>> ^ridesallyridenc:

I've been in one of these. It's scary as hell; when the hailstones hit the ground, they shatter and ice shrapnel flies everywhere. The baseball-sized stuff rips branches out of trees, etc. It's violent and loud and scary and awesome.


Oh my god. You've seen something like this?!

>> ^gorillaman:

>> ^spoco2:
Why do some people feel the need to comment inanely on and on and on and on? Can they not SHUT THE FUCK UP and witness the majesty of nature?
"I've never seen anything like this."
"Oh, I have, last week, it was awesome, and way better than this one because it DIDN'T HAVE YOU CONSTANTLY SAYING 'I've never seen anything like this'"
Argh.
Still... on a lighter note... AWESOME HAILSTORM!

Epic irony.


Shuddup

>> ^spoco2:

Why do some people feel the need to comment inanely on and on and on and on? Can they not SHUT THE FUCK UP and witness the majesty of nature?
"I've never seen anything like this."
"Oh, I have, last week, it was awesome, and way better than this one because it DIDN'T HAVE YOU CONSTANTLY SAYING 'I've never seen anything like this'"
Argh.
Still... on a lighter note... AWESOME HAILSTORM!


Epic irony.

>> ^Unsung_Hero:
...Oh my god, I've never seen anything like this.


That is now my new ringtone.

Your video, MASSIVE hail turns swimming pool into a seething maelstrom, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

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These are fucking awesome to do, depth charge style, weighted at the bottom of the deep end of a swimming pool.

>> ^jimnms:
I'm starting to get sick of the anti-bottle water movement. They do have some valid reasons to complain, but they're starting to go overboard (like peta). The problem isn't bottled water itself, bottled water does have it's place. I drink (filtered) tap water at home, refilling empty water bottles that I've bought. After a while they eventually start looking foggy and/or develop a funky residue in them. When that happens I chuck them. I can taste the difference in filtered and unfiltered water too. Plain unfiltered tap water to me tastes like I'm drinking from a swimming pool.
When I'm not at home, usually when traveling and I stop for a snack on the road I buy a bottle of water (and save the bottle to re-use at home). It's either a bottle of water or a bottle of soda, and I don't drink soda. How come no one ever complains about people buying soda in a bottle? A bottle of water costs less too, $1 for water vs. $2 for soda. Sure you can get water or soda from the fountain drink machine, but it will still be in a plastic or styrofoam cup. It's kind of hard to throw a cup of water in your backpack too. I also keep a couple of cases of bottled water in the storage room at home for emergencies.
I don't eat out often, but when I do I order water. I've had mixed experiences with water at restaurants. Sometimes it tastes fine, sometimes it tastes and smells like it came from the sewer. When I get nasty water at a restaurant I'll usually order tea instead. They probably deliberately serve nasty water so you'll order something else.
Fast food places are hit or miss with tap water too. I usually have a bottle of water in the car with me that I've filled up at home, but when I don't or it's empty, I'll get bottled just to be safe. If I don't drink all of it, I can cap it and save the rest for later or carry it with me.


How did you manage to write so much yet make no valid points? What's wrong with the "anti-bottled water movement"?

I'm starting to get sick of the anti-bottle water movement. They do have some valid reasons to complain, but they're starting to go overboard (like peta). The problem isn't bottled water itself, bottled water does have it's place. I drink (filtered) tap water at home, refilling empty water bottles that I've bought. After a while they eventually start looking foggy and/or develop a funky residue in them. When that happens I chuck them. I can taste the difference in filtered and unfiltered water too. Plain unfiltered tap water to me tastes like I'm drinking from a swimming pool.

When I'm not at home, usually when traveling and I stop for a snack on the road I buy a bottle of water (and save the bottle to re-use at home). It's either a bottle of water or a bottle of soda, and I don't drink soda. How come no one ever complains about people buying soda in a bottle? A bottle of water costs less too, $1 for water vs. $2 for soda. Sure you can get water or soda from the fountain drink machine, but it will still be in a plastic or styrofoam cup. It's kind of hard to throw a cup of water in your backpack too. I also keep a couple of cases of bottled water in the storage room at home for emergencies.

I don't eat out often, but when I do I order water. I've had mixed experiences with water at restaurants. Sometimes it tastes fine, sometimes it tastes and smells like it came from the sewer. When I get nasty water at a restaurant I'll usually order tea instead. They probably deliberately serve nasty water so you'll order something else.

Fast food places are hit or miss with tap water too. I usually have a bottle of water in the car with me that I've filled up at home, but when I don't or it's empty, I'll get bottled just to be safe. If I don't drink all of it, I can cap it and save the rest for later or carry it with me.

Also... I too have far more respect for him... I just cannot fathom not breathing for that long... can't even comprehend it. I used to do it in the swimming pool and to get to 2 mins was a hell of a struggle... 17! Wow.

