High speed mobile broadband?
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From: Rowland McDonnell on 27 Jun 2010 08:55 Tim Streater <timstreater(a)waitrose.com> wrote: > real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid (Rowland McDonnell) wrote: > > > The Older Gentleman <totallydeadmailbox(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > SteveH <italiancar(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > I guess they (and Chile) have skipped the whole wired communications > > > > step and gone straight to mobile as it's cheaper and easier to ensure > > > > remote areas are covered. > > > > > > That's basically it, yes. Like many countries skipped railways and went > > > straight to road vehicles. > > > > <cough> The British government was persuaded by the railway firms to > > help them put the long distance steam bus operators out of business back > > before the railway age really got going. > > > > If that hadn't happened, things might have been very different, because > > you can run a steam bus service on the existing roads - which were > > already in place (unlike the railways). > > To which roads do you refer? Seems to me that in the early 1820s, 1830s, > there were mere tracks and you had a lumpy ride in a stage coach if you > were lucky (cue footage of any costume drama). What *was* starting at > the time were the canals - but of course the trains were much faster. Umm. You should read the actual history of what was actually there and actually happening, rather than relying on hazy assumptions. I have done so. But even before I'd read up on steam buses, I had covered in school history classes the rise of the turnpike system - excellent new macadamed roads, smooth and flat, well suited to long-distance high-speed road transport (hence fast stagecoach runs) - but you had to pay to use 'em. And they famously spread across these septic isles along with the 18th century canal boom. That's in the history books you had at school, surely? It was in mine. I thought every even half-educated type here knew about the 18th century road building boom. <shrug> Obviously I'm wrong. Acts of parliament are needed to be able to charge tolls like that, and they arranged their tolls so as to massively over-charge the steam omnibuses when the railway interests noticed the problem from /their/ point of view, on account of the railway interests not wanting the competition and having developed the required contacts to get this done. To build a railway, you need land, and that means you need the old gentry on your side of they won't sell you their land (I happen to know that the village of Harlington in Beds got its railway station because the sensible route was unavailable due to the landowner not wanting to sell to the railway firm - so Harlington got lucky and some other little place, forget where, didn't). The canals were notably slower than turnpikes - but ideal for carrying heavy freight such as containerized coal (c.f., Duke of Bridgewater and his canal). The ancient Romans used railways and canals for shifting heavy stuff, and had developed good road technology well suited to long-distance high-speed road transport. What happened in the 18th century is that in Britain, engineers decided to make roads as good as the Romans had done some 1500+ years previously. Hardly anyone had bothered since then, you see. Nothing complicated - just a matter of economics: the job was *expensive*, and only people who have a long-distance long-range view can be bothered. But the burgeoning British empire could afford to pay every bit as much as the Roman empire had been able to - and had exactly the same sort of perceived need for such roads (trade and troops). Moreover, in 18th century England, the English were one up on the Romans: they'd worked out how to get the users of roads to pay for them to be built /after they'd been built/, so they didn't have to be paid for out of taxation so the government could let private enterprise get on with it. Definitely the 18th century way, that - they'd be *horrified* at the modern extent of government, that lot would. > I don't see how any steam coaches could have got any sort of speed up on > the then existing roads. That's because you've assumed something that's not true - and failed to read up on the matter to test your assumption to see if it's right or not. Anyway, it's not the /difference/ in top speed that matters: a horse coach can't run at full speed for very long. A (competent) steam bus can run flat out until it needs more fuel and water - which just depends how big the storage bin and tank are. If you can average even 20mph, you're leaving horse-drawn transport in the dust over a long distance. But you don't need to stop at the staging inns quite so often - ooh, the landlord doesn't like that. Nor do the men who look after the horses for staging at that staging inn. And so on. From Ralph Stein's `The automobile book', 1962, Hamlyn, pre ISBN, (63s cover price for my copy from the 1967 printing - yep, that book was printed the year I was born, and looks to be aging more gracefully unlike some 40 year old cheap paperbacks I have). Erm. American author: I'm sure not only /England/ got good roads, you know what USians are like: `But suddenly in England in the 1820s there was a boom in [steam carriages], a boom --- oddly enough --- caused by horse-drawn coaches. For coaching had increased tremendously in England owing to the new need for mobility in its rapidly expanding economy after the Napoleonic Wars. And more coaching meant that better roads were needed. Two road-building genuises, Telford and Macadam, whose name still clings to our tar-surfaced roads today, revolutionised methods of highway construction and within a short time England had wonderful roads eminentely suitable for mechanical transport, steam transport. `Starting in the 1820s, there took to the roads of England as wild looking, gaily painted, and oddly designed a lot of vehicles as has