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From: Pd on 22 Apr 2010 04:04 Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > Phil Taylor <nothere(a)all.invalid> wrote: > > > In article <4bcebafb.1818093(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Dr Geoff Hone > > <gnhone(a)globalnet.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > OK, OK, take a good long slow look at the front of a Hunter cockpit > > > canopy. > > > The front glass is divided into two. It has a large bar down the > > > centre - right in front of the pilot's eyes. > > > > Ah, just like a first generation Morris Minor. Happy memories! > > Although also had a pitiful amount of air to air victories to its name, > despite a long production run. My mum's had one since before I was born, and I wouldn't be surprised if she's taken out a few Heinkels and the odd Messerschmitt. I think Lucas based Darth Vader's helmet on the Minor. -- Pd
From: bella jonez on 22 Apr 2010 08:42 Pd <peterd.news(a)gmail.invalid> wrote: > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > Phil Taylor <nothere(a)all.invalid> wrote: > > > > > In article <4bcebafb.1818093(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Dr Geoff > > > Hone > > > <gnhone(a)globalnet.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > > > OK, OK, take a good long slow look at the front of a Hunter > > > > cockpit > > > > canopy. > > > > The front glass is divided into two. It has a large bar down > > > > the > > > > centre - right in front of the pilot's eyes. > > > > > > Ah, just like a first generation Morris Minor. Happy memories! > > > > Although also had a pitiful amount of air to air victories to its > > name, > > despite a long production run. > > My mum's had one since before I was born, and I wouldn't be surprised > if > she's taken out a few Heinkels and the odd Messerschmitt. > > I think Lucas based Darth Vader's helmet on the Minor. > Why is your mum flying bombers ?
From: Woody on 22 Apr 2010 09:08 bella jonez <bellajonez(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Pd <peterd.news(a)gmail.invalid> wrote: > > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > Phil Taylor <nothere(a)all.invalid> wrote: > > > > > > > In article <4bcebafb.1818093(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Dr Geoff > > > > Hone > > > > <gnhone(a)globalnet.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > > > > > OK, OK, take a good long slow look at the front of a Hunter > > > > > cockpit > > > > > canopy. > > > > > The front glass is divided into two. It has a large bar down > > > > > the > > > > > centre - right in front of the pilot's eyes. > > > > > > > > Ah, just like a first generation Morris Minor. Happy memories! > > > > > > Although also had a pitiful amount of air to air victories to its > > > name, > > > despite a long production run. > > > > My mum's had one since before I was born, and I wouldn't be surprised > > if > > she's taken out a few Heinkels and the odd Messerschmitt. > > > > I think Lucas based Darth Vader's helmet on the Minor. > > > Why is your mum flying bombers ? She isn't - she is flying a Morris Minor. Or maybe a death star. God I hope my mum doesn't buy herself a death star, her parking is bad enough at the best of times. -- Woody
From: Woody on 21 Apr 2010 03:17 Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > > > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > > > zoara <me18(a)privacy.net> wrote: > > > > > > > > > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > > On 16/04/2010 11:50, zoara wrote: > > > > > > > Via daringfireball.net - loads of old computers. Jim, take a deep > > > > > > > breath > > > > > > > and don't get overexcited... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > http://j.mp/bxKP2P > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I really love the naivety of the "kitchen computer" (and the > > > > > > > "yesterday's tomorrow" stylings > > > > > > > > > > > > They really did put a lot of effort not just into the creation > > > > > > of those, but the image of them as well. I guess at the price > > > > > > they may as well! > > > > > > > > > > Do you mean the way the devices looked, or the photos? > > > > > > > > The way the devices looked, they are a thing of beauty, more than they > > > > needed to be. > > > > > > Not beautiful - styled, yes; the after-effects of the US industrial > > > design period were still in evidence back in those days but you couldn't > > > call that sort of thing beautiful, not in my book. > > > > You could in my book - it is a think of beauty. > > So you allgege - shame I've looked and never seen that `beauty'. It is. > Where is this `beauty' you talk about? How can I describe beauty? You either see it or you don't. I see it there. > I've heard Americans talking about beautiful things in the USA, and > they only ever talk about natural beauty (which I've never seen in the > uSA - NO natural beauty from the USA has appeared in front of my eyees. > Natural nice things, yes - but none of it has the beauty of lush life > that you can't avoid in, say, North Wales). Really? Not the flame of the trees in new england in the autumn? Not the huge landscapes in vermont (where I wouldn't mind living), the desolate miles of death valley with the roads to nowhere? The spanish moss on the trees of louisiana? The bayou? There is stunning beauty there. Yes, north wales has beautiful places, as does scotland, and many other places around the UK. I spent a couple of days (which unfortunately where the hottest days of the year) trapsing over yosemite and camping out, it was stunning (and very hard work). > Never, ever, not once have i heard one mention a urban landscape as a > thing of beauty, not once. Sometimes I wonder if you have ever met an american! > Whereas I have a memory of one of the most stunningly beautiful sights > I've ever seen - early one summer's morn, trundling for my train, South > bank of the Thames, and there's Tower Bridge and there's the low sun, > and there is heaven on Earth. OK, got me there, I have never seen heaven on earth in london. Portsmouth, yes, San Francisco, yes, New york, yes, London, nope. Probably as I spend as little time there as necessary. > Okay, so I can get transported to Nirvana with a bit of bright light and > gothic going on - I consider that a strength. Me too - hence the New York. > Read some Aldous Huxley before commenting - `Doors of perception' is a > good start. You don't need drugs to have a trip - just read that essay. > It worked for me... Yes, read it. Cities can be beautiful, although they can be increadably ugly