The Anonymous Widower

The Noise of a High Speed Train

There is quite a reasoned article on the BBC today about the sort of noise you might get from a high speed train on HS2 and how you could reduce it.

The article doesn’t mention a technology that by 2020 will probably be available to quieten the train and that is the use of anti-noise, where an equal and opposite noise is generated to cancel the sound of the train. I dabbled in this twenty years ago and even then the technology had been successfully applied in a few applications.  But even if anti-noise itself is not used, in ten years or so how trains create noise will be better understood and better design will be used to cut the noise.

I may be generally against the building of HS2, but I do think that noise will not be one of its biggest problems.

February 28, 2011 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | Leave a comment

Who Nicked A Mobile Phone Network?

Apparently thieves have stolen some crucial hardware from Vodafone, causing thousands to lose their service.

I suspect that many will think this is something more sinister than just simple theft, but I wouldn’t think it’s linked to anything like the company’s shutting down of their Egyptian network.

Could it be just for the copper? Or the other expensive metals in the equipment? If it is, we’ll probably be seeing other attempts at this type of theft.

The Telegraph are musing over the questions in this article.

February 28, 2011 Posted by | News | , | Leave a comment

The Times Saturday Magazine.

I usually read this from cover-to-cover as I take the train to the football, like I did on last Saturday.

It had two particularly good articles, that I will highlight here.

Melanie Reid was on her usual top form and was particularly annoyed that her story had been hijacked by the Christian Right. I prefer to call them the Christian Wrong, as when it comes to moral philosophy, any that calls itself right, is probably not open to criticism from a scientific-correctness point-of-view.  If Jesus did exist, and in my view if he did, he was just one of a number of good moral philosophers that are always around, then he wouldn’t be on the right like Sarah Palin and the Mad Hatters.

Carol Midgley was ranting about airport duty-free shopping.  She was absolutely right and it should be banned. Many duty-free purchases are carried half-way round the world and how much carbon dioxide does this add to the atmosphere? You also have the madness that say Scotch Whisky is air-freighted to places like Hong Kong for sale in duty-free shops there and then bought by Scots and other UK residents for the flight back.

February 28, 2011 Posted by | News, Transport/Travel | , , , | 1 Comment

What Does Her Majesty Think?

The King’s Speech has done well at the Oscars, winning four awards for best picture, best actor, best director and best screenplay.

The Queen has been known to have found the film moving.

We will probably never know what she feels officially, but these recently released pictures, show how close she was to her father.

February 28, 2011 Posted by | News | , , | Leave a comment