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Afilsdesigne

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About Afilsdesigne

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  1. Dunkirk in France started a free bus service last September: https://www.france24.com/en/20190831-france-dunkirk-free-transportation-bus-success-climate-cities Results are encouraging so they say. Whilst we must do something about air pollution, C02, plastic etc, I'm not convinced electric cars are the answer. They take up too much space in a traditional car format and will simply keep our roads permanently congested with diesel powered HGVs and the like continuing to pollute our air. The future is probably a combination of personal electric vehicles (chariots er mobility scooters, ebikes, skateboads or the like) combined into a high speed backbone system capable of integrating into any existing congested space. A variant of NASA's skyTran would seem to be the obvious choice: https://www.skytran.com/ . If this system was run as a free public service with a personal vehicle integration system to offer true end to end capability over a 150mph backbone, then it could conceivably work rather well. Of course we are a very long way from anything as joined up as this!
  2. As a young teenager, my mum wouldn't let me have an air rifle, so I got a 14lb proper longbow instead with two arrows. My first mistake was to pull the string back too far and managed to shoot myself in the hand - ouch. The next thing was to go on the local field and shoot straight up. I realised immediately this was stupid and ran like the clappers. The arrow came down quite a long way away and I aimed at it with my second arrow. Broke the first clean in half.
  3. When I first started work, travel was by subsidised bus and cost 9p if I remember correctly. The buses were packed, ran on time and were quite reliable though low tech and overcrowded. I for one wasn't keen on bus fares being subsidised by the ratepayer but will concede some decades later that I was wrong. If the model had been properly funded, people would have continued to use public transport as it was far cheaper than car ownership, especially if the system had been expanded, improved and made better. Now we have clogged roads, bad air, frustrated drivers and hardly any joined up public transport with little prospect of anything changing the dynamic. Yet we can plainly see the projection of what we currently have leading to total gridlock. We need a viable alternative and fast. With a rising (and ageing) population, car ownership, especially in the cities is going to become non-viable through gridlock rising costs and pollution. With the rise of Internet shopping, delivery vans are going to choke the roads even more. We need a completely different model and we need it installed before the Nice principles arrive by default as they surely will. The only truly sustainable transport models are the bicycle, Horse and two legs. So what can we do to have minimal impact? It seems to me the only viable 'solution' to any of this is a truly modern public transport system that gets you from A to B quickly, cheaply and safely. whilst having minimal environmental impact With an ageing population, simplicity is a requirement too. How to do this in our already overcrowded and busy cities is a real challenge and one that demands a high tech modern solution. After polishing up the crystal ball, the obvious 'solution' is personalised one or two seat electric vehicles (mobility scooter derivative possibly) that integrate into a skyTran derivative (NASA design) to give true high speed door to door travel, even for the elderly. Given a sufficiently large network and overseen by AI this could revolutionise travel and would fit, relatively inexpensively, into the most congested places. Being a suspended monorail it will be weatherproof, not to mention union proof. Small electric vehicles travelling to and from access points on the network could transform our roads and, depending on cost, radically transform air quality, especially if these networks were used at night for transporting goods around. Anything remotely resembling this is decades away though, so, gridlock it is!
  4. Quite agree with you Dude111. Indeed our family were talking about this only a couple of days ago. We had a Hoover Constellation vacuum cleaner that lasted at least 20 years before we gave it away to a friend who used it some more. Built to last from real metal, it looked like a round spaceship, was well engineered to float on a cushion of air and had the ability to turn from a vacuum to an air blower by sticking the pipe into the air outlet. Brilliant design and much missed. The problem these days is finding anything of any quality to buy as most of it is cheap foreign plastic junk!
  5. I guess it all depends upon your credit history these days as to where the best loans can be found. Given a half decent record, ZOPA would be my first choice for a loan. This is a peer to peer setup where people with money to spare, lend it out to borrowers at a respectable interest rate, cutting out the greedy banks, rather than the 1000% or worse via TV adverts (that's why they can afford the advertising fees)!
  6. Many years ago, I went to the trouble of taking an advanced driving course. It was a revelation and transformed my driving habits. The advice on using indicators was plain and was common sense and was simply: Use indicators to tell people what you intend to do. If there is nobody around, you don't have to indicate, but you still can if you wish. The whole point is to be actively scanning around for situations, potential hazards and anything that might threaten your safety and be in a position to react by giving yourself adequate time.
  7. Managed to see one really bright meteor around 11pm looking NE from a bedroom window in S12 after a wait of around 15 mins. Saw 1 satellite and lots of passenger jets too!
  8. I did loads of research because of a Mares Tail infestation in the garden and eventually came across Ammonium Sulphamate. Banned by the EU as a weedkiller it seemed more 'friendly' than products like Glyphosate which I read were suspected carcinogens, originally derived from Agent Orange (Vietnam) and made by that global pariah Monsanta! A quick visit to ebay soon sourced the product and a couple of years later, et voila, hardly any Mares Tail at all and no collateral damage. Yes it kills the roots and is also good on tree stumps and weedy drives as well.. Indeed, one of the few products that actually work! A bit like Ferrous Suphate for treating lawn moss - highly effective but also knobled by the EU.
  9. A 50:50 mix of Borax and sugar will do the trick if placed in a small and shallow tray.
  10. The answer to weeds is a thick layer of mulch. Almost anything organic will do but home made compost or leaf mold is best as this feeds the soil.
  11. Strong Ammonium Suphate mixture, a pair of surgical (waterproof) gloves and a paintbrush. Paint all the leaves and stems but don't get the mixture on any other plants. Works well on Mares tail weeds too.
  12. Productivity is a measure of the amount of work done by an employee over a period of time. Countries like Germany have higher productivity that us because they have invested more in modern machinery. It isn't that they work harder or faster than British workers, just that, with the help of machinery, they turn out more products in the same amount of time. I guess eventually, all the jobs that can be automated will be, and it will become a battle of the machine designers as to whose machine bashes out products the fastest. So you could argue that productivity is a measure of how much businesses invest in new equipment. Sadly, Britain lags behind on this area and needs to catch up.
  13. Yes we had one this Saturday (13th) in S12. A pleasant younger chap who seemed fairly genuine and was pressing a message of peace and tolerance. He left two leaflets "Islam's response to extremism" and "Loyalty, Freedom, Equality, Respect, Peace". I thought him quite brave to deliver his message in an almost exclusively white area. Of course his message was completely at odds with me being defined as a Kafir by his main book and therefore to be killed on sight again according to his book! I'm all for immigration based on merit and am not racialist at all, but I also believe strongly in integration, which sort of precludes his type, as true believers simply will not integrate into our society at all.
  14. Try eating a Banana or two. Tennis players eat these to stave off cramps during matches.
  15. At the risk of being eaten alive, here goes: I live on a tree lined road. the trees are lovely and help clean the air of traffic fumes, provides homes for birds and are good to look at. The problem is, they are too big! The wrong types of trees planted close to houses and roads may be nice for all the reasons above, but are potentially dangerous and need continuous maintenance (expensive). So, I'm all in favour of having trees planted, but planners, please use some common sense (in short supply I know). Why not plant small trees, such as Rowan (they attract flocks of waxwings in winter), or hazelnut or any other 'nice' but smaller tree? Maybe plant them closer together so they provide just as many environmental benefits as the larger trees but with less issues. Use the larger trees for parks or areas where they can grow without restriction or too much maintenance.
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