v. cool

Box of tricks takes surgery into the sticks

"For people living in remote areas of the developing world, the nearest hospital can be hundreds of miles away, making access to even the most basic of surgery impossible. But if the people can't come to the hospital, why not take the operating theatre to them?

"That's the thinking behind a solar-powered "hospital in a box", which can fit in the back of a Land Rover and has been designed to allow a team of three surgeons to carry out life-saving operations almost anywhere in the world.

"The system, developed by a team of doctors and technicians from the UK’s National Health
Service, comprises two small boxes that unfold to provide an operating table, equipment holder, lighting, anaesthesia, monitors and basic instruments, plus a plastic tent to provide a clean environment for surgery."

(New Scientist, 29 October 2005

The learning curve

Don't buy a Land Rover if you aren't quick on the uptake (at least as quick as your Rover will be). It also helps if you are "Interested In Things". Just five months in, I know more about powertrains, suspensions, and the like than I learned in my preceding 31 years. I'd done minor repairs for years and I could bodge my way around an engine bay, but that was about it. Before buying the Rangie I'd no idea what a low range transfer case was or why it was so great to have one*. I neither knew nor had any reason to care how planetary gearboxes render two limbs unnecessary, since all of my previous vehicles had a manual transaxle. I certainly spent a lot less time reading How Stuff Works.

My high school auto shop instructor spent at least one 50-minute class period trying to open our young minds to the hidden mysteries of the torque convertor, all the while gesticulating with a typical example in one hand and scrabbling on the blackboard with the other. I learned only that this round object was attached to the car, somewhere, and it did something. The regular instructor was liable to spend as much time railing against females wearing their hair short (since he couldn't refuse to teach me) or Pagan corruption of the Christian faith, as he was teaching us about cars. You needed only to know what his preferred tangents were so that you could have them handy if you didn't want to learn on a given day. You get the idea. It didn't work with the mechanic who sometimes filled in, so on those days we were actually taught.

So, fast forward 17 years to today, when I Got It after about two minutes of reading plain text. That's a Land Rover for you. You only think you own it**. I know of no other pursuit, save the martial arts, where you can get such a combination of knowledge, pain and humbling as a Land Rover will give you.

Credit to the great contributors to The Range Rover Knowledge Base and The Enthusiast's Range Rovers Site, who know everything but will tell you if they don't.

*Driving off road and towing strangers who block your exit ramp are only two excellent uses.
**Having a cat is good practice.

Note the date

WILL UNCLE SAM'S GAS TANK RUN DRY?

Petroleum experts of all kinds, including geologists, chemists and statisticians, are in wide disagreement over the question of whether or not there will be a gasoline shortage in the United States within the next 5 or 6 years. Each is vehemently voicing his own opinion in the matter.

So far, it has been impossible to produce it at a market price of much less than twice what an ordinary gallon of natural petroleum gasoline now costs. In other words, synthetic gasoline costs about 32 or 33 cents a gallon, although large-scale production would undoubtedly lower this figure.

What chemistry, spurred on by necessity, can accomplish can be seen by a glance at what is now happening in Germany, struggling to be free of foreign imports. Automobiles are being driven increasingly by illuminating gas, alcohol, benzol, diesel oil, and a variety of nonliquid gases, including propane, butane, methane, coke, and wood gas.

Propane and butane are available in large amounts in the United States, as well as natural illuminating gas, which is mostly methane. Both of the former are now used in liquid form as solvents to remove impurities from motor oil in U.S. refineries. Their great versatility makes it possible to use them first as a solvent and then as motor fuel, without great additional cost. These could undoubtedly be used in an emergency, although they require additional equipment to that used in gasoline-burning automobiles. Liquefied propane tanks are shown on the front cover of this week's Science News Letter.

(Science News, 12 October 1935)

Shopping list

Two large rocks for parking on
"Hail Britannia" horn
Etc

MCUK

Visit my galleries at Mud Club UK to see most of the pictures I have taken of the Rangie to date. Based on my initial experience, I am not a fan of Photobucket.

Leftovers

According to the Beeb, the great noodle debate has ended with the world's oldest noodles being found in China. Arabs and Italians the world over must be very disappointed.

Rover Content Alert: The Laija archeological site is presumably very remote and accessible only by questionable roads.

Mileage update

Mileage was 126,000m when I started this blog. I drive too much.

Photographic evidence

I've set up a Photobucket account. The photos are not very well organized at the moment - the file names were stripped during the upload and the images are displayed in reverse order. The Peacock Hill album is empty until my latest photos become available from Snapfish.

Ah, now I get it

I wasn't able to appreciate this fully back in May or June, when I first found it. Now, however...

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU OWN A LANDROVER?

That bit about turning down the stereo? Guilty as charged.

Words to live by

"I was slightly horrified but I thought the best thing to do was to be British and not panic."

(Prince Charles, on an accident during the raising of HMS Mary Rose)

So next time the Rangie has a major malfunction...

The weekend

I enjoyed a nice day of mild trail-riding on Saturday, returning home with truck and thumbs intact. Rangie was the lone representative of the 1995 LWB model and was much admired by all. It was nice to spend a little time with a few other Classics, not to mention many other Landies! On the downside, those Rover spots have become larger. Rangie will go in for new oil cooler lines this week.

A wonderful dream

During the weekend, I dreamt there was a Forward Control 101 for sale just around the corner, and it had nothing wrong with it, so I bought it...FOR US $1295. Alas, only a dream!