Darwin's Theories - Responses

Re: "Red Lights Will Never Be The Same", Part 1

Ian Darwin — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:41:51 GMT

Right, I wasn't clear enough there; the driver's airbag is in the steering column. It was a cold day so I had the windows up, there is thus a strong chance of door-frame, window or other misalignment caused by the explosive bag deployment (my ears hurt for a day or two from that too). Remembering Newton's laws of motion; all cars with steering wheel airbags will have a partially-compressed steering wheel as an "equal and opposite" reaction to the deployment, just as if the driver had hit it at speed.

Did some more reading; here's one on why you should not repair your own airbags :-) and "Airbag benefits and costs". The latter states: "The main component of the airbag system is a strong fabric bag folded and stored in a module on the steering column for the driver, and in the dashboard for the passenger. When onboard sensors detect a frontal crash of severity exceeding a set threshold, equivalent to a delta-v of about 10 mph, detonators deploy the airbag. High pressure chemically-produced gasses force the bag out of the module and inflate it sufficiently rapidly that it is in place in front of the occupant before the occupant has had time to move forward appreciably in response to the crash forces." Since I was sitting back in my seat and the car not moving, that's why the airbag didn't get me in the face.

Re: "Red Lights Will Never Be The Same", Part 1

Lak — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:07:48 GMT

Glad you are ok, Ian.

GMs, I think, are more disposable than other cars. My (Toyota)'s airbag is in the steering wheel and just above the glove compartment. Both can be replaced cheaply.

Talk to your transportation department about having longer yellows so that heavy rigs have a chance of stopping, even on a wet road.

Re: Ian's Top Ten Today, #1

Lak — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 03:23:54 GMT

That Waco article was interesting. I'd never seen the correlation between the jingoism in our response to McVeigh and to 9/11.

The patent article is a bit preposterous. Things like email and Huffman codes were created out of taxpayer-funded research projects. Not out of some magic innovativeness by private companies. The real argument against software patents is that few of them meet a non-obviousness threshold.

Hey, what's with Canadian TV saying Obama's team was downplaying NAFTA when it was Clinton's team that was actually calling the embassy? You Canucks can't tell the difference between them?