Posts by Joe Wylie
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You've tickled my curiosity - this looks like a somewhat edited version:
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some people have their brains skewed too far to in one direction (or another).
As always, I'll defer to the voice of first-hand experience.
Have a lovely day. -
If Millichamps study is right; the people were right, and you people are..well............ missing something
Missing what, exactly? Millichamp's implying that anyone who questions the value of her research is 'dishonest' does her no credit. Whatever the value of her contribution, this 'debate' is not owned by scientists, any more than children are to be equated with laboratory animals.
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The Mini is perhaps the greatest example of a well-designed fuel-efficient high-performance car that enjoyed wide popular success.
From the Microcar Museum website:Sir Leonard Lord, head of Austin, had a pet peeve:
"Damn these bloody awful bubble cars. We must drive them out of the streets by designing a proper miniature car!"He selected Alec Issigonis, a gifted and individualistic designer, previously responsible for the successful Morris Minor of the early fifties, to do the job.
Back in the 70s major non-Japanese manufacturers saw a vast untapped market in Asia. Designs such as Ford's Escort-based Fiera, Volkswagen's Bull, and GM's Opel-derived Plai Noi were deliberately basic. Japanese manufacturers undercut them price-wise with tiny utes which featured such refinements as wind-up windows. The boxy fibreglass-bodied "Model Ts for the third world" ended up being driven by foreign aid personnel, while the wee Jappers, fitted with canopies, bench seats and cassette players, became the real workhorses.
Perhaps the Loremo, with its unusual front flip-up lid instead of conventional doors, is just too functionally radical. Or maybe, like the Mini, it will have the appeal to sell itself and spawn a host of derivatives. Having a Malaysian company as a major backer might give the technology the sort of global reach it needs.
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You could row the A30 (and its underapowered ilk) up some surprisingly steep hills with heavy use of the gear lever. It just took a while. Brand-new A30 drivers had a tendency to shout "get a horse!" at the pre-war Fords and Chevys that they passed while rolling downhill. When these hunks of Detroit iron would later comfortably cruise past them in top gear on uphill stretches, the made-under-license British motoring types would stare grimly ahead.
Whatever the Loremo's shortcomings, it has to be cruisier than an A30.
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i think i read somewhere, that a 600cc morris minor was more efficient than a corolla or prius or something
I guess it's all down to how you define efficiency, but the smallest-ever Minor engine (shared with the Austin A30)was rated at 803 cc.
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The Millichamp item is over 7 months old. Two days after the Herald piece you've linked to, John Bowis, Executive Director of Save the Children, replied
We don’t ask the question of men hitting women “Does it do them any harm or how much will be harmful?” Why do we keep trying to quantify how much we can hit children?
If you're really interested in pursuing this 'debate' indefinitely you can find the full item here:
http://www.savethechildren.org.nz/new_zealand/news/2006-10-09reschphyspun.html
I just find the premise of Millichamp's research downright creepy.
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More eco-friendly vehicles from yesteryear than you've ever seen without going blind:
http://www.microcarmuseum.com/
If all of these failed to revolutionise transport, someone's got to get it right eventually, no? Good luck to Loremo.
Meanwhile, a microcar to tickle your reptilian brain: -
Has it struck anyone that many of the "we went to random parties and drank far too much and we're OK" comments are very similar to the "I was whacked with [fill in implement of your choice] as a kid and I'm OK" anecdotes?
Not until you mentioned it - and then perhaps only if someone'd been forced to drink to excess as punishment for beating themselves up.
Am I missing out on some really interesting stuff by not listening to talkback or reading the Listener?
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As for Kenny G, I'll let another musician I've got no great love of (but who I will happily admit can play circles around me) speak for me, in the form of Pat Metheny. Even in jazz it's possible to sell vast qualitites of records without really having much going for you in the musicianship stakes.
Perhaps the NZ music scene will have really come of age when some of the more gifted posters here make their opinions available in the form of specially composed downloadable ditties - as Richard Thompsion did with Metheny & Kenny G.:
http://www.richardthompson-music.com/audio/I_Agree_With_Pat_Metheny.mp3