from The Bull Elephant
Jeanine’s Memes
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53 responses to “Jeanine’s Memes”
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Funny – not funny…
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If my neighborhood had gas, I wonder how many blue dots the Verizon contractor that hit multiple Comcast and Verizon cables would be responsible for…
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indeed. We don’t have gas but we have underground utilities, electric, cable, internet and everytime they have to dig , I cringe… because usually they take down other stuff….
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The crew that installed the electric line for my house used a directional drilling rig. One guy was tracking the location of the drill with a device that looks like a metal detector.
The Verizon contractor crew is also using a directional drilling rig, but I haven’t seen anyone tracking the drill location.
The reason why is that the sonde and the tracker start at $8k.
Probably cheaper to just hit cables and let the insurance pay for the rest.
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Back in my days as an EE they were just pushing pipes under roads, etc. Worked pretty well if you didn’t mind digging a lot of deep holes…
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The Comcast contractor just used a pneumatic “mole” to install the coax from the pole to the pedestal.
Much cheaper than the Ditch Witch JT24 the NOVEC contractor used to run the electric line.
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Of course there is also this:
We can go back and forth trying to “one-up” each other forever on this, but the bottom line is that every source of energy has its downsides. Unless humans are willing to lower their standard of living (and what are the chances of that) we have to reconcile ourselves to the environmental (and human) damage associated with energy production. We should certainly seek ways to minimize that damage, but we must be willing to either accept it or severely reduce our energy consumption.
My biggest issue with “both sides” of the issue is each side’s failure to take the total environmental cost of their favorite source of energy into account when discussing the subject. Pretty much everyone is guilty of that.
“Progressives” tend to ignore the environmental damage caused by Lithium and Cobalt mining, and to look the other way when miners (including child laborers) are exploited by mining companies for the sake of cheap batteries.
“Conservatives” tend to minimize or ignore the environmental costs and dangers to people caused by drilling, coal mining, fuel spills and gas line breaks.
Constantly engaging in varying levels of “whataboutism” and “one-upmanship” on the subject achieves nothing. I think everyone should pull in their claws and honestly seek the overall least impactive source(s) for each of our energy needs – and that means we need to account for the total costs per energy-unit of each option – environmental, human and, yes, monetary.
In space, no one can hear you scream… you also cannot tell the difference between an open pit lithium mine and an open pit coal mine, which makes BR’s “Conservatives” all the more hypocritical.
for a more accurate comparison, JAB needs to INCLUDE the thousand/millions of acres of fracking that produces the gas:
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2015/images/White_River_Taylor_McKinnon.jpg
We could have honest and reasonable discussions about the pros and cons… if we could get the “anti” guys to want to have that discussion instead of pandering the issue.
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What ya can’t see is the aquifer.
Watchin’ the years go by,
Like the river under ground.-
The anti-lithium crowd reminds me of the folks who vociferously opposed the removal of lead from gasoline. Same genre and large whiffs of Luddite phobia.
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Described to a tee… when bacon gets old, it’s inedible.
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having any issues with BR eating great gobs of memory on the chrome tabs?
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The introduction of catalytic converters pretty much spelled the end of lead as a fuel additive.
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You probably are too young to remember the removal of lead from fuel. There was a big hew and cry from the usual ‘anti’ suspects and it was usually “conservatives” who opposed it and spoke of terrible economic gloom and doom and cars that became unreliable, etc, … and I much suspect it’s the same crowd today that is anti-lithium and I would not be surprised that JAB has been and remains a proud card-carrying member as most of his blog posts on this issue sound remarkably like the anti-lead-removal crowd back in the day and like the more modern day ‘anti’ who opposed the shut down of coal plants from mercury and removal of CFCs for ozone.
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You also had the people who opposed fuel injection, saying that carburetors were more reliable and didn’t rely on a bleeding computer.
I suspect that it usually was because they were too lazy or stupid to learn how fuel injection works, and were soon going to be out of a job.
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yeah, but those folks were fairly evenly distributed politics-wise I suspect.
It was changes that involved the environment and human health that tended to align more on political views – just like today.
Enviros and liberals tend to like lithium batteries and Conservatives oppose over “impacts”.
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Well, fuel injection was pretty much required to meet emissions requirements, so automotive carburetors went away like leaded fuel did, and for the same reasons.
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As far as I can remember, there was no real political opposition to it. It had other benefits to it beyond just emissions and
it became truly practical when cars started getting better computers.By the time it became widespread, the battle over more efficient and less polluting engines was pretty much over.
Almost no one today advocates that we go back… the technology is well-proven.
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Even today you’ll get old-timers who suggest ripping the fuel injection off of an engine and replacing it with a carb. They’re usually also full of other helpful advice about how to turn your vehicle into a stinking, smoke-belching POS.
