Green Baron

The steam loco one in the foreground looks like a German BR 50 that ran with similar passenger cars until the early 70s (71/72) in western Germany. A 3m gauge doesn't exist. You'd have ridiculous friction losses in curves or you need single wheel suspension. Afaik 7foot was the largest ever made ... Edit: the term "Unterzug", plural "Unterzüge" does actually exist in German, but has nothing to do with railroad. In architecture (e.g. bridges) its a downstand beam, in construction a binding girder or a binding intertie. e.g. (look at the ceiling): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterzug_(Bauwesen)#/media/File:Altar_de_la_Colegiata_de_San_Salvador_de_Cantamuda.jpg or (the beams under the pathway): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterzug_(Bauwesen)#/media/File:Bagni_di_Craveggia_14.JPG

Well, with a morbid logic, then only the kids are flattened without any further collateral damage ... *cough*, that is of course not my opinion. Chinese attitude towards their people or the environment they live in is shockingly careless, it seems.

I think we are running in circles in the various threads an Mars. We have the enthusiasts like the Mars society who play around with their Pickup trucks, tarps and scaffolds and canned nutrition as well as innumerable others in their backyards or the desert behind the house. If i just think about the fact that they can go to the doctor any time they want it becomes clear to me that this is just playing in the sand box. Nothing against playing :-). On the other hand there is next to 0 real data even to answer the question where is water, in which form and how can we obtain it. It is all "this looks like", "this may be", "if we assume that ...". Not that that means that our expectations on Marsian soil and atmosphere are completely wrong, but deducting from the sparse data that we just take a couple of black boxes labeled "fuel", "air", "water" and everything is fine is premature. There are only very few experiments (i know of one, greenhouse in Antarctica at Niemeyer Station, more ?) that were or are undertaken in a controlled environment with at least a scientific background. Relevance is still open. So, in the end, if you want to believe Zubrin et. al. you could just go there, use ready made technology and everything will be fine. In this case it is good that atm there is no vehicle capable of bringing people there, it'll probably end in a disaster. I find it really nice that SpaceX now has a rocket with a significant payload capacity. Next hype train stations: the first real commercial missions to space with that rocket, human rating of a capsule and subsequently, 2019+ if it is happening at all, the "billionaires around the moon" thing. I am was looking forward to that. Until cancellation ?. Edit: corrections applied, thanks @sh1pman :-) Looks like i wasn't up to date on SpaceX marketing activities

Outch to the debt. Get rid of it before the interests rise. I am in the lucky state of having the house ready (i made the real estate property step early in life ;-)). I inherited a model railroad from my grandfather. That was in the 80s, and the system doesn't exist any more. About 15 years ago i had a phase when i bought a lot of stuff but only played "carpet railroading" for a while. This thread here (and Squads reluctance toward further developing KSP, side blow intended) was actually the last kick i needed to rearranged things to make room, gave away furniture i never used, went to the carpenter last week and ordered a stack of wood. I was told that it'll be delivered "this week". But it is the carnival week in a strongly catholic country. Nothing will happen before Wednesday, on Thursday everybody is sick and nobody here goes to work on the bridge day before the weekend. First thing i plan shall be a shadow station and an oval (5m by 1,6m), second step above that a roll-off hill and a track harp to sort cars. That'll require some testing to get a feeling for the right slopes. I like sound & movement :-) I am not religious over epochs or colors, and right now i have many more cars and locos than i can actually play with. H0 that is, 2 line direct current and DCC control, so the 5 by 1,6 are relative. So i might already need an element to make an L out of the large rectangle. Train lengths will surely be 2m. H0 it is the "action size" :-) Reminds me of the Fleur de Lis. You're a historian so this is probably not an incident ? I am a total ignorant concerning American history. Nice. All in all, i think i will delay real model- and landscape making until the wooden skeleton annoys me too much ...

Signed and stamped gb :-)

2 times. No need to get annoyed :-) What i want to say is that (independently of the relationship) love is a chemical reaction in a single individual and is limited to that individual. The subject of that feeling doesn't necessarily feel the same or even answer that feeling. And there is no spooky distance effect. The daughter might have totally forgotten about her father once he was gone, or the other way round. Some misguided individuals (including me) even fall in love with things like cars, computers, ships, .... do these things respond to that affection ? The "love" thing in the movie is just for the story. Also, "thinking as a species" does not work. Evolution has taken care of it, individuals choose the easier way to get to by, except for a few martyrs or terrorists. Archaeology has told us that no generation ever felt responsible for their children. The whole climate change today thing fits perfectly in the picture of evolutionary selfishness. But i don't want to stray too far, in my opinion "love" has no effect beyond the body of the so affected. But it is good for a moving movie story line :-)

Everything. Doesn't even work over the room. She thinks you love her but you are thinking about how to contact the new pretty neighbour girl/boy. Or, you feel deeply in love and the one beside you misinterpretes the pheromones and starts to flirt. Nay, just hollywood style stereotypes, in the movie as well as above :-) Life doesn't work that way.

