Post ATixPqj4UeQLt8bI8G by someonetellmetosleep@queer.party
(DIR) More posts by someonetellmetosleep@queer.party
(DIR) Post #ATixPoORAOjKeYvmgy by DreadShips@mastodon.me.uk
2023-03-17T08:55:21Z
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The SS Bessemer, whose "swinging saloon" was not, in fact, a high sea sex den. Instead it was a gimballed passenger cabin, supposedly kept level by a sailor staring at a spirit level and frantically pulling hydraulic levers.The resulting erratic movement not only left everyone feeling heartily sick but led to the ship clattering into naval architecture the length and breadth of the channel. Not a success then...#FailureFriday
(DIR) Post #ATixPp00ugmuX6VnGK by RobertJackson58585858@masto.ai
2023-03-17T09:06:32Z
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@DreadShips Strikes me they're lucky it didn't turn the wretched boat over!
(DIR) Post #ATixPpY2sA0gEeQyJ6 by DreadShips@mastodon.me.uk
2023-03-17T10:13:04Z
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@RobertJackson58585858 I suspect the real problem was that there's invariably going to be some between input and output, leading essentially to pilot-induced oscillation. That's then going to start pulling the paddles (partially?) out of the water, affecting the account of thrust on each side. That would explain some of the issues with hitting things, I think.
(DIR) Post #ATixPpu1YRahKoiWZ6 by DreadShips@mastodon.me.uk
2023-03-17T22:43:21Z
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Just noticed the bilge keels on this illustration. Hadn't spotted them before...
(DIR) Post #ATixPq78lg5BzUr00e by BenAveling@mastodon.world
2023-03-17T11:44:02Z
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If you could anticipate fast enough, it ought to be possible to create a version of this that would work to reduce movement in the 'saloon' - although it would increase the movement of the rest of the ship. The modern solution - build bigger ships - seems to work fine for most situations. @DreadShips @RobertJackson58585858
(DIR) Post #ATixPqj4UeQLt8bI8G by someonetellmetosleep@queer.party
2023-03-17T19:40:03Z
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@BenAveling @DreadShips @RobertJackson58585858 fun fact: the british actually tried this, except on a train, called the APT. Even after correcting for the tiny time lag, it still made everyone nauseous because it was *too* stable around corners at high speeds despite being able to see out the windows that tilt was happening. They had to dampen it so much in testing that it turned out that, at the speeds they were going, just standard tilting of the track itself (called superelevation) was sufficient, and then just went back to conventional train cars. There was a WTYP podcast episode about this a while back, I recommend it if you don't mind a bit of crude humor.
(DIR) Post #ATixPrZBMu6kUkyuMC by someonetellmetosleep@queer.party
2023-03-17T19:44:24Z
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@BenAveling @DreadShips @RobertJackson58585858 Other, faster high-speed trains do continue to use (improved) tilting systems though, because there is a practical limit to superelevation that the APT was already close to. Just not in the UK.
(DIR) Post #ATixPs2FcpMNwua7fM by DreadShips@mastodon.me.uk
2023-03-17T19:49:07Z
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@someonetellmetosleep @BenAveling @RobertJackson58585858 there is another, more rumbustious version of the APT story, which is that to demonstrate their shiny new toy BR took a load of journalists on a jolly. Unfortunately the huge amounts of alcohol ingested along the way had deleterious effects on the collective journalistic constitution - which the red-faced hacks immediately blamed on the train. Its reputation never recovered...
(DIR) Post #ATixPsclR4ZDm9fHZw by DreadShips@mastodon.me.uk
2023-03-17T19:51:24Z
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@someonetellmetosleep @BenAveling @RobertJackson58585858 personally I suspect there's more than a dose of journalistic myth-making in that tale - they do like to over emphasise their own importance - but it can't have helped persuade anyone that the technology was worth persevering with.Wish they'd taken the journos on a bloody Pacer though.
(DIR) Post #ATixPtFP7PTXhzk8o4 by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-03-18T01:06:42Z
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@DreadShips @someonetellmetosleep @BenAveling @RobertJackson58585858 NHK demonstrated its "Super Hi-Vision" technology by driving a truck with a camera mounted on the front around in Tokyo traffic, and relaying the signal live to an auditorium full of journalists and so on.In so doing, they re-discovered what Douglas Trumbull had figured out with ShowScan half a century or so before. Too much of a visual illusion of reality induces nausea very powerfully in a certain fraction of people!
(DIR) Post #ATjkjfRp1xiQSHbzk0 by RobertJackson58585858@masto.ai
2023-03-18T10:19:21Z
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@publius @DreadShips @someonetellmetosleep @BenAveling Same effect as modern adverts featuring gaze/intense eye contact at the viewer with slight enlargement/moving the eyes slightly closer ... Viewer tends to be disoriented or fall over as balance system tries to adjust. Works with adverts featuring cats, dogs, people ... hate it myself & mentally block anything promoted that way.