Craig Sawyers

Croatia's second goal was a bit of a giveaway alas. Marking was poor and sluggish. But hey, in the second half and extra time they just had the edge, so it was only a matter of time until their second goal. And England set pieces did not work because of astonishing goal mouth defence by Croatia. But England were damned impressive for such a young team. The final between France and Croatia will be a fine match I can hardly believe I'm posting on this.

Radiohead met at Abingdon School (what in the UK is called a Public School, and in the US a Private School). Which is three miles from where I type. Originally Cockney rhyming slang for strumpet (ie prostitute). But fortunately losing the original definition and incorporated into "nice bit of crumpet" it means a sexually desirable woman. Which I think we can all agree with. I'll shut up now...

^Oh yeah!

Yeah - the road legal bit is impressive for sure. F1 cars have more acceleration (1.5g to 200mph) but are not road legal. And Bloodhound - nah. If nothing else it would strip the paint off anything following The whole statistics thing about Bloodhound is crazy. The solid aluminium wheels have a radial acceleration of 50,000g at 1000mph. Tested at Rolls Royce at full speed, they heat up to 80C just through air friction. And effective power of the vehicle is 135,000hp. It is basically aircraft engineering, but designed to stay on the ground. And because one of the aims is to inspire, the entire CAD drawings for the machine are downloadable.

I'm not into football - but I broke my duck and watched England dominate Sweden. It was mesmerizing. There were some extraordinary scenes across England - the best was a huge crowd watching on a massive screen outside in Sunderland (in the North East of England). Lots of beer was being drunk. But on the first goal, the whole crowd jumped in the air, and all you could see was a massive spray of beer that exited the glasses vertically as they jumped. Second goal - same thing. Third time ever we have got to a semifinal of the World Cup. First in 1966 when we won, second in 1990 when we lost in the semi (to Germany on penalties), and now. Extraordinary.

Remember - don't start a barbecue in one of those. Because you can't have your kayak and heat it. Must keep taking the medication....

SPEED7. Ha Ha. Hope the driver was OK, seriously. That looks nasty. If he (or her) was OK, they would certainly have needed a change in underpants. Like the guy in the UK with an black M5 who overtook us doing around 130 or even more. His number plate FLA 5H he had adapted to read FLASH. I instantly thought "dick head". It was with great joy that some miles later he had been pulled in by the police. Sometimes there is justice. At that speed, around twice the legal limit, he would have lost his license for at least a year, and got a court summons and a whopping fine. FLASH.

OK, so I am a numbers nerd. I make absolutely no apologies for that The lamborghini covers half a mile and gets to 259mph. That is an average acceleration of 0.83g. Bloodhound does 0.6g on the jet and 1.3g on the jet+rockets. The driver, Andy Green is a fighter jet pilot, and those accelerations are trivial for him. The Shuttle on take off did 1.1g, rising to 3g and was maintained at those levels as a kindness to the crew - who were scientists and the like. The Soyuz that is used to ferry personnel to the Space Station pulls a maximum of 4g. The earlier, pre Saturn V, Gemini craft were piloted by fighter jocks who were used to high g. Those has a profile peaking up at 7g and pushed along to orbit in less than 6 minutes. So what accelerates faster than the breathed-on Lambo? Bloodhound. What has more acceleration than Bloodhound? A space rocket.

That is an impressive car. A bit insane to drive by the look of it. But this would see that car left for dead. Bloodhound SSC. This is the 7 ton beast going from 0 to 200mph in 8 seconds. Just using the jet engine and rubber tyres. I was there - it was bloody impressive. Next year, 500mph then on to 1000mph with addition of rockets. On the Hanskeen pan in South Africa. Performance figures. 0-500mph in 38 seconds using the Eurofighter jet engine, then after the rockets are operating 500 - 1000mph in 17 seconds.

Wow - just been reading up about Ditko. What a guy - creator of Spiderman - RIP

Those temperatures are dangerous.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday!

A toroid will be just fine for what you are using it for. Audio applications sure, R-core is something to seriously consider, but for powering a PC I'd go toroid in a heartbeat. You're just after raw juice.