ever existed. It seemed for a while that every engineer in Britain was designing boilers and furnaces and running gear for the new steam carriages. These were not for the use of individual owners, however, These were giant pantechnicons, as big as modern motor coaches, to carrying paying passengers.' (actually, more like mini-bus people-carrying ability - 6-8, 18, a dozen, two dozen - that sort of seating capacity depending on the coach from what I've read) Prescott-Liverpool toll: 4-horse coach 4s; steam coach �2 8s. As you can see, the toll for the steam bus was 12 times greater than for the big horse-drawn coach - but you could easily get 6-8 people on a four-horse coach plus driver, comparable to the passenger capacity of a steam bus. They suffered sabotage too - Brits often don't like new things, especially if they're noisy and dirty and take your business away from you. Almost everyone was a small businessman back then - either that, or too poor to be noticed... thing is, if you were that poor, you were going to part of the mob that was unhappy because your income was lowered due to your boss's income having been affected. So *YOU'LL* be lobbing rocks, too (and from I've read, did). Anyway, despite a committee in 1831 reporting to Parliament in favour of a toll reduction for steam buses, they were pretty much all out of service come the 1840s. None are preserved, which is why (I think) that they are so little known of today. Stein's book has photographs of a couple of French steam carriages from the 1870s - but they look rather different to the illustrations of the early English steam carriages I've seen: rather more railway-inspired than wild variations on a theme, still trying to figure out the best way to do it. One of 'em had steam-driven legs with feet for hill starts! - oh, big wheels for running, but legs for giving it a shove to start it rolling up hill! Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 27 Jun 2010 08:55 SteveH <italiancar(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > Basically, yeah. Portugal's /reasonably/ well developed, surely? > > Shabby infrastructure in part due to decades of political turmoil but > > aside from that? It's not like the cities are lacking decent sewers and > > so on. Or is it? > > Well, it's come on in leaps and bounds in the last decade or so - when > we first went out in '99, it was still very primative outside of the > main tourist haunts - as in single track roads between major towns. Oh dear :-/ Seems hard to believe, somehow, given that Portugal was a seriously rich major global trading power for quite a long time. I'd've thought it couldn't be single track dirt roads between towns if only because of what the Portuguese put in during the 18th and 19th centuries by way of roads - before they ran into trouble... (What happened? You know, I've never known - I'll have to read up on Portugal's history) > Even today, outside of the main Algarve towns, people still use donkeys, > little 2-stroke bikes or those funny French microcars if they're feeling > flush.... Very sensible if you ask me. Why waste money on something big and expensive when it's utterly pointless? We've just bought a Fiat Panda - I like small cars, I do. But then that's /partly/ because when I dream my petrol-head dreams, they involve psychotic *motorcycles*. Or a diesel bike rather often these days. I once found out that my wife's SV650 can keep up with /that/ particular big orange Lambo in straight-line acceleration up to - well, I dunno, we weren't racing, just seeing how we compared in straight-line acceleration while taking pains to try to avoid 1) causing any bother to anyone and 2) getting caught (point 1 was part of point 2). And an SV650 is not a spectacularly quick bike, far from it. > but they all have 3G 'net access. Likewise sensible - spend your money on useful stuff, not pointless excess. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: The Older Gentleman on 27 Jun 2010 13:47 Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: <snip the usual bollocks> Never mind the rights and the wrongs of it - it still happened. -- BMW K1100LT Ducati 750SS Honda CB400F Triumph Street Triple Suzuki TS250ER GN250 Damn, back to six bikes! Try Googling before asking a damn silly question. chateau dot murray at idnet dot com
From: Rowland McDonnell on 27 Jun 2010 15:09 The Older Gentleman <totallydeadmailbox(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > Tunnels can be designed to be fail-safe. > > Oh, my aching sides. Here he goes again! Amazing performance! Nothing but a bit of sneering - weird bloke, eh? Here we are with our technical newsgroup having a technical discussion, and what does TOG here do? He, erm, pops up with some implied personal abuse - yet again! Astonishing! I wonder if he's got OCD? If so, I reckon he's in need of someone to make sure he keeps taking the tablets. He really doesn't seem able to control his own behaviour, poor dear. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 27 Jun 2010 15:09
The Older Gentleman <totallydeadmailbox(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > <snip the usual bollocks> > > Never mind the rights and the wrongs of it - it still happened. This TOG bloke really is a fascinating study in psychology, isn't he? He's got this characteristic behaviour pattern that he falls into, seemingly out of the conscious control of his mind, possibly driven by some variation on obsessive compulsive disorder. But whatever the pathology of his illness, he doesn't seem able to avoid responding to my posts by snipping almost the entire contents and adding a line of personal abuse. Doesn't really seem to matter what I post - he's just driven to behave that way by some morbid compulsion or drug addiction or I don't know what. It's very bizarre behaviour on his part - does anyone have any better insights than I've guessed at? Fascinating creature, anyway. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking |