Random Interesting Thread

[Meerkat]

I'm a big fan of coconut oil! It's easy to cook with and doesn't have a strong taste so it doesn't "spoil" the flavour of the food

[myothercarsa2cv]

Yep I think coconut oil adds to the flavour rather than adding a flavour, if that makes sense! I hate coconut tasting things so I consider myself a harsh critic 😜

Re marg, you only have to look at how it's made to know it can't be good for you. In fact, I'm amazed it's even allowed on the shelves.

[martiny]

Well I've started reading but that source is ringing all kinds of nutcase alarm bells for me about conspiracy theorists. First one was a sidebar advert for the frankly evil anti-vaccine movie 'Vaxxed'. First paragraph claims the United Nations banned DDT in "a frenzy of misguided environmental zeal and bloodthirsty population control fervor". Seriously?

As far as I can see, it wants to try to make the case that DDT was banned because it was saving too many 3rd world lives and would lead to an overpopulation crisis. Well, I call bullprarrie canoe. DDT was banned as an agricultural pesticide. It was not banned for use against malaria-carrying mosquitos and it's still used for that. A few quotes from people claiming that preventing diseases might lead to a population explosion and then starvation are all very well but don't prove the franlkly ludicrous claim that DDT was restricted to stop it saving so many lives in Africa. It was restricted for more practical reasons, like the fact that it was wiping out birds - natural insect predators. When the Chinese communist party instigated a campaign in the '60s to wipe out birds to stop them eating crops, the result was an insect population explosion which meant the insects ate the crops and caused famine.

The reasons DDT is less effective in the tropics include things like the year-round breeding cycle of mosquitos there. Elsewhere they're seasonal so easier to tackle. Add in growing resistance and less organised infrastructure in poor countries and the malaria problem looks less and less like an insane conspiracy of rich countries to keep poor people dying.

[atlex]

Mmmm, mosquitos, malaria, what to do about it. I've been getting eaten alive by mosquitos so I can appreciate the problem.

DDT's other big impact was birth deformities in humans. Bloody dangerous substance. But the birdlife thing was the biggest issue.

if I recall correctly... Malaysia and Singapore charge fines against anyone whose land has uncovered standing fresh water. Fresh water being mosquito breeding ground. If you spill water that won't evaporate quickly you are expected to get rid of it ASAP or possibly go to jail.

More recently I've read they are trying to breed and introduce non-malaria-transmitting mosquitos, which would be expected to replace the existing mozzies, somehow. I think they'd need some other significant evolutionary advantages over normal mosquito breeds to actually replace the existing mosquito populations.

People are starting to recognise that mosquitos are quite important to their ecosystems, which ties in nicely with the above. They're a food source for all sorts of things.

On a side note since you saw some jabberwocky vax stuff martiny , I read recently that unvaccinated children don't pose any meaningful statistical threat, but indeed certain vaccines are far more useful to have than others, but it's entirely about personal protection of a child - see yournewswire.com/harvard-unvaccinated-children-risk/

Now then, on to the flat earthers, shall we ? I wonder how many of them are using satnav. Now that would be an interesting statistic.

Right, back to some interesting stuff. tool making is really interesting to me, because, well, I love tools. I especially love old tools. This ozzie chap, who makes clocks, has been making a replica of the Antikythera mechanism - he's gone back in time for the tool tech also, which is where it get's even more interesting. How did ancient people make files and rasps ? well.. think no more ! this chap tried it out:

[martiny]

Jul 13, 2017 12:49:17 GMT atlex said:

... On a side note since you saw some jabberwocky vax stuff martiny , I read recently that unvaccinated children don't pose any meaningful statistical threat, but indeed certain vaccines are far more useful to have than others, but it's entirely about personal protection of a child - see yournewswire.com/harvard-unvaccinated-children-risk/ ...

Obukhanych is a crank.  She has, so far as I know, genuine immunology qualifications, but is an extreme outlier compared to others similarly qualified.

If you look at what that article actually says, it's pointing out that 'herd immunity' is not a benefit from being vaccinated against non-communicable diseases.  Well, no prarrie canoe, Sherlock.  It doesn't dwell on the fact that it absolutely incontrovertibly is a benefit with other diseases. 