too. Amercan cities are no more or less beautiful in general than UK (or european), they are just different. > > > > Well, yes, but there is very little American industrial design that > > > could be called `beautiful'. They don't seem to understand how to do > > > that sort of thing over there. > > > > They really do. > > The nation is constructed with ugly architecture - they don't know how > to do it. Really? One thing that struck me in New York (and obviously you don't want to spend too much time staring up and looking like a tourist) is that they have some of the most beautiful architecture that I have seen. So much so that a lot of it you miss because it is stuck between other buildings, ie, buildings that would look fantastic on their own. Such proud beautiful buildings that really show the people doing them were fantastically optimisitc about what they were doing. > >They do it in a very big way. > > I've looked and I disagree very strongly - which is normal for someone > like me, with a aesthetic trained exclusively in Europe (but with > esposure to the USA). Is it normal? I don't know what is normal > You are condescending and wrong to assume that I've not made a bit of an > amateur study of this industrial design lark. Who assumed that you hadn't made any sort of study of it? I assumed nothing of the sort. I assumed you didn't see beauty in it because, well, that is what you said. I do, so there really isn't anything to say about it. > US industrial design is ugly and that's what I think. I know. > I've come across any number of people who agree with me on this - I hear > 'em on the radio all the time. So why is that relevant to whether I find it beautiful or not? > It seems that there is a fraction of the European population that never > gets to like the USA because they never stop finding it ugly. There is a large fraction of Europeans who find it beautiful, and there are a fraction of americans that would find Europe ugly. > Others do not get put off by this ugliness for some reason. > > You would be foolish to ignore this point - to many European eyes, the > overall aesthetic effect of the USA is one of ugliness. I think you really don't appear to understand how people see beauty. It isn't an absolute thing. It isn't absent because people on the radio say so. > I've only been there once, and it was both more and less ugly than I had > been expecting. One of the first `natives' I saw outside the airport I > arrived at was wearing a classic ZZ Top beard - digging a hole in the > road, too. Odd. That is probably why. If you had been there a bit more you may have seen something that would have impressed you. > > Anyway, I couldn't wait to get back home. Even the weeds are lusher in > the UK - yeah, okay, I was comparing Texas with Kent, in August. But > the same applies if you compare the lushest greenest parts of the USA > with Kent. On that point, bollocks. Comparing vermont with kent, well, kent is a second rate scrub land. Possible not helped by my dislike of kent I realise, but I have lived in kent, and would not want to live there again. Mind you, the same goes for texas, I won't go there again, I disliked it greatly. > And I got *that* point from Alastair Cooke, who saw and learnt more of > the USA than you'll ever manage. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't see enough of kent. > > > Striking, imposing, remarkable, and so on - but I've never met any > > > non-European industrial design that I consider `beautiful'. > > > > I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I have never noticed > > an atlantic divide in beauty. > > <shrug> Lots of people have done, though. The fact that you're > aesthetically blind doesn't mean a thing. I see something, you dont, and that makes me blind? well I can live with that blindness. > Yeah, yeah, Central Park in NY and all that - you do know that they > nicked it from just down the road from me? Why is that relevant? > Based on Birkenhead Park, > that one, put in with the same basic idea. Didn't catch on, providing > public amenities like that, did it? ... Central Park in NY ain't unique > in the USA, but it's not all that common to see a really nice park in > the heart of a US city, is it? Well, I lived in San Francisco, so yes, it was pretty common to me! but yes, they often have some green space, the bigger ones. > > [snip] > > > > That's what I'm talking about - the American stuff looks the part all > > > right, looks good, yeah? But a Mirage can make my heart melt, and - > > > well, if it's de Havilland or Hawker, it looks lovely, and that's that. > > > > Yes, as I say, it is personal. Both are rather ugly. > > You are a blinkered heathen with no sense of aethetics. Or you only see beauty in a very narrow band. Which is a bit sad, but is your choice. -- Woody www.alienrat.com
From: Dr Geoff Hone on 21 Apr 2010 05:06
On Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:36:43 +0100, real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid (Rowland McDonnell) wrote: <snip> >The Sabre was designed with the benefit of stolen foreign research data, >which was not available to the designers of the Meteor. The Hawker >Hunter had the benefit of the same stolen foreign research data as went >into the Sabre's design. > >> The Hunter was a 1951 design. You only have to stand in front of one >> for about five seconds to see that the design was poor, and all the >> people who have flown one say that the cockpit ergonomics were total >> rubbish.. > >Which gives the lie to these lunatic claims - stand in front of an >aeroplane, and you know nothing about the `goodness' of the design. OK, OK, take a good long slow look at the front of a Hunter cockpit canopy. The front glass is divided into two. It has a large bar down the centre - right in front of the pilot's eyes. If you consider that to be good design, or good ergonomics, you clearly know nothing about either. >Your allegation that all the pilots whined about cockpit layout is >obviously just made-up nonsense like all your other allegations in this >case. Really? If you asked the people who worked at Farnborough when it was a real experimental airfield, or some of the old hands at Boscombe Down, you would find out you were wrong. Or you could ask Jonathon Whaley, who owns Hunter F 58A "Miss Demenour" and is a very experienced hunter pilot. Oh, I nearly forgot - the later Hunters did have missiles. Matra rocket pods, Mavericks, and Sidewinders. The RAF used rockets in the Aden campaign in the '60s. The Hunter was a very good ground attack plane. It does not have so many air-to-air victories to its credit. |