dave2013

I think that's what it is. We have the a similar issue here where the weather services now issue severe storm and tornado warnings to scare the bejesus out of everybody, and then it almost always turns out there was no actual sighted tornado, just a "radar indication" of "possible rotation". However, if they didn't do this and there ended up being an actual tornado that killed people and/or destroyed property, they would be criticized for not issuing a warning. Dave

80F inside the house is a bit too warm for most people. You're pretty old school and grew up without air conditioning so you can handle it better than most, I imagine. In July and August we'll set ours at 76F(24.5C) during the day, but that's about as warm as we want it. Before we go to bed we drop it down to 70F(21C) as it makes it easier to sleep. We lived in south Italy for a few years back in the mid 90s and had no air conditioning. Our apartment was on the roof, sort of like a penthouse but only half the top floor as there were 2 units, so the sun blasted the whole structure all day. The interior temperature would get up to 85-86F(30C) even though the walls were concrete block. It was so uncomfortable that I would take a cold shower right before I went to bed, leave my body wet, and had a fan blowing on me in bed so I could sleep. Opening the windows to allow in a breeze didn't help because the breeze was actually hot air known as the Scirocco wind from northern Africa. I wonder how many Americans have ever had to endure something like that, other than old folks wo grew up without air conditioning? Dave

I just read a story about Torino, Italy having an electrical blackout due to all the air conditioners running full blast. I'd be surprised if more than 40-50% of Italians actually have an air conditioner, so just that extra air conditioning load caused the system to be overloaded. Something you really have to think about if millions of people in the UK start running air conditioners is: can the grid handle the extra load? Air conditioners use a lot of power. In fact, its the largest electrical load in the vast majority of houses. We notice that when we start having to run ours in May, and we keep the house at 24C so only need to run it a few hours a day in May, our energy usage increases 30-40%, and in the Summer it doubles because we have to keep it running all day and some of the night. Our grid in the U.S. was designed and built to handle large loads because spoiled Americans have been using air conditioning for 70 years, yet we still have occasional problems in places like southern California or Texas when it gets very hot and millions of aircon units start running full blast. I wonder if the electrical grid in Europe can handle this extra load? Dave

Yeah, that's west TN near Memphis which is typically hotter and more humid than areas further east. West TN isn't actually representative of most of the State, which is generally hilly and mountainous and averages over 1,000ft above sea level. Dave

Please try to avoid encouraging certain people to go full censorship crazy because of their personal biases.😉 This is an interesting topic and there's nothing wrong with discussing it in an effort to find the facts. Dave

That is very interesting and enlightening. I've been reading and watching alarming news about data centers and how they'll consume all our water and electricity, but I'm guessing that a lot of this is exaggerated and hyped. It used to bother me that golf courses were green and watered daily where I used to live in New Mexico, but water restrictions were common, as the area was a desert with very little surface water and most fresh water coming from deep wells. Many data centers will have their own power plants, mostly natural gas. I'm guessing that they use closed loop water cooling systems, where cooled water is circulated through pipes and radiators. This does not mean that new, fresh water must be pumped into the system, rather it's the same water recirculated through the system. My concern is what the data centers will actually be used for..... Dave

Yes, you certainly feel more miserable in hot, humid air than in hot, dry air. We lived in New Mexico for 16 years where the humidity was in the 10-30% range 90% of the time, and even 100F(38C) didn't feel too bad. It's very humid where we live now. Almost always above 50% and typically 60-80%. Right now it's 90% relative humidity, but only 22C so not too bad. Dave

Yikes! That's pretty warm for northern Europe this time of year. 39C for northern France is crazy. We've been watching Italy, where temps will be around 35C for the next week. It's just the opposite where I live. We're in the 25-28C range, a bit cooler than usual for mid-June. Dave

You are correct. This is the real reason. The authorities like to use "the children" to enact and enforce all manner of restrictions on freedom(for the little people, that is) and this is just the latest example. What's really pathetic is that the parents aren't performing their duty to protect their own children, so the government feels justified in stepping in. Dave

