is teh fuel source. We're taking billions of years worth of carbon sink and releasing it into the atmosphere in an eyeblink.

We already have the technology to produce liquid fuels either from bio sources ( although there are issues with arable land use ) or Audi has been experimenting with  fuel directly from H2O + CO2 + energy. So build fucking big solar stations ( or nuclear) in the middle of deserts and build big arse refineries right next to them, then ship the resulting carbon neutral fuel into an existing infrastructure.

This all will happen eventually as fossil fuels deplete, but it would be simplicity itself to accelerate the process. Just use taxation as a method of giving carbon neutral liquid fuels a price advantage. the market will take care of the rest.

All that's missing is the will.

Nah, Relative to a BLDC, the ICE sucks in terms of engineering.

Yeah, the fuel source is key. If petrol had the same energy density as the latest batteries, the ICE would be dead in the water.

[Dr Woomanchu]

There's nothing wrong with internal combustion as a power source. liquid fuels are a highly efficient energy storage mechanism. The problem is teh fuel source. We're taking billions of years worth of carbon sink and releasing it into the atmosphere in an eyeblink.

We already have the technology to produce liquid fuels either from bio sources ( although there are issues with arable land use ) or Audi has been experimenting with  fuel directly from H2O + CO2 + energy. So build fucking big solar stations ( or nuclear) in the middle of deserts and build big arse refineries right next to them, then ship the resulting carbon neutral fuel into an existing infrastructure.

This all will happen eventually as fossil fuels deplete, but it would be simplicity itself to accelerate the process. Just use taxation as a method of giving carbon neutral liquid fuels a price advantage. the market will take care of the rest.

All that's missing is the will.

Nah, Relative to a BLDC, the ICE sucks in terms of engineering.

Yeah, the fuel source is key. If petrol had the same energy density as the latest batteries, the ICE would be dead in the water.

The huge advantage is that you don't have to make existing power sources obsolete, just change where you get your fuel from. As other technologies supplant internal combustion, that change can happen at it's own pace.

[Bounty Hunter]

The huge advantage is that you don't have to make existing power sources obsolete, just change where you get your fuel from. As other technologies supplant internal combustion, that change can happen at it's own pace.

Got any links or keywords for that Audi technology?

[Pyromanik]

'Audi fuel research'?

Got any relevant definitions for use of ICE & BLDC?
"Internal Combustion Engine" & ?

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

Got any relevant definitions for use of ICE & BLDC?
"Internal Combustion Engine" & "Brushless DC electric motor"

[Pyromanik]

a rite cool ta

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

What I'm excited about is a Tesla powerwall. Vector will be bringing them to New Zealand.

At the moment, for me at least, getting solar panels installed would be a waste of money, since no one is home at my house during the day, and the buyback rates for selling electricity back to the power companies are pretty pathetic at the moment.

But if I had a powerwall battery which could be charged during the day from solar, then be used during the night, it makes solar a much more attractive option.

[Xsannz]

What I'm excited about is a Tesla powerwall. Vector will be bringing them to New Zealand.

At the moment, for me at least, getting solar panels installed would be a waste of money, since no one is home at my house during the day, and the buyback rates for selling electricity back to the power companies are pretty pathetic at the moment.

But if I had a powerwall battery which could be charged during the day from solar, then be used during the night, it makes solar a much more attractive option.

Been Looking at this as well

[Growler]

They are making some great advances in battery and storage/cycles/charging technology.

I reckon the next 10 years for auto tech/batteries are going to be like the last 10 years in computer advances etc. My flying car I charge on banana skins to go back in time!

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/march/aluminum-ion-battery-033115.html

[Pyromanik]

Powerwall sounds pretty neat. Like what huts have had for yonks but betterer. I like the sound of that.

As for what G-dizzle just said, there was that TED talk guy (so I took it with a bit of hyperbolic salt) going on about ion carbon tubes or something. Seemed like pretty damn cool tech. Put a thin transparent film over your windows and it both creates electricity and sheilds from the sun, or somesuch.
Can't be arsed to find video tho :<

The aluminium battery sems pretty neato, until you think that you've just swapped coal for oil for bauxite, which is already relatively scarce (or so I was lead to believe back in school). And the refining process is pretty f'n expensive (again, relatively) from what I hear.