Sunday 30 May 2010

Architectural curiosities from Bristol

I don't know what this was at one time, but the black part is a bowl with a pipe leading below, to...

the river down below. Is this the first public urinal in modern Bristol, 'erected' in 1816?
A landmark? to piss in?

[1970s throw-away architecture. the old courthouse, and new skateboard park]
[St. John's conduit. A lot of fuss about fresh water. We'll be doing that again if global warming continues]
[sundial on the side of a church. It was not keeping time, beyond a shadow]

-Cosine67~~

Thursday 6 May 2010

travel disasters mean we're too mobile

[pic - the ash cloud]

Two related things:
snow blizzards in December/January
the six days of flight moratorium in April

I was caught by the first one. My flight was delayed by 3 days, and one overnight stay in an airport.
Here's what I discovered:

every morning, there are 8 flights from this airport to Paris. Is it possible that 2500 people want to go from N.Italy to Paris? Or are the airlines trying to push out their competitors by losing money in the short term?
I've got news for them. Banks will give them and their competitors far more than enough money to choke on. That kind of tactic will take years to declare a few winners. In the meantime, the environment pays the price.

more
soon
-Cosine67 ~~

Wednesday 5 May 2010

Track day at Thruxton

You could choose from one of these formula cars, or some slow Ferraris, Porsches and so on. As I discovered, the race cars had rev limiters set at 4500 rpm. Still, it's a big track and I got in lots of miles.
If you pay a bit extra, they'll hook up a camera to your car and you get a nice DVD of your ...trip through the shrubs.
These are the training 'wheels'. The Cayman! by Porsche. Fine cars, even if they're not racecars, per se.
Here's the pitlane, below and some of the machinery arrayed.


-Cosine67 ~~
coming soon - Tiff threads the Needel in a BMW