What bemused you today?

[anglefire]

Define, trucks. If you include vehicles such as mine, a Ford Pickup used mostly for personal use, then yes a lot run on gas. If you're talking commercial I doubt you'll find any that don't run on diesel.

It's not popular in north america because Gasoline is cheap by any standard. I thought about switching from a gasoline engined Ford pickup to a diesel powered pickup because I'd planned on installing a Camper back and touring North America when I retired. I sought opinions from truck owners on a Ford pickup Forum. Most people, the vast majority, pointed out to me that at current gas prices I would have to drive a lot of miles and keep the truck for a lot of years to see any substantial savings. Never having priced European models of vehicles I have no idea how things work but as an example, that self same pickup truck sees a whopping price increase of between $15000 and $20000 on the final price if you substituted a diesel over a gasoline engine. At an average of $2.75 per U.S. gallon that's about 7500 gallons of gas that could be purchased for that cost of the engine.

As for Hydrogen, there is no infastructure in place to dispense it and the cost of setting up and infrastructure is excessive.  It's similar to the Ethanol idiocy, they've taken away huge portions of food producing acreage to grow corn for Ethanol production, but that production is operating at a loss because from what I understand the energy produced from ethanol doesn't come close to gasoline but they can't actually sell it for what it cost to manufacture. No one would switch if they did.

Ok, I stand corrected wrt trucks 

As for hydrogen, you are correct, though I think in California they have a trial running, with hydrogen dispensed from petrol forecourts.

Ethanol has about 34% less energy than petrol. Pure ethanol engines can run at higher compression ratios that balance out the loss of energy - but most is blended with petrol, so the advantage is lost.  As for cost, your petrol is about 1/3 to 1/4 the cost of ours!

[picsfor]

If I was cynical then I'd suggest the reason Ford want to sell you a 40mpg hybrid is so they can sell you a 60 mpg hybrid in 2 years.....

Still plenty of snow on the ground - pretty slushy.  None falling.  It will all be gone by about Thursday.

When you coming over?  I'm in London most of the week....

The plan was for Wednesday and we'd be coming from Eastbourne (me being the only one not from Eastbourne). But of course the train service from Eastbourne to Ashford is as fickle as a Eurostar entering the Channel Tunnel in cold weather! Gone by Thursday could make good for Wednesday, now for that train service! (As train drivers we don't have to pay for our travel  - hence the reliance on the trains)

[ABERS]

Took the car in for its first M.O.T today, and whilst sitting in the waiting room, I heard the following telephone conversation four times.

"Hello Mr/Mrs **** it's *** the service manager at ********. The winscreen wiper problem that you brought your car in for can't be fixed at the moment. The motor is a component part of the linkage, and we have to replace the whole unit. How much? £365 all up! That's not just all the bad news I'm afraid, unfortunately there are no replacement units available in the UK until supplies reach us after February 10th! What caused it? Trying to clear the windscreen whilst the wiper blades were frozen solid to the windscreen, thus burning out the motor".

Just a warning so to try and avoid receiving such a 'phone call.

PS. All the unfortunate motorists were offered a courtesy car F.O.C.until the matter was resolved.

PPS. The car passed its M.O.T.

[greypoint]

Mmm - I've been having the same phone conversation with a lot of customers recently.  It was, almost entirely, due to people clearing the front screen and making sure the wipers were free but not being as careful with the rear. Only difference being they were all repaired by changing a couple of fuses. One of our customers was told he needed a new wiper motor when he went into a local garage whilst he was out of the area but fortunately he knew from previous experience that might not be the case....

[picsfor]

Glad to hear the car passed it's MOT Alan.
As for the other numpties? Are we really that dumbed down nowadays?

[spinner]

Was looking for an online review of a Tamron lens. The only one I could find was in Spanish. I used Google's built in translator and started to read. I was interested to find 'His body is somewhat paunchy', '  The   pupil of 20.5 mm.  topped this evil, ' and my all time favorite 'The rings have a size of the kite and right striatum, a touch chewy without being sticky' . I do so love a chewy lens.

[spinner]

Took the car in for its first M.O.T today, and whilst sitting in the waiting room, I heard the following telephone conversation four times.