I wish I could make it over there to meet some of you guys. Alas, flying all that way is simply too much of an expense and hassle for me, so no can do. We need somewhere about halfway between the U.S. and Europe where we can host these types of events. Bermuda is too far away from Europe, and the Azores and Iceland are a bit too far from us, unfortunately. Maybe Atlantis will rise up in the middle of the Atlantic and we could meet there in the future? Dave

We used to watch some of the World Cup matches every 4 years, but that was back when Italy was doing well(my wife is Italian). Now that Italy didn't even qualify this year, our interest is, well, about zero. Yeah, pretty selfish, I know. Many Europeans think that soccer(football) is a relatively new thing for us, but in reality it has a very long history in the U.S., going all the way back to 1685, and an early form of it was played at Harvard University in the 1700s. The first football club was established in 1862. The United States Soccer Association, originally called the United States Football Association, was established in 1913. The term "soccer" replaced the term "football" in 1945 to distinguish it from American Football. It hasn't been as popular as football, baseball, and basketball, but it nevertheless has been a popular sport here for a very long time. Dave

Ever the optimist😀 I hope you're right. Dave

Wasn't this actually proposed by Ryanair? I doubt it will happen due to safety concerns, however, never underestimate the power of $$$$ and how that can influence lawmakers and regulatory agencies.... Dave

Looking forward to the next mission, where hopefully the astronauts will actually land on the moon. This isn't guaranteed yet, BTW. I've almost given up hope for a manned mission to Mars in the next 20 years. Without a great leap forward in propulsion technology, a round trip manned mission simply isn't feasible. We need to either double the speed, or half the fuel. Moreover, landing people on the surface of Mars adds a whole other layer of complexity and difficulty - just look at how hard it is to land people on the moon. Sorry to be so negative, but I prefer to be a realist. Dave

Yeah, I must have been really bored, or maybe drunk, at the time. I only recall watching it a few times and don't remember anything about the show, so it must have been pretty forgettable. Dave

I watched it on public television here in the U.S. back in the 80s. I didn't watch too much TV when I was stationed in the UK. I do remember watching a few episodes of a show called Eastenders and another show with a young Catherine Zeta Jones but I don't remember the name. Dave

Isn't Jersey where the TV series Bergerac was set? I liked that show. Dave

I have a southern accent. Not those very strong "country" accents, but enough so that one can tell immediately where I'm from. When I was stationed in the UK, the Brits had not trouble at all understanding me. On the other hand, I had some difficulty understanding them, especially if they spoke fast or had certain dialects such as a more "commoner" type accent distinct from the more refined English you hear some speak. I went to Scotland and could barely understand most people. Then some old man started talking to me in some Celtic dialect and another guy had to interpret what he said for me. Dave

A few weeks ago I saw this British guy on the reality TV series Naked and Afraid call corrugated steel "wriggly tin". What was really funny is that a couple of the Americans on the show started using that term, too, LOL.

LOL. The pun works even better with the American spelling, though, so I grant you permission to use "tire" in this case.😉 This brings to mind some other British words that we Americans decided for whatever reason not to use. Personally, I like the terms "bonnet" for "hood" and "windscreen" for "windshield". "Boot" for "trunk" has always sounded odd to me, though. Let's not get in a "row" over the differences, though, or take the mickey for that matter. Dave

The P3Dv5/v6 flight planner is just plain awful - clunky, unwieldy, and full of bugs. Shermank is right - use Little Nav Map. Dave

I know a lot of people like to use AIG's manager for their AI traffic as it saves time and effort, but IMO it just complicates things. I've always just downloaded the traffic files and planes separately, added the aircraft.cfg titles to the aircraft AI text file, and then used AI Flight Planner to compile the files into traffic BGLs. It's more work, but if there's a problem, you know what you did and can usually figure out what's wrong, plus you get the satisfaction of customizing your own AI traffic. Sometimes I don't use parts of flightplans that I don't think are realistic or that are redundant, so I edit the flightplan text file and remove the planes that flight plan uses. Dave