This song i like since 40 years (Mike Batt & Friends; Imbecile): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjNUPhIrt24&list=RDMjNUPhIrt24 Super to chant when driving car (and nobody listens ;-)) Voice Roger Chapman

North America has the same gauge as most of Europe, i just duckduckgo'ed. 1435mm. The Swiss run some of their networks on narrow gauge, over under and between the mountains. The transit lines are standard gauge of course. The https://www.matterhorngotthardbahn.ch/en/winter/ 1m gauge, a beautiful railway trip btw, partly runs on cograil mounted between the rails to master the slopes. It switches while slowly driving over it, without stop.

'Oumuamua, tumbling along. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0398-z tl, dr: Analysis of the photometry cannot uniquely explain the brightness variations by rotation around the longest axis. Not enough data. A possible solution is a rotation not around the main axis, a slightly plumper shape (5:1 ratio) and/or a spotty surface. So be it :-)

Pop science article, linked on the EHT blog: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/12/27/2018-will-be-the-year-humanity-directly-sees-our-first-black-hole/#706a47c3a16c

[own remark snipped] A song i can't get rid of. Alan Parsons Project, Ammonia Avenue (first link i found on youtube, maybe not official): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK-_2G7MMgc

While waiting for a stack of wood to come sometime next week i assembled 20 small lights this afternoon. Those will help illuminate the shadow station later. Got me a decent DC transformer and let there be some dim light on the table to adjust the voltage.

Same with Toyota (reminds me of Pidgin "same same, but different") :-) I am not yet quite convinced if it is solved. The buses i saw with these things were normal road version, low floor and long wheel base. They do have buses for dust roads as well here, but they are much shorter and have a much higher clearance between chassis and ground ...

That was my thought as well, there are really currents flowing and cables need to have diameters or it gets warm. Recuperation brakes of electric or hybrid cars are integrated in the drive train. Pressure sensors need no rigid connection. Any counting is better done magnetically or via short range radio. For now it remains mysterious :-)

This is interesting. A few months ago i have seen similar things on some of the newer generation buses here. It can't be something crucial because it is so exposed that it will sooner or later "fall off" and would increase maintenance cost. Now they are gone again, so apparently is was temporary. Pressure control is inlying, distance counter is better done via a radio or magnetic transmission. It is independent of the wheel suspension (must be flexible). idk either ....

I apparently am not the oldest one here but one of the elder. When i was a kid the last steam locomotives ran on the railroad tracks. We had to arrange something after school if we wanted to meet later in the afternoon to play. It was a rural area and not everybody had a telephone. We had one. It had a three digit number after the 5-digit area code. European backwaters :-) My first computer was a Sinclair ZX 81 My first self earned computer was an Apple ][ clone. My first car was a used Renault 4. 34hp, but only 700kg empty weight. 0 to 100km/h sometimes with the help of heavy tailwind. "Umbrella" gear shifter :-)

No. Yes. Happens all the time. A thinks of B, B thinks of A and in times of email and internet there isn't really a reason not to get in contact. Actually a reason to change my email addresses from time to time ;-) Not every ex ... ah never mind :-) Yes. And they are dead soon(tm). It is just body chemistry at work, aka memories. A deja vu is something different. People sometimes live through/imagine a situation that seems very real, like a memory, but they are sure to never have actually been in such a situation. I had such a thing myself. Maybe just a dream or a situation from a book or a story from someone else i heard went into my subconsciousness and became something like a memory and a rl situation triggered that "memory" in such a way that i was convinced it was out of my life (which was impossible). Was that understandable ? :-) Oh, i should add, no supersensual mumbojumbo, just body chemistry.

3 i assume ? :-)

Beautiful ! Extraordinary ! Outstanding ! ... and i am not easily hyped. Congrats to all girls and guys at SpaceX !

Thanks guys :-) Well, i have a plan for a table of 5*1,6m. That's too much for even thick plywood without a sturdy frame. And the plywood alone would be too heavy. So i take 8mm plywood and a box frame of pine profiles (12*3cm) with a box size of 80*~83cm. With this, i can do the first layout that will later be the shadow part, a set of parallel tracks, and a spiral to the upper level and maybe connect everything over a long (temporary) ramp to a simple oval.

At the carpenter's: No profiles in stock. Must make them all. Sold out. Boom times. Takes min. a week. I waited half an hour for my turn. For a stack of pine profiles and sheets of plywood. Well, the plywood is in stock, but it alone makes no table.

Too late. Would you like the other half, Mr. Wint ? :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe_glacée#/media/File:Bombe_glacée_2014-07-29.png

The launch for dessert. Or "La Bombe Surprise" :-)

It is not known if earth's atmosphere really shrinks. It looses something to space through atmospheric escape, something to the lithosphere through sequestration, it gains something through outgasing. It is in constant exchange with the other spheres through outgasing/weathering/sequestration, precipitation/vapourisation, metabolisms of organisms, decay of organic stuff etc. pp. The atmoshperic loss to space is in the range of tens of tons/day (90 says our beloved Wikipedia but who knows where that is from :-)), but there is a lot of it in total. The total mass balance over longer terms is unknown, afaik. So if you want to know how much was lost since a date, take the loss/day. For the balance one must use estimations. I know of no work that examines a dependency between climate change and toal balance, in contrary most models see the atmopshere as a closed thing. Buying a breathing apparatus ("Perryair") is unnecessary :-) Edit: in a few hundred million years, with a warmer sun and rising surface temperatures the scene will be different, of course :-)