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True. but most young/younger folks are just fine with the technology… which is the way it usually plays out over time. It will take decades for IC vehicles to get replaced by EVs. Folks in their 20’s today will then later on as geezers, will say “I remember when” and most of the rest of us will be decades-old dirt at that point.
I’m still trying to get used to the fact that my 2017 Tacoma has no dipstick for the tranny…. and my better-half’s car has a screen that tell her what percent of oil-life she has left before needing a change.
Of course, she has no spare tire as well as no tire pressure monitoring info – I don’t know what idiot did THAT “design”. And it has heater/AC “controls” spread over several different “screens”. another idiot design.
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I’ve not heard that from any “old-timers” in the last 20 years or so.
You would probably consider me an “old-timer”, and while I will not retrofit fuel injection to any of the carbureted engines I own, I think fuel injection is one of the greatest technological advances in the history of the internal combustion engine. The only downside is that unless you have a comprehensive set of spare parts on hand, or you own (or can borrow) some very expensive diagnostic equipment, electronic fuel injection systems can be more difficult to trouble-shoot and repair than carburetors.
Well, that, and an EFI system will not survive an electromagnetic pulse. 🙂
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I rented a Vermeer chipper shredder a while back.
20HP Kohler engine. Fuel injected. It even had an oxygen sensor.
I’m not sure what you consider expensive, but even a decent scantool is around a couple hundred bucks, and a lab scope around the same price.
And after seeing the manual for a Quadrajet carburetor, I’ll take fuel injection for ease of repair.
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as long as it is computer-controlled.. ?
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Yes. And while the overwhelming majority of vehicle engines use computer-controlled electronic fuel injection, properly tuned mechanical fuel injection is still more efficient and results in lower emissions than a carburetor.
A few modern motorcycles still use mechanical injection but for the most part it has been phased out similarly to carburetors.
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Diesel engines are/were probably the biggest application for mechanical fuel injection.
I’ve never owned or worked on anything with a diesel engine.
But I did once drive a diesel Ford Focus. It was as smooth and quiet as a gas engine. This was not in the USA.
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I have a pickup truck with a Duramax diesel. It has electronically controlled common-rail fuel injection with piezo injectors.
Was the diesel Focus turbocharged?
I once knew someone who had a 1980s vintage Chevy Chevette diesel. It had a 1.8 liter 4-cylinder Isuzu engine that was rated at 51 horsepower. It was dirty, noisy and it accelerated so slowly that I considered it dangerous to drive on public roads. Zero to 60 took just under 20 seconds, according to Car and Driver.
It would get 45 mpg, though, so it had that going for it…
[Correction made 3:50 pm]
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I don’t recall if the Focus was turbocharged. It was not my car so I didn’t try any acceleration tests with it, nor did I shift it over 2500RPM. My overall impression is that I wouldn’t have guessed it had a diesel in it if I hadn’t known.
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While a $200 scan tool can tell you you have a problem with your fuel injection, it takes more complex and expensive equipment to tell you exactly which part of the system is malfunctioning. Since I don’t work on fuel systems for a living, I consider more than $1,000 to be expensive for a diagnostic tool, and most comprehensive diagnostic equipment cost more than that.
RE: Quadrajet – Rochester carbs were always a bit more complex than, say, a Holly, but I still consider them relatively straightforward to rebuild.
I have a lot more experience with motorcycle carburetors. I think I could rebuild most Mikuni, Keihin or Bing carbs in my sleep. I do have very limited knowledge of Dellorto, though. Also, while I can rebuild an Amal carburetor I choose not to. As far as I am concerned, the best way to repair an Amal carburetor is to chuck it in a trash bin and buy a Mikuni Flat-Slide.
PS – Was the Kohler a later model, or had it been retro fitted with fuel injection?
Even a dealership level tool doesn’t cost nearly $1000. Most these days are using SAE J2534 pass-thru devices which are under $200 and a software subscription (which, in the case of GM, for diagnostics, costs $57 for 3 days or $575 for a year).
I used an SAE J2534 pass-thru device which cost $120 and a $50 subscription from GM to update modules on my car with newer firmware. Vs paying the dealer $150 to update ONE module, for a total cost of $170 not including the laptop (which I already had), I did them all.
The Kohler was a newer model. 2019 model I think. It came with fuel injection.
I looked at the manual for it and it uses OBD-II codes. They have a special scan tool (laptop interface) from Kohler for it, but it looks to me like you could make up an adapter cable to use an automotive OBD-II scantool with it.
Okay, perhaps I have not shopped diagnostic tools as recently as I should have. Are you saying that a SAE J2534 device will not simply return an error code on the EFI system and allow me to update firmware & change fuel mapping, but it will, in the event of a component failure, specifically identify the defective component?