And she tries to give the impression that the 'measles paradox' (most people who get measles are already vaccinated) is something other than just a matter of simple statistics.  When exposed to measles, almost everyone who hasn't been immunised will catch it, and a tiny proportion who have been immunised will catch it too because no vaccine is 100% effective.  So when the vast majority of the population are vaccinated, the number of unvaccinated people who catch measles will be smaller than the number of vaccinated people who catch it simply because the first group is so very small to begin with.

Although small, they are a big problem, because there's a tipping point beyond which there are enough people susceptible to an infectious disease to keep an outbreak going.  With measles I think that's around 15%.  If you can immunise over 85% of a population, an outbreak will burn out.  Fewer than 85% and the outbreak will grow into an epidemic.  Vaccination isn't effective for everyone - some people just don't develop immunity - so to protect them, it's important for the rest of us to be immunised.

[Rickster]

Jul 13, 2017 11:06:53 GMT martiny said:

Well I've started reading but that source is ringing all kinds of nutcase alarm bells for me about conspiracy theorists. First one was a sidebar advert for the frankly evil anti-vaccine movie 'Vaxxed'. First paragraph claims the United Nations banned DDT in "a frenzy of misguided environmental zeal and bloodthirsty population control fervor". Seriously?

As far as I can see, it wants to try to make the case that DDT was banned because it was saving too many 3rd world lives and would lead to an overpopulation crisis. Well, I call bullprarrie canoe. DDT was banned as an agricultural pesticide. It was not banned for use against malaria-carrying mosquitos and it's still used for that. A few quotes from people claiming that preventing diseases might lead to a population explosion and then starvation are all very well but don't prove the franlkly ludicrous claim that DDT was restricted to stop it saving so many lives in Africa. It was restricted for more practical reasons, like the fact that it was wiping out birds - natural insect predators. When the Chinese communist party instigated a campaign in the '60s to wipe out birds to stop them eating crops, the result was an insect population explosion which meant the insects ate the crops and caused famine.

The reasons DDT is less effective in the tropics include things like the year-round breeding cycle of mosquitos there. Elsewhere they're seasonal so easier to tackle. Add in growing resistance and less organised infrastructure in poor countries and the malaria problem looks less and less like an insane conspiracy of rich countries to keep poor people dying.

That article is a bit simplistic but the longer story is a bit of a boring read, in fact there is an entire book on the subject with empirical scientific evidence. Ive forgotten the name of it now but will try to find out.
this is worth reading
www.jpands.org/vol9no3/edwards.pdf

As you say it was its use as an agricultural pesticide that caused all the problems - it was actually misused (as were many organochlorine and organophosphate agri-chemicals) this gave the enviro lobby ammunition to use against it and the US EPA shortly followed by the Stockholm POP agreement made a judgment based on knee jerk reactions (exactly as the EU have done with Nicotinamides which they say kills bees but there is no evidence to prove that this alone is a factor).
This is not a chemical that needs to be used lightly - but if it had continued to be used to prevent Anopheles breeding it would have saved millions of lives and probably research would have improved it and shown the risks to be minimal.
As a chemical it is less harmful in terms of LD50 than say aspirin or bleach both of which you can buy from your local supermarket! These may have also saved lives but not as many as DDT could have.
I am not against  protection of the environment and less use of chemicals it just needs to be based on proper peer reviewed independent research. 
Interestingly it was used to de-louse troops extensively in ww2 with no ill effects

[martiny]

I wouldn't dispute that DDT was unfairly demonised and that it has a useful role to play in suppressing malaria mosquitos. It's a question of balance. From the '40s up to the '60s the stuff was used too far too liberally.

On the other hand, I do wonder where you find your sources of information. I took a look at the linked article and looked up the journal that published it: their Wiki page raised my eyebrows:

"The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is not listed in academic literature databases"
"An editorial in Chemical & Engineering News described JPandS as a "purveyor of utter nonsense"."
"Quackwatch lists JPandS as an untrustworthy, non-recommended periodical."

[Rickster]

Jul 13, 2017 17:32:27 GMT martiny said:

I wouldn't dispute that DDT was unfairly demonised and that it has a useful role to play in suppressing malaria mosquitos. It's a question of balance. From the '40s up to the '60s the stuff was used too far too liberally.

