EU to ban vacuum tubes from 1st January, 2019

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I think he wants the ability to choose what parts of the past that he wants to keep and what parts of the future he wants to discard. I mean doesn't everybody?

I don't want to be blinded by LED backlights in a car. But that doesn't mean simply toss them out in favor of incandescent/halogen, just dim them down! Further saving more energy!
I don't want to have to own a smartphone just to receive an MMS or an MMS formatted SMS which contains just 5 letters but requires a smartphone to do it. I like buttons buttons are good, flat screens? not so much, they require finess and give you zero feedback to your brain on what your fingers are doing. Suddenly you want to make a phone call and you are adding a contact, then you have to find the button to take you back to the contacts screen. And the icons? Talk about vague. In my time a phone looked like a handset from an old phone, today its more like a tiny little suggestion as to what its past is surrounded in a sea of giant green button.
I don't want to have to throw out all of my DVDs and replace them with Blurays.
I don't want to have to own a new car just so I can legally save the planet in a mediocre and mostly pointless way which does nothing but create even more pollution because a new car takes more energy to produce and puts out more pollution than would keeping an older car on the road.

And since when was I required to be a F1 mechanic to work on a consumer car? F1 has computers, they have had them since the 1980s, why do cars need them? Couldn't they have simply stuck with a carburettor and improved the emissions of the carburettor rather than replacing it all with 5 plastic sensors? Why is everything PLASTIC!? PLASTIC DOESN'T LIKE HEAT! When a belt flies off it takes out a sensor along with it, a very expensive sensor. I never needed to worry about O2 sensors in the past either.

As far as I'm concerned the carburettor was great, so was single point EFI. Simple EFI systems are great, whats this deal about direct injection? Sure it might be good for emissions, OH WAIT ITS NOT!

Why remove the distributor just to replace it with another sensor and a coil pack? Coil packs go bad! It increases the cost of replacing the coil pack which used to just be a simple device but is now a larger device with multiple coil packs inside. So a distributor and single coil was the better way to go, but no we had to replace them with hall effect sensors and computers. What happens when the computer goes bad? Oh, another $300 to plonk down.

What ever happened to hydraulic driven automatic transmissions? Why do modern transmissions require solenoids?

My point is, parts of the modern world sucks. Parts of the modern world are good. But both the good and bad parts of the modern world are thrown in our faces without any choice on the matter.

I like the fact that I can get a calculator online for just about anything.
I like youtube.
I like broadband.
I like the way music has evolved and the quality of music equipment has increased aswell.
I like how cars are more aerodynamic and more fuel efficient. But I owned a car from the 1980s which could get the same fuel economy as a modern car could and it had a two barrel weber carburettor on it. Rebuilding the carburettor with a new gasket kit every so often was a dream to do and fun at the same time.
I like how air conditioning has evolved and inverter style air conditioners are more energy efficient.
I like how lights have evolved and are more energy efficient, I'm not that keen on incandescent lights but it doesn't matter now anyway because I have a solar power system so I can pick or choose weather or not to use incandescent or fluro or LED lights. So all of that energy that we've spent worrying about pollution and the efficiency of household lights was completely and utterly pointless once solar panels became affordable. We didn't have to do it but we did it anyway and now we have a side effect of really efficient LED lights powered by free sources of energy such as solar and wind. Great I guess. It means that the power coming from the neighbours tesla powerwall will last just that bit longer. Great! Well I guess it didn't have to come to freaking out so badly but we did.

The problem boils down to not having enough energy to go around. Pure and simple. We need to kick the fossil fuel habit and move onto more sustainable sources of energy. Then we can stop worrying about splitting hairs and freaking out about the small percentage increase in efficiencies in our devices and vehicles.

The amount of screaming that is coming from marketers with modern cars over their emissions and fuel efficiency is deafening and fatiguing and I'm for one am sick of it. Just bring the electric cars to market already and get the death of the ICE over with. There is simply no point in constantly trying to improve on something which is clearly flawed from the very design of it. no one is going to buy these new super-efficient engines if the world is broke and constantly in debt.

Those who like ICE and those who don't can then pick and choose what they want to keep depending upon budget. And that is what it boils down to, nobody wants to have to buy a new car. Cars are good enough already! Its just a car its a transportation device! Stop using it as a penis-enlargement pill or bragging rights.

Bragging about a car is so old fashioned. Its like "Oh so your car can burn fuel 0.05% more efficiently than my can? WOW!. Excuse me while I get into an electric taxi and go to mcdonalds on the power of sunlight and wind."
 
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Disabled Account
Joined 2017
My ideal car would be an aluminum bodied (so it won't rust) sedan or coupe rear wheel drive with a ladder chassis frame with a 4.1 liter inline 6 engine with easily replaceable body panels similar to the landrover but in a small sedan body. With a vacuum advance distributor and points ignition (or a hall effect sensor with a vacuum advance, still no computer required.) and a 2 barrel Weber 34 ADM carburettor. 205/65/16 tyres on mag rims and large vented rotors, twin pot calipers.

Single overhead cam with 2 valves per cylinder, chain driven.

And a redline of 5000 rpm, peak torque at 3500 rpm so its not revving its head off just starting off at the lights. 5 speed sequential manual transmission with the option of having a automatic simple electronic setting so I don't have to keep changing gears around town if I don't want to. with an overdrive gear so it just cruises along at low revs. and an intelligent vacuum meter and vacuum solenoid which selects the correct gear for optimal fuel economy based upon speed and throttle position.

Its amazing what complexity you can get up to with just using a vacuum to make decisions.

Oh and 150-200 horsepower and at least a minimum of 350Nm of torque. Just enough for the weight of the car, not too much that I feel nervous behind the wheel. Great on fuel economy and if I want to tow something I can.

Mechanical steering, mechanical cruise control (Pull a knob to set throttle position, spring kicks back the control if you touch the brake pedal.), mechanical climate control with aircon (flip a switch and the AC is on, select a position on a rotary dial for fan speed and position), use a vacuum advance switch to increase the revs to prevent the engine from conking out, manual window winders. Manual leather bucket seats. A hot stove on the exhaust for those cold mornings to warm up the engine and for cooking my lunch on the side of the road. A large radiator, copper core or all aluminum. And a cast iron head and cast iron block (won't warp). A sunroof, mechanical winder.

Hydraulic fans (super quiet, have them on my camry. very worth it, electric fans will just drain your batteries.) If I couldn't have hydraulic fans I would settle for a belt driven fan with a thermostatically controlled clutch.

vee belts, none of this serpentine belt stuff.

Oh and adjustable coilover springs with soft shocks, double wishbone in the rear, double wishbone in the front. OR hydraulic suspension for that silky smooth ride that is reliable. Oh and the ride height should be capable of being adjusted from inside of the car with the turn of a knob.
 
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I worked at a company where the owner had purchased and installed a vac tube welder, pretty cool, never saw it work however. It was for a proprietary system that has not been successfully replaced incidentally.
I loved the Belgian made Opels, had a pair of Mantas, and an Ascona, the torque tube rear suspension was awesome, especially with a snarling camshaft, huge dual webers...
 
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