You have swimming pools at work?

>> ^punk225:
We should put these in the swimming pool at work

>> ^cybrbeast:
Why did the technology die with him? Surely more could be built?


One person with extraordinary vision, coupled with technological know-how, engineering brilliance and the ability to get his hands dirty and plain-and-simple build what he imagines is a rare thing.

In the case of the Britten bike, this is a partial list of what made his bike special:

1) Partial girder-link front suspension with adjustable anti-dive properties.
-fork-type suspensions compress under braking and extend during acceleration, changing the geometry and handling characteristics of the machine quite drastically during the different driving modes. Britten's suspension design allowed him to control pretty much all variables of suspension geometry under changing load, making the bike behave however the rider wished.
- The rear suspension, while perhaps not as revolutionary, was a beautiful piece. It was essentially a carbon-fibre banana swing-arm with a linkage to the adjustable shock/spring assembly. If you look at the bike you'll see that there's no spring/shock assembly near the rear suspension, rather note the spring/shock assembly directly behind the front wheel- this is for the rear suspension! The front shock assembly is hidden in the front suspension linkage and cowling.

2) The engine itself was a stressed-member.
-While certainly not unheard of, Britten took the concept to an extreme, essentially eliminating the frame from the motorcycle. The front and rear suspensions essentially bolted directly to the engine, thus saving many kilos over contemporary designs. Take a look at any current MotoGP or Superbike- most use the engine as a partial stressed-member, but they all have frame members linking the engine, steering heads and seat-assemblies. Britten really only had a vestigial sub-frame for the rider's seat.

3) Well-controlled aerodynamics and fully-ducted cooling system
-Britten paid close attention to airflow over, around and through his bike. Look how cleanly the rider's body tucks into the bodywork. He paid close attention to details, notice how clean the entire assembly is- no exposed wiring, nothing dangling into the airflow, that incredibly sleek rear swing-arm and rear tire hugger. This keeps the airflow smooth and un-disturbed. Motorcycles aren't terribly aerodynamic machines in the first place, but a wise man once said God is in the details.
-The engine itself is a water cooled design, but where's the radiator? It's in a fully-sealed duct directly beneath the rider's seat. High-pressure air is inlet from the front of the bike, through the radiator and is exhausted into the low pressure area beneath the rider and above/ahead of the rear wheel. Greater cooling equals higher power potential.

4) The motor
- 999cc 60 degree V-Twin, belt-driven DOHC design, twin injectors per cylinder, sophisticated electronic ignition, hand-made carbon fibre velocity stacks, wet sump. The motor was designed to breathe hard, pumping out torque and horsepower (166 hp @ 11800 rpm- not sure about the torque figures), and run cool and reliably under racing conditions. Nothing here that any other manufacturer couldn't have figured out on their own, but Britten had the insight and the will to make the best motor in the world at the time. The 60 degree configuration was, I assume chosen for packaging reasons. Normally this configuration would have bad primary balance characteristics, but Britten engineered his to such tight tolerances that the engine ran smoothly right up to redline (12500 rpm) without using a balance shaft.
I'll also point out here that Britten wasn't above using someone else's part if it was better than he could make himself- the gearbox was from a Suzuki superbike, and the cylinder liners and voltage regulator (both of which failed at the Daytona race in '92- the latter costing Britten the win) were from Ducati.

5) Carbon Fibre
- While Carbon Fibre had been around for 2 decades or so at this point, nobody had used it so extensively. Britten used the material for bodywork, wheels, engine parts, suspension girders and the rear swing-arm. There is still no other bike, not even the current Ducati Desmosedici MotoGP bike, that uses so much of this exotic material. The stuff then, as it is now, was hugely expensive and challenging to engineer for different applications. Britten made everything himself, in his garage, figuring it out as he went. This kept the total weight of the bike to a hugely impressive 138 kg.

Keep in mind that he did all of the above in 1991 and 1992, with the help of several neighbors and one part-time machinist, in his backyard shed! He made the bodywork by hand, using a wire frame and hot melt glue, crafting the wind-cheating shape and cooling ducting purely by eye. He cast the aluminum engine parts himself, heat-treating them in his wife's pottery kiln, and cooling the heat-treated parts with water from his swimming pool!

Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki... any one of these manufactures could today reproduce and expand on what Britten accomplished almost single-handedly. None of them will- there's too much at stake for them. It's far safer to stick with the tried-and-true, making small evolutionary changes over the years. A true visionary achiever (to coin a term) like Britten comes along only every once in a great while.

I suppose that this is what was really lost when John Britten died... vision, engineering acuity, hands-on knowledge, and pure will. Touched with a little craziness.

In reply to this comment by cybrbeast:
Why did the technology die with him? Surely more could be built?

>> ^cybrbeast:
Why did the technology die with him? Surely more could be built?


