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#32
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those darned NYC cyclists again
On Sunday, October 21, 2018 at 6:55:13 PM UTC+1, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 21 Oct 2018 09:25:15 -0700 (PDT), Andre Jute wrote: I've never bought a watch that isn't now worth more than I paid for it. Impressive. You'll be even more impressed by this: I have never bought a car that I didn't sell for more than I paid for it, including the only car I ever bought new.* The new car was a Volvo estate I bought to ferry my child to school and back when I was a political exile. A couple of nations had given me diplomatic passports for services rendered and to ease my existence a little, and I used one of these to buy the car, avoiding the special car tax, the import tax, the value added tax, and in addition got a massive discount from the manufacturer. 13 years and 39K miles later I sold it for more than I paid for it, having spent nothing except oil changes on it in the meantime. But the alltime champion was a boattail Auburn I bought in Johannesburg for a thousand Rand (then around $2K) and, after frightening myself ****less in a genuine 100mph (the medallion screwed on the dash claimed 103.6mph) car with just about zero brakes, sold to a Louisiana collector less than a year later for $650K. * Of course I had new cars as well but they were company cars; I didn't buy them. Oh for the days when even Pommie wreckers were literate Dilbert: The Garbageman. I believe he would have the required intelligence and literacy to meet your minimum acceptable requirements. http://dilbert.wikia.com/wiki/The_Garbageman https://www.google.com/search?q=dilbert+garbageman&tbm=isch And some more besides. I love The Garbageman. Andre Jute My all-time favorite car? The infuriating, exhilarating, cosseting Citroen SM. |
#33
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those darned NYC cyclists again
On 10/21/2018 4:22 PM, Andre Jute wrote:
On Sunday, October 21, 2018 at 6:55:13 PM UTC+1, Jeff Liebermann wrote: On Sun, 21 Oct 2018 09:25:15 -0700 (PDT), Andre Jute wrote: I've never bought a watch that isn't now worth more than I paid for it. Impressive. You'll be even more impressed by this: I have never bought a car that I didn't sell for more than I paid for it, including the only car I ever bought new.* The new car was a Volvo estate I bought to ferry my child to school and back when I was a political exile. A couple of nations had given me diplomatic passports for services rendered and to ease my existence a little, and I used one of these to buy the car, avoiding the special car tax, the import tax, the value added tax, and in addition got a massive discount from the manufacturer. 13 years and 39K miles later I sold it for more than I paid for it, having spent nothing except oil changes on it in the meantime. But the alltime champion was a boattail Auburn I bought in Johannesburg for a thousand Rand (then around $2K) and, after frightening myself ****less in a genuine 100mph (the medallion screwed on the dash claimed 103.6mph) car with just about zero brakes, sold to a Louisiana collector less than a year later for $650K. * Of course I had new cars as well but they were company cars; I didn't buy them. Oh for the days when even Pommie wreckers were literate Dilbert: The Garbageman. I believe he would have the required intelligence and literacy to meet your minimum acceptable requirements. http://dilbert.wikia.com/wiki/The_Garbageman https://www.google.com/search?q=dilbert+garbageman&tbm=isch And some more besides. I love The Garbageman. Andre Jute My all-time favorite car? The infuriating, exhilarating, cosseting Citroen SM. I can't speak to it, having been an occasional passenger but not a driver. Owners do seem to like them. One might rate cars on aesthetics, pure speed, maintenance (blood and treasure, as they say) and so on, but for pure exhilarating pleasure at speed, I'd return to the early series BMW 2002 (before they got too heavy to corner well). -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
#34
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those darned NYC cyclists again
On Sun, 21 Oct 2018 13:33:01 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote: Incidentally, the common mountain bicycle has a fairly good mechanism available for scavenging electric power. The up and down motion of the bicycle does nothing to produce forward motion. It's literally wasted and usually dissipated as heat. Put a generator in the seat tube or shock absorber(s), and the up and down motion could be used to produce power. A magnet inside a coil of wire would suffice. There was a patent issued for this idea, but I'm too lazy to find it now. Not exactly what I was thinking: "Piezoelectric Energy Harvester for Bicycles" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I-NvOUlbv4 (11:46) Skip to 6:35 to see the device in action. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
#35
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those darned NYC cyclists again
On Sunday, October 21, 2018 at 11:33:31 PM UTC+1, AMuzi wrote:
On 10/21/2018 4:22 PM, Andre Jute wrote: My all-time favorite car? The infuriating, exhilarating, cosseting Citroen SM. I can't speak to it, having been an occasional passenger but not a driver. Owners do seem to like them. You got 55% of what was right and different with the SM from just riding in it, especially if the road wasn't hyper-smooth. But imagine driving a thousand and some miles overnight, a transcontinental journey, say from Cambridge in England to Nardo in the boot of Italy, a journey that those days I made at least once month. Now, I like a Porsche for a fast weekend spin just for the hell of it, but imagine driving an early 911 on that same journey: at the other end you were a nervous and physical wreck who needed an hour with the physio even to stand up straight and eight hours in bed to recover from the physic's ministrations... Out of the SM you stepped fresh as a daisy, ready to test. Before the coming of the Bentley Turbo second series in 1988, with the stiffer suspension from the Bentley Eight, there was nothing to touch the SM for crossing a continent both extremely fast and comfortably, except the train. A surprising outsider would come near enough to be considered: Any of the mid-60s Ford LTD with the 427 side oiler engine (the right ones all had stacked headlights, from memory), police pursuit brakes, and some sympathetic work on the suspension -- I designed and fitted a triple set of Watt links at the back to fix the rear axle and roll center vertically and horizontally on only arcs and at heights I approved of; I had one of these LTD before the SM appeared, and Stirling Moss, and quite a few other knowledgeable Europeans; it could be made into a fast, comfortable car with minimum effort and expenditure (my welder sold 12 sets of my 3-way Watt link kit for £29.95 per set which, considering this was sometimes before 1970, was not cheap but not a bankbreaker either -- my cut was 40% which I distributed as a bonus to the workers for goodwill when I demanded beautiful welding). Andre Jute Carfree since I went green in 1992 |