Your house must be pretty old if it has lead pipes. I've read a few debates between those who think old houses are better and those who think newer ones are better. Some claim that because there are 100 year old houses still around this means they must have been built better, but others point out that those houses are simply the very well built ones that survived, plus many old houses were demolished or had major repair work done at some point. Some advantages with newer houses is that they use the PEX plumbing water lines which are less susceptible to bursting if they freeze, and they use more metal wood connectors which are stronger than nails. The downside to newer houses is that they use cheaper and weaker wood, and many are built very fast to maximize profits, leading to defects and flaws. Dave

With houses in the U.S. it's pretty hit and miss as far as quality in my experience. Most houses in the U.S. are wood frame with either a full concrete slab or concrete footer foundation, the footer being only a perimeter foundation with wood floor joists spanning the empty space in the middle and then 5/8" subfloor boards installed over those. Our previous house was a new build with a concrete slab that had big cracks and was not level, so the vinyl plank flooring on top moved and made noise. Our current recently built house with a footer foundation has a floor that, while quite solid and well-supported, makes a little noise when you walk on it, so likely the subfloor boards and/or joists aren't perfectly level across their full spans. Interior walls on houses built from the 1950s on are 1/2" drywall/sheetrock gypsum panels, and I've seen really shoddy installation of those with nail heads exposed and cracks. The exterior walls of most houses are 1/2" wood sheathing with a waterproof barrier and either wood siding, vinyl siding, or brick/stone facade(a single-layer brick and mortar wall that is not self-supporting and isn't part of the actual house structure). My mother's house was built in the 50s. The foundation wasn't adequate, so she's got cracks in the basement wall concrete blocks and water seeping in when it rains. Her wood floor makes a lot of noise when you walk and in some places even sinks a bit. Her house has had these problems for the past 30 years, BTW. This house was built in a time when workmanship was supposedly much better than nowadays, but you wouldn't know it in this case. We had a house for about 10 years that was built in the late 70s. At the time it was 30 years old and was clearly built very well. The slab foundation was smooth and level with no cracks, the exterior brick had no cracks, and the interior drywall had no cracks or flaws. It was even insualted extremely well because we had temps one winter get down to -15-17F for two nights in a row and the water pipes didn't freeze. I've had to fix some shoddy work on our current house, like door latches not lining up, hinges not tight or missing screws, deck stairs not level so had to lift up a side and add a support, but nothing major so far. We paid a pretty penny for the house and part of the reason for that was that it looks like it was built pretty well and uses higher quality fixtures. Houses are just like many other things in that you get what you pay for; not in every case, but most of the time. Houses in the U.S are basically designed to be built quickly and to last about 50-75 years. There are some older houses that are 100+ years old, but most of them required major work at some point which is why they've survived. I've read contractor forums where many builders say that newer houses are better in that they're safer, more energy efficient, and conform to more modern building codes, and I've come across some who think that older houses are better because the wood was stronger and overall workmanship was better. It really depends on the particular house. IMO there have always been home builders who rip people off by using poor quality materials, rushing the job and not checking that things are done right, and ignoring building codes and requirements to save time and money and hope they don't get caught. I think this happens a lot more nowadays simply because there are a lot more houses being built with massive developments and such. When you're buying a house, I strongly recommend that you have a qualified home inspector check it out before you sign the purchase contract. We were about to buy a house a couple years ago, but after having it inspected and finding some problems, we decided to cancel the purchase. Dave

As long as we're stuck using volatile, inflammable, and unstable chemicals for combustion just to get off the ground, we'll have to deal with these occasional explosions. I'm disappointed in the lack of advancements in space propulsion over the past 80 years. We've got computers on a handheld smartphone that used to require mainframes that took up entire rooms, yet we're still igniting fire like primitive cavemen in order to fly. It just shows you where humanity's priorites lie, and it's not in space exploration. All this talk recently about a moon base is pure hype and pie in the sky. Yeah, I'm becoming cynical about all this. Dave