Okay, perhaps I have not shopped diagnostic tools as recently as I should have. Are you saying that a SAE J2534 device will not simply return an error code on the EFI system and allow me to update firmware & change fuel mapping, but it will, in the event of a component failure, specifically identify the defective component?
An SAE J2534 device will, along with the software from the OEM, allow you to do ANYTHING the dealer scan tool will. It can retrieve codes and run diagnostic tests on the ECM, BCM, ABS, Trans, etc.
It will allow you to update firmware that the OEM makes available (this is done through the OEM’s website, ACDelco Tech Connect in the case of GM).
It will NOT allow you to change fuel mapping (beyond fixes made available by the OEM as part of updated firmware). But neither will the dealer scan tool. There are EPA regulations and liability involved, and no OEM gives a dealer that level of control.
If you want to change fuel mapping and use non-OEM firmware, you’ll have to use something like HP Tuner which is designed to do that.
But the HP Tuner isn’t really designed as a diagnostic device (it won’t, as far as I know, give you ABS codes, for example) so you’ll still need a good scantool.
A nice low-cost SAE J2534 device is the VXdiag VCX.
Thanks.
Thanks to Rudolph Diesel
There was also the issue of lead being poisonous to humans.
I had no issue with unleaded fuel at the time when it was introduced because for a long time leaded fuel was still available to those of us who owned older vehicles with engines not designed to burn unleaded fuel. They phased out leaded fuel over a long enough time period for people to have a chance to either buy a newer vehicle or replace (or have someone else replace) the valve seats in their “pre-unleaded” engines.
It’s been theorized that the reduction in violent crime during the 90s happened due to the phase-out of leaded gasoline.
Lead causes developmental problems in the nervous system.
But lead is still used in AV (aviation) gas.
And in a lot of high-octane gasoline racing fuels.
The FIA requires Formula 1 cars to use unleaded fuel. The teams use other, mostly proprietary, methods to boost octane.
MMT is one I’ve seen. It has this interesting side effect of putting red deposits on spark plugs.
I’ve heard of that too.
God knows what the F1 guys are using. The teams employ their own chemical engineers to formulate their fuels.
They probably get a little help from Lubrizol and Afton Chemical (which is HQ in Richmond, VA), which are probably the two biggest manufacturers of fuel and lubricant additives.
My Pilbara Minerals shares are doing well, just so you know.
Tesla too.
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Australia. I read that Chile is emerging as a big player also.
Really hard to understand the anti-lithium crowd…
Too bad lithium isn’t found in…
Muhlenberg County down by the Green River where paradise lay…
But, there’s always the Black River, er, that’s black river…
https://i.cbc.ca/1.997053.1378589916!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/li-edm-pipeline-restart-620.jpg
By the way, lithium price is up 400%
https://www.rrapier.com/2022/01/the-challenges-posed-by-rising-lithium-prices/
So much for the EV-advocate strategy to subsidize the bejesus out of electric cars to cause exponential decline in prices.
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hang on a bit. Battery technology is changing fast. Chances are batteries will become much, much cheaper, last for 1000 miles and recharge in 20 minutes and end up being 1/2 as expensive to fuel a vehicle than gasoline.
happens with technology all the time………
We have become a NIMBY country especially on the left. That leaves red states and other countries as the place where stuff needs to be made. William Shatner said his space trip was the first step towards learning how to make stuff in outer space so we do not have to have the pollution from making stuff here. So he is thinking ahead to when China decides making stuff is evil like we do. Outta sight, outta mind is the US liberal mantra.
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I’ll be more convinced when I hear the pro-nuke folks say “put it near me, PLEASE”. 😉
And this is where our roads, driveways and parking lots come from and have for decades and yes, they look much like lithium mining. No complaints about the former:
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Put it near me, please.
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NIMBY knows no party….
I’m being censored. About 4 or 5 posts on various articles have not been posted.
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I’m not censoring you, and I don’t know of any way that you can be censored. If you can supply details, I’ll look into it.
The Thomas Jefferson quote is listed as “spurious” by the folks at monticello.org.
I have searched my own digital copies of the writings of Jefferson with the same results.
As noted at the above link, Jefferson did write …in questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution in his draft of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.
I see more “quotes” misattributed to Jefferson than any other person. I wish people would check the veracity of these “quotes” before passing them along as fact. Thomas Jefferson made enough actual statements regarding liberty and the dangers of big government that it is not necessary to make stuff up. This one is pretty good, in my opinion:
I am for preserving to the States the powers not yielded by them to the Union, & to the legislature of the Union it’s constitutional share in the division of powers; and I am not for transferring all the powers of the States to the general government, & all those of that government to the Executive branch. I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers & salaries merely to make partisans, & for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of it’s being a public blessing.
Thomas Jefferson – Letter to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799
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