Wednesday, June 22, 2016
What's the biggest vehicle?
Seems to be a recent trend toward an unconventional arrangement of wheels. The stupid Segway and its stupidest descendant the Hoverboard have two wheels located transversely. All previous two-wheeled vehicles had the two wheels spaced axially.
But wait! These stupid toys are NOT the first vehicle arranged this way. In fact the LARGEST of all wheeled vehicles has this arrangement. What is it?
The irrigator.
Aerial maps of southwest Kansas show the work of these vehicles, creating a mysterious radial landscape or a carton of assorted PacMans, depending on scale of interpretation. The bigger circles on this map are a half mile in diameter, which means the irrigator vehicle is a quarter mile wide and 20 feet long. Beats all other vehicles, even those giant mine excavators. Even beats the AMC Pacer in a competition for egregious width.
= = = = =
Randomly semi-related: A 1922 British discussion of applying electricity to farming included this wonderfully elegant idea to simplify the heartache of plowing:
Note the 500-volt temporary overhead line and the transformer lorry. The plow itself was pulled back and forth between two slow-moving trucks that moved forward once per row, like a giant typewriter.
Vastly more convenient and safe than a tractor or horses. With a tractor or horses, you have to avoid hooking up your temporary overhead 500-volt line to the main HV line, and you have to avoid buying and using a transformer lorry, and you have to avoid stringing up a 100-yard cable between your two winding wagons because you already avoided buying two winding wagons, and you avoid the freedom from contour plowing, which means you also avoid the thrilling excitement of a field that blows away in every windstorm. Tractors and horses also avoid paying the representative of the Electrical Supply Authority to make the hookup, and avoid paying the four men who supervise and synchronize the various cables and winding wagons. All of that avoidance of equipment and labor is costly!
= = = = =
Hey! I'm starting to think like an economist. What's next? Appreciating NIRP? Nope.
¶ 3:25 AM 
Aerial maps of southwest Kansas show the work of these vehicles, creating a mysterious radial landscape or a carton of assorted PacMans, depending on scale of interpretation. The bigger circles on this map are a half mile in diameter, which means the irrigator vehicle is a quarter mile wide and 20 feet long. Beats all other vehicles, even those giant mine excavators. Even beats the AMC Pacer in a competition for egregious width.
= = = = =
Randomly semi-related: A 1922 British discussion of applying electricity to farming included this wonderfully elegant idea to simplify the heartache of plowing:
Note the 500-volt temporary overhead line and the transformer lorry. The plow itself was pulled back and forth between two slow-moving trucks that moved forward once per row, like a giant typewriter.
Vastly more convenient and safe than a tractor or horses. With a tractor or horses, you have to avoid hooking up your temporary overhead 500-volt line to the main HV line, and you have to avoid buying and using a transformer lorry, and you have to avoid stringing up a 100-yard cable between your two winding wagons because you already avoided buying two winding wagons, and you avoid the freedom from contour plowing, which means you also avoid the thrilling excitement of a field that blows away in every windstorm. Tractors and horses also avoid paying the representative of the Electrical Supply Authority to make the hookup, and avoid paying the four men who supervise and synchronize the various cables and winding wagons. All of that avoidance of equipment and labor is costly!
= = = = =
Hey! I'm starting to think like an economist. What's next? Appreciating NIRP? Nope.
¶ 3:25 AM