#36
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those darned NYC cyclists again
On Saturday, October 20, 2018 at 7:11:15 AM UTC-4, Andre Jute wrote:
The sort of person who today might want a Patek Philippe watch usually already knows that they are at the peak of the pile for good reasons. As an example, my first Patek was the thinnest automatic wris****ch in the world, a triumph of design and construction. Another way of putting it is that Patek Philippe had already been a watch for people of refinement for a hundred years when a Rolex was still a sturdy watch for farmers, *divers. seriously. Although I have a serious jones for a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms just to be different (the other serious contender for "first practical dive watch"). The one from that pile (although behind the curve by a decade or so) that I actually *have* is a Vostok Amphibia, because for $30 give or take the Russians managed to also produce a functional dive watch but without all the precision machining, but it still *functioned* which is an achievement of a different sort and equally admirable. Shame they didn't figure out lumed hands and indices or a ratcheting bezel at the same time; personally I'd be terrified to actually use it as a primary diving timekeeping tool, but still. nate |
#37
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those darned NYC cyclists again
On Sun, 21 Oct 2018 17:33:25 -0500, AMuzi wrote:
One might rate cars on aesthetics, pure speed, maintenance (blood and treasure, as they say) and so on, but for pure exhilarating pleasure at speed, I'd return to the early series BMW 2002 (before they got too heavy to corner well). You haven't experienced speed until you've stood on the drawbar of a Farmall Model C doing ten miles an hour on a gravel road. -- Joy Beeson joy beeson at comcast dot net http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/ |
#38
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those darned NYC cyclists again
On Sun, 21 Oct 2018 23:14:54 -0400, Joy Beeson
wrote: On Sun, 21 Oct 2018 17:33:25 -0500, AMuzi wrote: One might rate cars on aesthetics, pure speed, maintenance (blood and treasure, as they say) and so on, but for pure exhilarating pleasure at speed, I'd return to the early series BMW 2002 (before they got too heavy to corner well). You haven't experienced speed until you've stood on the drawbar of a Farmall Model C doing ten miles an hour on a gravel road. Don't you have to be barefooted to get the full benefit? -- Cheers John B. |
#39
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those darned NYC cyclists again
On Sun, 21 Oct 2018 09:25:15 -0700, Andre Jute wrote:
On Friday, October 19, 2018 at 1:24:32 PM UTC+1, news18 wrote: A) A fool and their "money" is soon parted. BTW could you at least try to offer your generic sneers in decent grammar, "news18": "A fool and his money", not "a fool and their money", eh? See, "a" and "his" are both singular, whereas "a" and "their" fight each other, so that people reading your sneer are counterproductively distracted by your illiteracy and pay less attention than you wish to your spite. You are free to take the singular approach. BTW, women are usually not as stupid. YMMV. B) I hope he has the purchase receipt when he makes the insurance claim. I lost a watch once. The insurance company already had the details of the receipt, noted when it agreed the insured value. They paid in full without a murmur. I bought exactly the same watch again, and still wear it on the very rare occasions I wear a watch. Lol, you obviously pay too much for a device to inform you of the time. I haven't need one for over five decades. |
#40
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those darned NYC cyclists again
On Monday, October 22, 2018 at 3:20:01 AM UTC+1, N8N wrote:
On Saturday, October 20, 2018 at 7:11:15 AM UTC-4, Andre Jute wrote: The sort of person who today might want a Patek Philippe watch usually already knows that they are at the peak of the pile for good reasons. As an example, my first Patek was the thinnest automatic wris****ch in the world, a triumph of design and construction. Another way of putting it is that Patek Philippe had already been a watch for people of refinement for a hundred years when a Rolex was still a sturdy watch for farmers, *divers. seriously. Although I have a serious jones for a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms just to be different (the other serious contender for "first practical dive watch"). The one from that pile (although behind the curve by a decade or so) that I actually *have* is a Vostok Amphibia, because for $30 give or take the Russians managed to also produce a functional dive watch but without all the precision machining, but it still *functioned* which is an achievement of a different sort and equally admirable. Shame they didn't figure out lumed hands and indices or a ratcheting bezel at the same time; personally I'd be terrified to actually use it as a primary diving timekeeping tool, but still. nate Heh-heh. I wouldn't risk my life on it either. It costs about four times that much just to put in a new o-ring and a smear of silicon grease and put my dive watch in a pressure tank for 200m rectification. Not that I've ever dived to 200m... Andre Jute A man should know his limits. -- Dirty Harry Callahan |
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