> << > William Taylor > > > Do you mean Howard Hughes? What did he do to a steam car? How old are you? > Howard died in 1976, and I doubt he was swinging an axe for many, many > years before that. > >> > > I'm total crap without a spellchecker. > > I remember that in a Howard Hughes film biography, his engineers were trying > to reinvent the steam car. [1940s I think.] They suceeded only be putting > radiators in the car doors. > > Howard had the car reved up for a while and then took an ax and threw it at > the car door. "We are not going to cook our passengers. Scrap the project." > [Or something to that effect.] > > The point of the story being it seems that nobody thought of taking an ax to > a compressed air car.
FWIW, that's another aspect of PR engineering projects. No-one worries about secondary aspects, like safety. Part of it is the good guy-bad guy view of technology...its seen anywhere from movies to leftist propaganda to Ann Rand novels. There is the plucky bright oddball inventor who will help us all; but for the horrid conspiracy against him. If someone is working for the good guys, green for example, then he automatically does everything right. They automatically make safe cars. Unfortunately, safety is not automatic. My guess is that an engineer who worried about the safety of the compressed air would be considered "not a team player." Dan M. Or authors whose heroes make the right choices no matter what the situation. (Not that I'm trying to make a list relevant comment or anything). I'm bad without spellchecker also. On a completely different tangent, the local paper profiled a mechanic who is the nation's leading authority on steam cars. He fixes and restores them and even built one from scratch. Kevin T. Chitty chitty _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
