Saturday, July 30, 2011

So You Don't Want A Carbon Tax

I wrote this in response to receiving a mass email from a friend, advocating for
people to return to sender, information from the government on the carbon tax.
We have seen these kinds of emails in the past and we will see them in the
future, no doubt.

I replied to the original email that this was a sad thing to be passing on and
received a reply that had concerns and repeated some of the usual claims
that we have heard that are quite deliberately being promoted but are basically
bogus.

This is my reply to that.

I appreciate you are not a fan of putting a price on carbon.

That the government has been pitiful at selling their ideas is without question.

The 'facts' that California has more cars on the road is a problem for them to deal with
and California is introducing a carbon emissions trading system in 2013
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/30/local/la-me-cap-trade-20110630

The fact remains that per capita we are high emitters but that isn't really the issue as
I see it. The whole world needs to be taking action and this is beginning to happen.
China is building a protype carbon neutral city as we speak and will learn much about
improving efficiencies for wider application while that happens.

This campaign is about protecting big companies. It is paraded out with a lot of pseudo-logic
that taps into fear and is fed by misleading and manipulating emotions. The nonsense claims
about the mining companies shedding jobs... The mining companies will always shed what
jobs they can and keep the jobs they need and it will have nothing to do with the carbon
price. The divisive nature of those who want to oppose everything is not doing our country
any favours. If you are a supporter of the Liberal coalition, then spare a thought for the
words of Malcolm Turnbull. In different circumstances, we would have had bipartisan
approach and a carbon emmissions trading scheme now and we would be focusing
on how to build a workforce for the future that lets our kids develop skills and technology
that we can take to the world as our export future.

We have an opportunity to lift the economy into the future by looking forward. Not
seeking to and subsidise these 19th century industries.

But to your email. It is fair to say that the government has failed to get traction in
this and has allowed the coalition to run with their nonsense and hold the attention
of people who are not interested in looking past the rhetoric and take on opinions that
sound plausible without question. While you are looking at our government's agenda,
bear a thought for the agenda of Abbott. I say Abbott and not the coalition because there
are many in the coalition that are in favour of pricing carbon, just as the business
leaders and well respected economists who have stated over time that there is a need
for a price on carbon and it is inevitable.  The only thing that is really open to question
is whether we move forward postively, with an eye to creating a future-proof economy,
or whether we want to be the last there and have nothing to offer the rest of the world
when we come finally to the party.



Lindy Asimus
Business Coach
Mobile: 0403 365855
lindyasimus@gmail.com
www.lindyasimus.com

www.designbusinessengineering.com


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Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Good Engineering Lasts

Good Engineering Lasts Forever

The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That is an exceedingly odd number.  Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England,  and the U.S. railroads were built by English expatriates.


Why did the English build them that way? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's  the  gauge they used.  Why did "they" use that gauge? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.


 So why did the wagons have that particular odd spacing? Well, if they  tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of  the old, long distance roads  in England, because that was the spacing of the wheel ruts.  So who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in  Europe  (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads  have  been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads? The ruts in the roads, which everyone had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels, were first  formed by Roman war chariots.  Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.


The U.S. standard railroad gauge of 4 feet-8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot.  Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right.  Because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back end of two war horses.


 Thus we have the answer to the original question. Now for the twist to the story.  When we see a space shuttle sitting on it's launching pad, there are two booster rockets attached to the side of the main fuel tank.  These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBss,  are made by Thiokol, at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' rumps.


So, a major design feature of what is arguably the worlds most advanced  transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the  Width of a horse's ass! Don't you just love engineering?

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