OT: cost of reneables part II

I agree, Clive Sinclair is your hero, in being both an engineer and businessman.

Where does Dyson fit into this story? Wasn't he actually an art student?

Not terribly scientific, withholding the source of a quotation. Sort of makes it worthless, wouldn't you say?

Pity some of his products were crap, and occasionally verging on fraudulent.

I think that is overly harsh even though I didn't much like the man. Most of his products pushed the envelope of what was possible.

Herman Hauser of Acorn and BBC Micro and ARM fame was a really nice guy. ARM went on to become a big global player (then sold down the river). There is hardly a smartphone around today that doesn't have one of their chip designs inside it.

Hydrogen has a bad habit of leaking and is inconveniently explosive in a very wide range of fuel air mixtures. It could be interesting!

On the plus side there are many fewer telephone kiosks remaining to explode when the sparks from the pulse dialer provide ignition (as happened shortly after the move from wet towns gas to natural gas).

It might surprise you to know that despite our differences on the reality of global warming. I entirely agree with all of the above.

There are a handful of scientists and engineers in the government and on the Science select committee but way too many bean counters and lawyers.

Some of the accountants are numerate but clueless about physics.

That implies it was natural gas that was responsible for the explosions, does it not? But, bearing in mind that Town gas was roughly 50% hydrogen, I would have expected it to be the reverse, i.e. telephone kiosks stopped exploding after the switchover to natural gas. Is that what you meant and have I misunderstood it?

Clive sinclair was neither, and is not my hero.

If Clive were still alive he would be building solar powered dodgem cars for GreenIdiots

To be fair, other than his BallBarrow, everything he has produced has been a rip-off of industrial cyclones and industrial low-pressure, high-flow compressed air jets - and he has a lot of people working for him to design them. Perhaps he just concentrates on the "look".

You might find this interesting, especially some of the tables:

Dyson isn't an engineer any more than Sinclair was. They are both nothing more than conmen and marketing professionals. Their products were crap and they spent all their up front money on glossy adverts and promoting themselves

I think Clive Sinclair was lucky not to have ended up in jail. He had nothing to do with the design of the ZX81 or the Spectrium - he had no real understanding of electronics or computing.

No, I wouldn't. Its stands or falls on its own merits, wouldn't you say? The message is all, the messenger is irrelevant. To people who can think, that is,.

...Utilising the same motors, batteries and speed controllers that were developed for model planes....

Consumer producers are designed to sell - mostly to idiots with more money than sense - not to actually work. You can thank socialism for that. Before socialism if you had no sense no one gave you any money, either.

All the money goes on marketing. Remember alcopops? 1p of fizzy water with 1p of industrial alcohol and 1p of flavouring in a colourful 20p can sold for £1.50.

Did telephones work on gas in them days?

Bill

That is called capitalism, minimal investment for maximum gain.

Are you the sort of arty farty type that couldn't write an article for Practical Wireless while you were still at school?

In contrast Clive Sinclair was a real engineer. Your engineering skills were so piss poor in comparison. If you worked for him, he would feel obliged to sacked you from your lack lustre performance, not seeing beyond the end of your nose, whilst you blaming everyone else for your short career.

And the BallBarrow seems to have been a triumph of marketing over utility.