h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay so further to the last journal entry where I mentioned the possibility of hang-gliding to Canada, (via Australia, Asia, Russia, Alaska,) I've come to the conclusion that I would simply need to go a lot faster than glide-speed, in order to make it, due to factors like exhaustion etc. So, I've been looking at microlite designs instead.
The major hurdle here is that I know bugger-all about engines, and if I'm the one putting my neck on the line, I'd like to know how to keep it attached to my body. Which means if I fly to Canada using an engine as propulsion, I'd want to know how to fix it myself when it breaks.

Further observation: petrol engines I know nothing about. However I've realised that /induction/ engines, I can probably figure out. So I started looking for basic designs for induction engines on the 'net, to make sure I'm heading in the right direction. (Can you tell I really should be doing assignments instead? If you can't, you soon will...)

When I google 'how induction engines work', the first link is for the website of a guy who's a programmer in Texas, who also happens to be a rollercoaster enthusiast living not too far from the world's first rollercoaster powered by induction motors. Or something. So I spent ages looking at various design features and photos of this rollercoaster, which is always fun (I like kinetic art, remember), but not very productive.
His site also has a nifty idea on it (a separate idea, although I thought it was related to the induction motor thing, which was confusing for a while,) basically summarised thus:
Expensive cars and cheap roads are efficient only when you have a small number of people travelling a large distance.
When a large number of people are travelling a small (on average) distance, it's much more efficient to built expensive roads and cheap cars.
Building expensive (note 'expensive' is only a relative term here) roads and cheap cars also has the advantage that you can:
- reduce pollution
- reduce (or eliminate) crashes, and pedestrian impacts.
- And heaps of other things I forget what; there's a list of them but I got sick of reading about it. Expecially since they kept repeating themselves.

But anyway the upshot is this proposal:
http://home.comcast.net/~gep-2/uprtsumm.html

I quite like it. Apart from a few basic design flaws (all of which I can see an immediate solution to anyway,) I can't think of anything wrong with it. I hope that the momentum of the populace can be shifted on this topic.
I'm tempted to make a mock-up model, just to test the idea further for my own interest.

Unfortunately, that doesn't get me any closer to Canada at this point.

And I still haven't found what I was looking for on induction engines.

As a side note, I'm not sleeping very well, and haven't been for ages. My concentration and mental health are suffering, and I'm getting sick of it. And getting sick, I guess.
Don't get me wrong, I'm trying to take care of myself. It's just tricky when I keep waking up for no reason at 4am or some unforsakenly-similar time.
And then I can't get up when my alarm goes off, so I have to rush to make it to my lectures on time, without doing the things I wanted to get done before leaving the house, and then by the time I get home again I have no energy to do them anyway.
Actually now that I think about it this problem would be a whole lot more simple if I was only mentally awake at the same times as when I'm physically awake. It would save me lying in bed thinking alternately: "Wake up! Get up, dammit!" and "Hey, if I use a collection of coiled capacators in conjunction with two sets of AC, then I can have a four-way split rotational matrix which can ensure a single direction of motion without friction..." and so on. And it would also mean I could think properly during the day, which means I could get my assignments done quicker and have more time to be creative.

Gee this was going to be a short post, too.

One more thing: I've been very antisocial in RL, lately. Most of the people I tend to hang out with I find to be mediocre, small-minded, socially irresponsible, and pointlessly demanding. Basically, I'm finding yet again that I need to be in a society where people grew up with different values and traits.

And I've decided I don't like being a second-best choice. Nor do I like the concept of making someone else feel like a second-best choice, either. This is probably why I'm currently still single. If I'd played my cards right I might not have been by now, but I don't play cards, let alone playing with emotions. Still, S and I will continue to see each other occasionally, and will still remain friends, so I guess it's better than being completely alone. I think.

And just to link two ideas together: S's mother is a sleep therapist, and has agreed to perform a sleep test on me at some point. Embarrasingly, she agreed to this after S told her that I stop breathing occasionally at night. To which her mother asked: "How do you know?"

I'll let you know if/when the sleep-test happens.

Yay I found a nice link on induction motors:
http://www.maintenanceworld.com/Articles/reliance/maintenance.htm

I understood about the first fifth of that page. I wonder how much I need to know to get a working engine?

Hmmm.

I wonder where I can get parts from.

I read most of that. Which is surprising for me. But I dunno anything about motors BUT I'll gladly paint all over your elecrolyte when it's made....

I've become a semi recluse. Screw the people they never invite me to things and when they do it's too late. So I'm not going even if they do.

Ok so we know that I will but it depends on who it is.

Yellow.

ah jerms....
you've got me all worried about you, but at least you're taking care of yourself.

if it makes you feel any better you're not my second choice, not that it counts for anything... and i'm not entirely sure that was the kind of choice we were talking about anyway....... but either way...!

as for being relcuse or anti-social... well i've been that way ages. for the most part people annoy me and arent nice, but it seems that if i find someone that i do like they're always too busy for me.... oh well, i can live with that. so i just do something else instead, which is usually come here and talk to you guys.

i wish i could help you with your induction engine... but i know nothing about things like that...
but i'll help job paint it when you're done

There'll be no painting /my/ electrolytes, thank you very much!
How about you paint my microlite, instead?

Yeah it's society's fault I don't like it. That seems to be true.

Interestingly, I went from thinking about induction engines, to a lecture on induction engines.
Of a different type, though. This was induction as in inductive logic (like deductive logic, but different), instead of electro-magnetic induction. Still kinda freaky, though.

yes! i get to help paint your microlite!

*totally lost in talk of inductive logic*
what exactly is an induction engine?

guesses its some type of search engine

i like that explanation... its short and simple, and something that i understand (just so i dont feel too stupid).
although i think its supposed to be something that will help take you places

thats the type of induction engine that Jerms first talks about and I have no idea how they work (so we can be stupid, or perhaps just not good at mechanical things together ) but then he talks about induction engines that use inductive logic and I'm guessing they are search engines but I don't really know

Actually I think he might have meant your brain.

probably not my brain

Now that's just being hard on yourself that is.......

somedays yes, somedays no

ah, sounds good
not stupid, but just not good at mechanical things.

Is and microlite like something small for undarkening rooms and an induction engine a machine for introducing you to a new place?

Sort of a search engine; for searching logical statements for truth, I guess.

Inductive logic can go from simple facts to conclusions, like going from:
1) Bob is a boy
2) All boys own a puppy
...to:
3) Bob owns a puppy.

Okay so that's really obvious to us, but usually computers don't understand that sort of thing, unless they're running an induction engine.
Which is different to an electromagnetical induction engine, which is three pairs of iron bars with coils of copper wire wrapped around them, plugged into one phase each of a three-phase power supply, and with a solid-state magnet inside them all, so that the magnet in the middle spins by itself.

ahh... thanks for the explanation
i'm not sure i entirely understand what an induction engine is but thats ok, i sort of know.

I now know what both are and I think I even understand the first
As for electromagnetics so long as it works who cares how?
(well engineers, mechanics and scientists obviously but not me)

And me, 'coz I want to make one so that I can fly to Canada, maybe.

Do me a favour though. I wouldn't like to worry about you so land often ok?

Good.

Not all boys own puppies!