Category: Commentary

This is best viewed with headphones.

The eruption of Mount Tavurvur volcano on August 29th, 2014. Captured by Phil McNamara.

The boat was about 2.3 miles away from the volcano. Great illustration of the speed of light, the speed of sound. the low pressure created by a shockwave..

The Sequel to…

Awesome.

I would ask that in future EU funded packages, there is an end to the endless demands for websites to be built where the first activity is to “make a profile”. Over the last six months I have made around six profiles on six different EU funded project sites. In six months they will all be outdated and in two years the entire project web site will likely be mothballed anyway if not completely reassigned to the bitbucket.

So please; when a project bid talks about creating a platform or collecting profiles just stop them right there. Tell them to work within existing networks rather than hacking one together from event signups. Put the resources into improving those networks as a shared resource and stop displacing networks which have taken years to build.

The EU should not be contributing to information redundancy. It should not be undermining existing networks of common or regional interests.

I hope I can finish out this year without filling in yet another profile that will inevitably gain digital cobwebs. Goodness knows my identity data is already spread across a hundred Web sites and apps – there’s just no need for one more username, with one more shoddy password and one more set of questionable web design and security theatre policies and implementation.

From this LinkedIn conversation

I’ve never held with the notion that ideas should be secret. They have to be out there to grow. And they’re worthless anyway without great people to lead them.

So my idea is:

Electric vehicles are currently limited by two things.

• Cost – they cost 1.5-2x the price of conventional cars. This is simply going to hamper the adoption of electric vehicles and even the government grant badly scratches the side.
• Range-fear – people are afraid they won’t make it home. They worry about taking a long trip and being stranded somewhere where the accents are different.

The problem to be solved is that the battery is probably the most expensive component. Some models mitigate this by being very expensive and some mitigate it by selling the car and leasing the batteries.

I would aim to produce a car where the base price per seat is £2500. That means it’s £2500 for a single person vehicle (a PEV), £5000 for a two seat vehicle, £7500 for a three seater and £10000 for a four seater.

The intended range would be 100 miles. That’s long enough for someone to get to anywhere in the province. Charging time should be 2-4 hours.

Charging mechanism is probably going to stick to cables. This is entirely because there’s already an infrastructure out there – both in the UK and Ireland and beyond. How this works with the Tesla network or other networks on the continent is something that would need to be researched. That’s the only reason I’m not running with the idea of induction plates – there’s no infrastructure.

Detachable batteries are desirable but add bulk and there’s the whole worry of standardisation of connectors. It would be useful to see what Tesla have released as part of their open source mission. I would hazard a visit to Tesla would be very interesting.

Internal infrastructure is minimalist. No need for radio or CD players. Just a digital dashboard pulling data and reporting speed, estimated range and whatnot.

No need for boot space. There’s always room for luggage in a second seat, in a roof box or attached to a trailer (and yes, even the single person vehicle should have a tow-bar). An accessory can be a manufacturer supplied trailer.

Tesla vehicles have a motor on every wheel, but we probably don’t need that for a low cost vehicle. We probably only need 1-2 depending on the size of the vehicle.

I’ve never built a car but humans have been building them for over a hundred years so how hard could it be.

Things to investigate:

• Chassis – I’m told the chassis and road-worthiness is a complex procedure. I would hope that between InvestNI, the Universities and the TSB we would be able to find a path through.
• Renewables – how fast can a solar or wind power charger replenish a battery?
• Pedals – are these practical as a stopgap for charging these vehicles and would they help distribution in developing countries?

And some useful links

1. Delorean
2. Clan Cars
3. Crossle Cars
4. Wrightbus
5. Northern Ireland Advanced Composites Engineering (NIACE)
6. Mondiale Car Company Ltd

These are simply terrifying.

From the Guardian:

Workmen painted ‘BUP STOP’ on road surface in large yellow lettering in city centre last week

A lot of folk seems to blame falling levels of literacy but I reckon it’s more like:

• limited time to re-do the painting due to work pressure
• a lack of care and attention to detail
• no tipp-ex

Give it a year and it’ll be in the Oxford English dictionary.

…but this is the Aurora Borealis. The exposure on a smartphone camera pointed out of an airplane window couldn’t capture it. But it’s in my minds eye. First time I’ve ever seen it.