"Hello Mr/Mrs **** it's *** the service manager at ********. The winscreen wiper problem that you brought your car in for can't be fixed at the moment. The motor is a component part of the linkage, and we have to replace the whole unit. How much? £365 all up! That's not just all the bad news I'm afraid, unfortunately there are no replacement units available in the UK until supplies reach us after February 10th! What caused it? Trying to clear the windscreen whilst the wiper blades were frozen solid to the windscreen, thus burning out the motor".

Just a warning so to try and avoid receiving such a 'phone call.

PS. All the unfortunate motorists were offered a courtesy car F.O.C.until the matter was resolved.

PPS. The car passed its M.O.T.

What kind of cars are these and where were they made? Brazil? I come from the land of the ice and snow, where the midnight sun makes the hotsprings blow. It's also where ice storms are common and I can tell you that in the 40 yrs. I've been driving I've frozen my fair share of wipers to the window. I've never done it, seen it or heard of it. Worse case scenario for me was at least once every winter wifey would pop the reciprocating arms off the wiper motor and I had to pop them back on again. That was a Brazilian made VW. I think Sue has alluded to it being a scam, certainly sounds like one to me. 

[greypoint]

Well, if you have a car where you burn out the wiper motor if you turn on on your wipers when they're stuck I'd certainly think it was a bit of a design fault - is'nt that what fuses are for?

[ABERS]

I should have mentioned that the car make in question is Citroen. The dealer is a main dealer and I've always found them to be straight and up front, so no question of a scam. Whenever I've tried to use the screen wash and the water in is frozen the appropriate fuse blows.

[spinner]

I should have mentioned that the car make in question is Citroen.

Ah a Citroen, say no more. 

[picsfor]

I've been struggling the past week or so with the organising of my images.

So, after much thinking this morning - it appears i have to sit down and work through a new structure on how to arrange my images.
Importing them is fine - they just go into a "To Process" folder and stay there until they have been deleted or processed.

It's the "Processed" folder that is getting muddled.
Images for family and friends, images for CC & Flickr, and now i'm working on my own web site with Clikpic which uses a different file size requirement from CC (or Flickr).
Then of course there is a need for pictures for print, just for family and holiday memories, and i have started uploading images to Stock Image libraries which in themselves all have different requirements, some like Alamy work on file size, others work on camera make and model. It just seems to be never ending!

I'm just so glad i'm not a full time pro - or would that make life easier?  

Glad i've got a bit of time to try and work this out, because boy is it confusing the hell out of me! Almost like the Met Office trying to predict a warm or cold winter!  

[Forseti]

Sounds like you need to put the brakes on for a while Andrew. Have you considered buying the DAM book with the link here giving you the table of contents: http://www.thedambook.com/pages/contents.html because if you don't get to grips with a respectable workflow now it can only get worse over time.

[picsfor]

Thanks for that - i think i'll have to get me a copy.

I thought i'd managed to get hold of this when i set about learning how to maximise Lightroom. Sadly, Lightroom is only half the answer!
Oh well - i'll keep as i am for the short time for the postman to fight his way through the snow to deliver said book. 

[greypoint]

When this poxy government is trying to force disabled people to search for work, how come Anjem Choudary, who I believe is a qualified solicitor and appears to be fit, seems able to live on benefits? How about a bit of workfair for him and his ludicrous followers?

[oRGie]

I think you (not you personelly pics) can over-complicate things easilly. I use a very simple file system, just using windows explorer and folders. I create a dated folder each time I download pics from my camera, I keep all the originals worth keeping in there and when I PP the shots I keep the original psd there too and any other versions of the pics for various uses. I keep a gallery folder, just 1 with all the pics I use for web, friends etc etc and by that file name I can go directly to the folder with the original if I need to output something with a particular size or for print etc.

For back up, when I donwload to my pc from memory cards, the dated folder goes into a folder called "next back up", when I back up the folder to my ehd's it then gets moved to the internal photo drive with all the others.

If I re-edit a shot I create another folder, same date as original folder in the back up folder and it gets folded into the original folder when backed up.

I used to manage a system called "the media warehouse" for virgin artists, photos and music masters, production parts, merchandising images, biogs etc and we learnt that keeping things as simple as possible is the key to dealing with vast amounts of data.

If I was to use one of the many cataloging systems, I would only do that for the gallery folder, from there its then very simple to find the original shot to edit or resize for whatever output.

KISS