OT: Build nukes to power these:

[Robatoy]

kph... holy shiat!!

[Larry Jaques]

LOVE TO, but not in earthquake territory, please.

If it weren't for traffic, I'd love to drive 300mph on freeways. My trips down to the bay area would only take a couple hours with the slowdowns in the mountains.

-- Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball!

[Robatoy]

Notice there is no pantograph.

[Han]

Robatoy wrote in news:a6ffea6e-eacd-43ce-9096- [e-mail]:

I guess there is some kind of induction transfer of power. Not sure I get all of this threadlet ...

[Robatoy]

Maglev's are power hungry beasts, but when a track is powered by a nuclear station, it is clean to operate.... and fast, competing with air transport on medium distances. Initial capital outlay is heavy, but there are very few parts that can/will wear out.

[Larry Jaques]

Huh? WTH are you on about, Toy? Are you drinking again?

-- "Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the latent spark. If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?" --John Adams

[Robatoy]

I will try to speak m o r e s l o w l y next time.

[Lew Hodgett]

RE: Subject

When a nuke plant can purchase commercial liability insurance and has a real plan for handling the waste stream (Burying it isn't a plan), get back to me.

Lew

[Robatoy]

The status quo needs a bit of polish, other than that, what other plan do you have to move millions of people when the oil runs out? It is a lot easier to put up a barrier than a solution.

[Larry W]

Plan or not, nuclear plants are doing a much better job of handling their waste than coal fired plants. Quite a bit cleaner on the input side too, though most any kind of mining can be problematic.

[Father Haskell]

Induction motor, same as on your tablesaw, but with one winding opened up and laid out flat.

[Larry Jaques]

I had never before heard of the secondary definition of a pantograph as applied to a train. So sue me.

I'm still trying to figure out what you want to draw at a larger size when you have a perfectly good computer and Vectric Aspire.

-- "Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the latent spark. If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?" --John Adams

[Lew Hodgett]

-------------------------------- Not sure the Japanese would agree with you.

BTW, did you see where Florida Power & Light leveled a coal fired generating station over the weekend so the it can be replaced with a natural gas fired generating station on the same site.

How much fly ash does natural gas generate?

Progress IS being made dumping dirty non renewable fuel sources.

Lew

[J. Clarke]

Yep.

That train is the Japanese JR-Maglev.

I'm not impressed by this maglev crap. Here's what a real train can do.

.

That's on a regular section of track, with regular rolling stock that's in daily service. They took two cars out, added an engine, tightened the catenary, and swept the track before the run. Other than that all they did was put the hammer down.

Note that it was riding smoothly and still accelerating strongly.

None of these fancy trains address the real obstacle to high speed rail in the US though, which is that somebody has to pay for the track. Running on track that is shared with freight lines Amtrak is barely cost competitive with airlines now. If Amtrak had to pay for dedicated track in addition to the other costs they incur now it would cost so much more to take the train that nobody would ride it.

And maglev track is going to cost a lot more per mile than TGV track.

Oh, and there's the matter of that Japanese maglev depending on helium, yet another nonrenewable resource.

[Han]

"J. Clarke" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Of course if there was a similar subsidy for tracks as for airports and air traffic control, the price of the track would be covered.

High speed rail is most effective for middle distances (2-4 hrs travel time) in denser populated areas. The real problem in the US then is that you have to raze homes to get a right of way that is straight enough for high speed. In US suburbia there isn't enough open space to do that. While Europe is overall more densely populated than the US, there really is more open space between towns in Europe than there is in the US. Also, the tolerances for tracks would have to be tightened to get to really high speed rail.

[Robatoy]

That Aspire software is some powerful. Looks so simple and basic on the face of it, but those waters run real deep. Every time I learn a new rule, command, tool, I am amazed at how flawlessly it executes everything. I can't wait for the 5-axis version...and Shopbot has a 5 axis machine now...under 40 grand.

[basilisk]

Too noisy for Californians

[Larry Jaques]

That's really great. There's nothing worse than to have a software translate into garbage what you spent hours to produce. Early PC printer drivers come to mind.

Really? Sounds like a damned good deal, but what size? Hmm, 48" x

34" x 24". Pretty nice. How does PartWorks compare to Aspire? At all?

-- "Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the latent spark. If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?" --John Adams

[Larry W]

Well, I'm not sure either, but do you think they'd rather deal with something like these:

[Robatoy]

Both are made by Vectric. Aspire, however, has a 3D modelling component that PartsWorks doesn't. When buying a ShopBot, Partsworks (VCarvePro) is included but the 3D version (Aspire) is another $800.00.