On the other hand, I do wonder where you find your sources of information. I took a look at the linked article and looked up the journal that published it: their Wiki page raised my eyebrows:

"The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is not listed in academic literature databases"
"An editorial in Chemical & Engineering News described JPandS as a "purveyor of utter nonsense"."
"Quackwatch lists JPandS as an untrustworthy, non-recommended periodical."

🤣🤣🤣
That's me told then

[Rickster]

Jul 13, 2017 17:32:27 GMT martiny said:

I wouldn't dispute that DDT was unfairly demonised and that it has a useful role to play in suppressing malaria mosquitos. It's a question of balance. From the '40s up to the '60s the stuff was used too far too liberally.

On the other hand, I do wonder where you find your sources of information. I took a look at the linked article and looked up the journal that published it: their Wiki page raised my eyebrows:

"The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is not listed in academic literature databases"
"An editorial in Chemical & Engineering News described JPandS as a "purveyor of utter nonsense"."
"Quackwatch lists JPandS as an untrustworthy, non-recommended periodical."

🤣🤣🤣
That's me told then

[atlex]

So much fake publishing these days - even the academically genuine stuff contains 10000s of things that will never, once, be cited, by anyone. (Don't get me started on social sciences).

Right, I'm trying to get this thread back on track

Here's one..

Another way to think of shear pins - is mechanical fuses. Also discusses why some things have soft gear teeth, because it's easier to replace something small (like a starter motor) and easily accessible than something big and expensive.

[Rickster]

Jul 14, 2017 10:07:32 GMT atlex said:

So much fake publishing these days - even the academically genuine stuff contains 10000s of things that will never, once, be cited, by anyone. (Don't get me started on social sciences).

Right, I'm trying to get this thread back on track

Here's one..

Another way to think of shear pins - is mechanical fuses. Also discusses why some things have soft gear teeth, because it's easier to replace something small (like a starter motor) and easily accessible than something big and expensive.

Definitely back on to a better subject. probably mentioned before I trained as an agricultural engineer so shear bolts are a favourite of mine. I only worked at the job for just over a year doing mobile farm repairs. Shear bolts exactly like this guy has shown on the vid was one of our favourites especially when farmers had broken one and not understanding what they were would stuff a standard bolt back in that they had lying around to get back to work - then the real damage was done often to the PTO transfer box on older tractors - hundreds of pounds of damage for the sake of a £10 bolt!!! The opposite could be true - shear bolts shoved in places where they shouldn't be - thats not good.

[Rickster]

A similar idea is the stretch bolts used in cars - I had them on my engine mounts of my Audi A3 - you must not re-use them once torqued they have stretched to fit and lock and if you tighten them again they will be weakened to the point of breakage.
Tons of threads where people have worked on the car (need to remove engine mounts to do the timing belt) and then had the bolts snap!!
Ford use them as well - weirdly on my Focus ST they were on the bearing hub locating centre bolt - not sure why in a 200+hp FWD car - always come loose

[atlex]

Another Gem.

Looking at the numbers on electric cars vs a bog standard turbodiesel of the last 15 years.

wimminz.wordpress.com/2017/07/14/im-so-pretty/

Basically, don't buy any foreseeable electric cars unless you're loaded, you live in a small city you never intend to leave it with said electric car - Our power supplies just aren't up to it. Contrast with the MPG you get with modern a diesel at 60MPH is so good there isn't such a big saving with electric motors, oh and the diesel takes 5 minutes to fill the tank, and probably cost under a grand to buy.

( BTW, that link is borderline NSFW - the writer is highly sexist, but that doesn't make his sense any less sensible. )

[martiny]

Funny. And rude. Maybe a wee bit too obsessed with unfaithful girlfriends. And shouty. But beyond all that an interesting point.

I'd like to check his sums though. He does say a gallon of diesel contains 38kWH of energy, but I don't think he takes into account that an engine only gets 40-ish percent of that out as useful work. On the other hand electric motors convert battery power into movement very efficiently but I simply don't know how energy efficient battery charging is. If you use 1kWH charging a battery, what proportion of the 1kWH was wasted as heat and what proportion can you get back out again?

[Meerkat]

Off the top of my head it's around the 80% mark for charging.