One person with extraordinary vision, coupled with technological know-how, engineering brilliance and the ability to get his hands dirty and plain-and-simple build what he imagines is a rare thing.

In the case of the Britten bike, this is a partial list of what made his bike special:

1) Partial girder-link front suspension with adjustable anti-dive properties.
-fork-type suspensions compress under braking and extend during acceleration, changing the geometry and handling characteristics of the machine quite drastically during the different driving modes. Britten's suspension design allowed him to control pretty much all variables of suspension geometry under changing load, making the bike behave however the rider wished.
- The rear suspension, while perhaps not as revolutionary, was a beautiful piece. It was essentially a carbon-fibre banana swing-arm with a linkage to the adjustable shock/spring assembly. If you look at the bike you'll see that there's no spring/shock assembly near the rear suspension, rather note the spring/shock assembly directly behind the front wheel- this is for the rear suspension! The front shock assembly is hidden in the front suspension linkage and cowling.

2) The engine itself was a stressed-member.
-While certainly not unheard of, Britten took the concept to an extreme, essentially eliminating the frame from the motorcycle. The front and rear suspensions essentially bolted directly to the engine, thus saving many kilos over contemporary designs. Take a look at any current MotoGP or Superbike- most use the engine as a partial stressed-member, but they all have frame members linking the engine, steering heads and seat-assemblies. Britten really only had a vestigial sub-frame for the rider's seat.

3) Well-controlled aerodynamics and fully-ducted cooling system
-Britten paid close attention to airflow over, around and through his bike. Look how cleanly the rider's body tucks into the bodywork. He paid close attention to details, notice how clean the entire assembly is- no exposed wiring, nothing dangling into the airflow, that incredibly sleek rear swing-arm and rear tire hugger. This keeps the airflow smooth and un-disturbed. Motorcycles aren't terribly aerodynamic machines in the first place, but a wise man once said God is in the details.
-The engine itself is a water cooled design, but where's the radiator? It's in a fully-sealed duct directly beneath the rider's seat. High-pressure air is inlet from the front of the bike, through the radiator and is exhausted into the low pressure area beneath the rider and above/ahead of the rear wheel. Greater cooling equals higher power potential.

4) The motor
- 999cc 60 degree V-Twin, belt-driven DOHC design, twin injectors per cylinder, sophisticated electronic ignition, hand-made carbon fibre velocity stacks, wet sump. The motor was designed to breathe hard, pumping out torque and horsepower (166 hp @ 11800 rpm- not sure about the torque figures), and run cool and reliably under racing conditions. Nothing here that any other manufacturer couldn't have figured out on their own, but Britten had the insight and the will to make the best motor in the world at the time. The 60 degree configuration was, I assume chosen for packaging reasons. Normally this configuration would have bad primary balance characteristics, but Britten engineered his to such tight tolerances that the engine ran smoothly right up to redline (12500 rpm) without using a balance shaft.
I'll also point out here that Britten wasn't above using someone else's part if it was better than he could make himself- the gearbox was from a Suzuki superbike, and the cylinder liners and voltage regulator (both of which failed at the Daytona race in '92- the latter costing Britten the win) were from Ducati.

5) Carbon Fibre
- While Carbon Fibre had been around for 2 decades or so at this point, nobody had used it so extensively. Britten used the material for bodywork, wheels, engine parts, suspension girders and the rear swing-arm. There is still no other bike, not even the current Ducati Desmosedici MotoGP bike, that uses so much of this exotic material. The stuff then, as it is now, was hugely expensive and challenging to engineer for different applications. Britten made everything himself, in his garage, figuring it out as he went. This kept the total weight of the bike to a hugely impressive 138 kg.

Keep in mind that he did all of the above in 1991 and 1992, with the help of several neighbors and one part-time machinist, in his backyard shed! He made the bodywork by hand, using a wire frame and hot melt glue, crafting the wind-cheating shape and cooling ducting purely by eye. He cast the aluminum engine parts himself, heat-treating them in his wife's pottery kiln, and cooling the heat-treated parts with water from his swimming pool!

Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki... any one of these manufactures could today reproduce and expand on what Britten accomplished almost single-handedly. None of them will- there's too much at stake for them. It's far safer to stick with the tried-and-true, making small evolutionary changes over the years. A true visionary achiever (to coin a term) like Britten comes along only every once in a great while.

I suppose that this is what was really lost when John Britten died... vision, engineering acuity, hands-on knowledge, and pure will. Touched with a little craziness.

Wow. It's like a swimming pool explodes at ~2:00.

It's like an Agatha Christie character... "a-HA! but the surgeon couldn't have been at the swimming pool during the murder, as 3 frenchmen were there at the time, and he cannot stand to hear the french language"

I wish I had this idea when looking at non Newtonian liquids its probably the most obvious application for it really, well aside from filling up swimming pools with corn starch so you can "walk on water".