I have one of those too ... it was part of a free promotion. It's not a big deal being in your pocket-- it's got a sheath or you can just stick in in your wallet. Except the bottleopener, none of the tools are especially useful, but the handiness factor is there. It should be just the thing for Arab / Islamic terrorists to smuggle aboard aircraft.
As an engineer who frequently works around cars on chassis dynos, I echo Ali's sentiments. The whole "makeshift" nature of the operator's "control room" looks pretty scary.
Also, I'd have to see more details, but the wide-open nature of the setup makes it difficult to perform effective fire-suppression in the event something "bad happens". It's interesting, but it looks to be in the "in progress" stage, rather than a fully developed cell ready for testing.
Finally: it's too bad they don't show the massive air handling at the front of the setup. To be honest, though, I wonder if this is an under-build picture rather than the final setup ready to perform testing. Normally, to move that quantity of air, you need to have a (large) closed chamber around the vehicle under test so that the air which passes the vehicle can be reducted back into the air handling inlet. The fact this is shown completely open & up in the air leads me to believe a drive-in room will probably be built around it -- that's how wind tunnels and other environmental chassis dynos are done in the industry. The operator dude would then be safely "removed from the action" behind some very heavy glass.
1. I never relealized that "Grace" was a photo and not a painting! 2. "Afghan Girl" is indeed a stunning image. What is really scary, though, is how aged that pretty girl looks now. Google around for a modern pic of her ... she was only about 30 when rephotograped in 2002, but looks about 20 years older. I'm not sure if it is just a hard peasant life in the sun or a little too much "sampling of the local Afghan product". You decide.
Kalel: dude... excellent punning --- I wish I thought of it! Yes, keep your fingers crossed... maybe we will get to see them reduced to a smouldering ash heap. How well they control their mischief may depend on who wins the US Presidential election next year.
I think the idea itself is a great one. We'd be a lot better off if parents who couldn't care for their babies (emotionally or financially) turned them over to wanting couples who could.
Unfortunately, in today's society (American... I don't know about yours), illegitimate births are no longer scandalized and the women (yes, the scum "baby daddies" are usually long gone) are in fact rewarded with greater and greater dispursements from the public trough. The resultant children are rarely cared for well, and through lack of proper parenting, wind up being menances and drains on society themselves. By the time most of them ultimately wind up in the foster care system, they are incorrigible and unadoptable. If we stopped rewarding out-of-wedlock birth, many of these babies would be given a proper home and loving upbringing (the enablers to success) rather than being seen as ticket to a bigger bucket of freebies.
Atomic (facetiously) suggests experimenting on people... That's basically what old man Joe Kennedy was doing when he had his depressed daughter Rosemary lobotomized to control her mood swings and avoid publicly embarassing the politically-minded family.
She went from being just slightly dim and moody, but otherwise normal, to being completely incapacitated, incontinent, and unintelligible. They later tried to claim that she was mentally retarded (her condition proved useful for her sister's Special Olympics organization). Those who knew her prior to the operation (or read her writings) know the real truth.
A problem I've noticed is that almost all of the LEGO sets in my local retail stores are chock full of very specialized pieces so that the kid(s) can build 1 specific model. In the old days, the pieces were a lot more generic (and cheaper) and children were able to use their imagination and creativity a lot better. Sure, what they wound up with looked a bit less like the Millennium Falcon, but they figured it out on their own, and when they were done, they could take it all apart and turn it into 1000 other models. Good luck finding the old "buckets of bricks" they used to sell. Yes, I know they are still offered that way, but I need to mail order them b/c the local stores only sell "Harry Potter", "Pirates of the Caribbean", or "Star Wars" sets that are highly constraining (and expensive!)
OK, yayo, we can argue that point. I will rephrase into the passive voice to appease you:
"Puhlease! You really think the Cominterns went there to “defend democracy†and “fight for the republic� It was all about advancing worldwide authoritarian communism. Those in Spain were the real die hard “koolaid-drinking†communists who were there for that reason alone."
Also, I'd have to see more details, but the wide-open nature of the setup makes it difficult to perform effective fire-suppression in the event something "bad happens". It's interesting, but it looks to be in the "in progress" stage, rather than a fully developed cell ready for testing.
Finally: it's too bad they don't show the massive air handling at the front of the setup. To be honest, though, I wonder if this is an under-build picture rather than the final setup ready to perform testing. Normally, to move that quantity of air, you need to have a (large) closed chamber around the vehicle under test so that the air which passes the vehicle can be reducted back into the air handling inlet. The fact this is shown completely open & up in the air leads me to believe a drive-in room will probably be built around it -- that's how wind tunnels and other environmental chassis dynos are done in the industry. The operator dude would then be safely "removed from the action" behind some very heavy glass.
2. "Afghan Girl" is indeed a stunning image. What is really scary, though, is how aged that pretty girl looks now. Google around for a modern pic of her ... she was only about 30 when rephotograped in 2002, but looks about 20 years older. I'm not sure if it is just a hard peasant life in the sun or a little too much "sampling of the local Afghan product". You decide.
Unfortunately, in today's society (American... I don't know about yours), illegitimate births are no longer scandalized and the women (yes, the scum "baby daddies" are usually long gone) are in fact rewarded with greater and greater dispursements from the public trough. The resultant children are rarely cared for well, and through lack of proper parenting, wind up being menances and drains on society themselves. By the time most of them ultimately wind up in the foster care system, they are incorrigible and unadoptable. If we stopped rewarding out-of-wedlock birth, many of these babies would be given a proper home and loving upbringing (the enablers to success) rather than being seen as ticket to a bigger bucket of freebies.
Straight talk from Sid.
She went from being just slightly dim and moody, but otherwise normal, to being completely incapacitated, incontinent, and unintelligible. They later tried to claim that she was mentally retarded (her condition proved useful for her sister's Special Olympics organization). Those who knew her prior to the operation (or read her writings) know the real truth.
A problem I've noticed is that almost all of the LEGO sets in my local retail stores are chock full of very specialized pieces so that the kid(s) can build 1 specific model. In the old days, the pieces were a lot more generic (and cheaper) and children were able to use their imagination and creativity a lot better. Sure, what they wound up with looked a bit less like the Millennium Falcon, but they figured it out on their own, and when they were done, they could take it all apart and turn it into 1000 other models. Good luck finding the old "buckets of bricks" they used to sell. Yes, I know they are still offered that way, but I need to mail order them b/c the local stores only sell "Harry Potter", "Pirates of the Caribbean", or "Star Wars" sets that are highly constraining (and expensive!)
"Puhlease! You really think the Cominterns went there to “defend democracy†and “fight for the republic� It was all about advancing worldwide authoritarian communism. Those in Spain were the real die hard “koolaid-drinking†communists who were there for that reason alone."
Better?