Super capacitor Interesting

Hmm...yes, well I found it interesting.

For Brian's benefit, it shows a chap building and testing a 'rocket' powered by supercapacitors. Actually, it's more like a tubular helicopter, a cross between a drone and a rocket, as the 'rocket' has an electric motor and propeller on the nose to provide the lift, and a battery of supercapacitors just beneath, with a recovery parachute in the tail section. The whole thing is about 18 inches tall, and it looks as though it's made of solvent-weld waste pipe. Test flights show it going up about 100 feet before the guy deploys the parachute.

I was surprised at the capacity of the little supercapacitor shown at the beginning. 5 Farads. I had no idea they could be so big, and probably available even bigger. I have a very woolly memory from school physics lessons that if you had two conducting plates opposite each other with a capacity of 1 Farad and you charged them, the force between the plates would be enough to split the earth! Clearly, either my memory is faulty or what I was told was not true, or probably both!

Assuming a battery made of hundreds of those little ones could replace the equivalent Li-ion battery in a car without adding extra weight, what size cable would be needed to recharge them at a filling station in a matter of a few minutes? Would the driver be able actually to lift it? Would the filling station have a big enough power supply to provide the amps needed? Another supercapacitor, perhaps?

I think a supercapacitor powered drone would be more interesting than this uncontrollable 'rocket'.

(Another problem with capacitors as an energy store is that the voltage falls off as it discharges.)

There are some nice litle free flight planes out there that use this.

Flight characteristics similar to using a rubber motor.

Yes the "rocket" may well have satisfied harrys yearning for knowledge, but anyone following NASA over the years might have arrived at the conclusion that rockets are not normally propellor driven.

Like all Brexit enthusiasts, facts do not enter into harrys vision.

They were using 1 Farad caps in VCR's years back. To be honest they looked more like a battery cell inside. I did pull one to bits in the hope of finding out where all those wallymitts were kept and it were just filled with black gunge like a D Cell

As far as the clip went, the level of advertising makes the thing totally unacceptable. A pretty poor thing that frankly I lost interest in at the second load of adverts

Methinks the internet is now becoming unuseable due to the dross.

AB

Adverts?

NoScript + uBlock Origin + Firefox = No adverts.

Yes, but Google (and all other search engines) is/are slowly drowning in poor quality results, thanks to everyone + dog thinking they can become a "social media influencer" (whatever the f*ck that is).

Last few technical problems I've had, it's been quicker to take a crash course in whatever (dropbear 3 days ago, being the most recent) than trawling through loads of meaningless drivel only to realise that a frw other people have *had* the issue, but nobodies answered.

Incidentally, a moderated usenet is *far* more useful than any number of blogging sites.

Dross in search results, dross in user reviews, never ending problem. But cutting out crap forced on you like adverts does help.

Moderation can be hugely beneficial.

Oh yes. AdBlock plus, privacy badger, noscript are standard.

Indeed.

The annoying thing is I would be prepared to pay a small amount for a better quality of result. I wonder if someone can turn that into a credible competition for Google - where you pay to remove the crap that others are paying to pump ?

Which of those stops the youtube adverts inserted in the video stream?

Does this meet your needs - at least partially?

Which is exactly why Tesla acquired Maxwell Technologies

This YouTube video says "no" to a drone:

And in solar charged LED illuminated cats' eyes a few years ago, I haven't noticed those being replaced as they've failed ...

I've never seen such an occurrence to comment. The only adverts on Youtube I get is when they are part of the actual video itself, such as the presenter on a mountain bike channel picking up a tube of grease mid video and saying "I recommend Bumm Grease for all your lubrication needs."

I couldn't live without NoScript blocking all the JS crap to tracking sites and adservers. But you have to work to stop the ads.

Becuse they dont you mean?

It's amazing how many sites won't work with noscript.

Or wont work with adblock.

Or wont work without totally unceccessary cookies.

Let's face it 99% of all information on the internet is now monetized or weaponized.