Cont: Luton Airport Car Park Fire III

[catsmate]

"Quantum mechanic" is a military occupational specialty (MOS) in Forbidden Planet (1956).

I am totally stealing that for our current AITAS campaign.

 

[malbui]

Clarkson is a tv presenter that spouts obvious ******** for money and professes to be a mechanical idiot.
His Top Gear persona insists that the only tool he can use is a hammer.

From my experiences growing up in a household boasting at various times an Austin 1300, an MG Midget and a Wolseley 1300, most of the time the only tool you needed for maintenance was a hammer. Alongside some fuse wire and a creative vocabulary.

 

[catsmate]

In England, Jeremy Clarkson is revered as an auto expert - he presented a long running television car show called 'Top Gear' - yet he left school (albeit an expensive one) with just one O-level and expelled.

How do you reconcile that with your snobbish claim that John Cadogan "has "a degree" in Mechanical Engineering. My guess is that it's an undergraduate degree"...? Whilst academia is admirable, it's not the be-all and end-all. In my last employment but one, one of the partners was earning £2m a year having left school at fifteen. He was fortunate to have gone into the profession when paper qualifications were not compulsory. I know plenty of well-educated academic types who failed professional exam after professional exam. So your criteria seems to be based on pure snobbery.

More of your usual rubbish.
And Clarkson is not revered as an "auto expert", more of a bigoted, childish buffoon.
He and his nonsense have been condemned by actual experts on numerous occasions.

 

[catsmate]

I have a 10-yard certificate in swimming. Yet I do not consider myself an auto expert.

So where are your experts?

 

[catsmate]

The testimonials to John Cadogan speak for themselves:


@Highfiber123
5 months ago
As a scientist that has conducted fire analyses for government agencies, I wanted to say that this was a very technically accurate account. Good study, thanks for posting

@davedorney700
6 months ago
I work in a fire testing facility everything he is saying is legit, very good advice

https://youtu.be/zk0MWDsueMY?si=i_--EzO-o6VDqpf2

Absolute bollocks. As usual.

 

[JayUtah]

From my experiences growing up in a household boasting at various times an Austin 1300, an MG Midget and a Wolseley 1300, most of the time the only tool you needed for maintenance was a hammer. Alongside some fuse wire and a creative vocabulary.

Pretty much the only tools you need to work on a 1917 Ford Model T are a hammer, an adjustable wrench, and a screwdriver.

 

[Mojo]

I just saw him as entertainment. He commented on Luton Airport car park fire, so I watched it. I haven't watched anything else of his. However, half a million views on that topic indicates huge public interest, and that is a place where people go if there is no information forthcoming from elsewhere, albeit for the obvious reason it is 'under investigation'.

OK, so we're back to the question I asked here:

In the case of the Luton Airport car park fire there are many experts and commentators who are sceptical of the initial claims and of the failure to provide concrete information as to the make of the car involved.

Such as?

Who are these "many experts"?

 

[smartcooky]

Hell, even within my field of power semiconductors..

Back in the day, when I first started dealing with semi-conductors, we used to make jokes about how great it would be if we had power FETs... something that acted like an FET with the grunt of a 2N3055. That's not a joke any more!!

PS: for clarification, "back in the day, when I first started dealing with semi-conductors..." we were scratching the paint off the black OC72 transistors to make them light sensitive!!

 

[phiwum]

The whole point in bringing up Jeremy Clarkson was to try to show how a self-made person who failed at school can still acquire a reputation for expertise. First, I don't dispute this; I've given several examples on my own of expertise learned in nontraditional ways. Second, it's changing horses to first claim a formal credential as a qualification for your expert and then back away from it when it's shown to be irrelevant.

To be perfectly fair, the degree in Mechanical Engineering was not brought up by Vixen. I brought it up, since Vixen didn't tell us what made the Auto Expert and expert. I googled to see if I could find anything at all that could serve as evidence of expertise in identifying car fire origins by looking at photos, and that one degree seemed to be about as much as I could find -- along with a lengthy stint as a reporter on the car beat or something.

 

[smartcooky]

I guess you didn't spot the general point. Which is that something as generic as a degree in mechanical engineering is no substitute for actual expertise in a technical subject.

Personal case in point - I have a degree in aeronautical engineering. This gives me some degree of authoritative credibility in discussions about aspects of aircraft such as aircraft design and development and modification, aerodynamics and analysis of failures and faults.

My primary experience is in military aircraft avionics and hydraulics, specifically these aircraft
Lockheed C-130 Hercules
Lockheed P3 Orion
BAC 167 Strikemaster
McDonnell Douglas A4 Skyhawk
DeHavilland DH104 Devon
Aermacchi MB339

However, I can only have opinions about civilian flying and aircraft. For sure, those opinions will be informed by my experiences, but I would always defer to someone like Trebuchet who actually worked in the civil aircraft industry.

And when it comes to Aerospace Engineering, again, my experience allows me understanding and to have an opinion, but I would always defer to people like JayUtah and STS60 as this is their specialist field.

Vixen defers to no-one other than random YouTubers, people who post in the comments section of the Daily Mail, and her own self-professed "expertise"!
‎
‎

 

[smartcooky]

Yeah, while I was driving between my data center and my office I was thinking that it would be fair to report Clarkson has having some expertise in the automotive industry and the commensurate skill at driving. And it's difficult to know how much bungling he does for comedic value and how much is genuine.

One thing is for sure, he's better than Vixen at recognizing a slope when he sees one!

OBSCURITY NOTE: Mostly, only English fans of the show will understand this comment



Mea Culpa: Its a bit naughty of me to make this joke - but worth it for lolz
‎
‎

 

[JayUtah]

To be perfectly fair, the degree in Mechanical Engineering was not brought up by Vixen. I brought it up...

Fair point; I withdraw the changing-horses claim.

My primary experience is in military aircraft avionics...
* * *
Lockheed P3 Orion

Are the horror stories I've heard true about the modems on those? I knew some techs overseas that had no love for them.

...Trebuchet who actually worked in the civil aircraft industry.

For completeness' sake, everything I know about lithium ion battery fires I learned from working on the Boeing 787.

Vixen defers to no-one other than random YouTubers, people who post in the comments section of the Daily Mail, and her own self-professed "expertise"!‎

Literally none of that matters in the real world. But it seems to be the world conspiracy theorists occupy.

 

[Carrot Flower King]

OK, so we're back to the question I asked here:



Who are these "many experts"?

Oh, y'know, people are saying. Many people...

 

[Carrot Flower King]

One thing is for sure, he's better than Vixen at recognizing a slope when he sees one!

OBSCURITY NOTE: Mostly, only English fans of the show will understand this comment



Mea Culpa: Its a bit naughty of me to make this joke - but worth it for lolz
‎
‎

Indeed, you are a very, very naughty boy.

 

[smartcooky]

Indeed, you are a very, very naughty boy.

And my name's not Brian, and I am not the Messiah!

 

[Mojo]

Amazing that you miss the point so wildly in your flailing.

It's probably a bit of a sore point, remember which side Finland was on for most of WWII.

 

[catsmate]

And my name's not Brian, and I am not the Messiah!

But are you a naughty boy?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

It's probably a bit of a sore point, remember which side Finland was on for most of WWII.

To be fair, Finland was quite carefully only on Finland's side. They were at war with the USSR, but not allied with you-know-who.

 

[Mojo]

To be fair, Finland was quite carefully only on Finland's side. They were at war with the USSR, but not allied with you-know-who.

They weren't formally part of the Axis, but they were fighting against the same country at the same time.

 

[catsmate]

They weren't formally part of the Axis, but they were fighting against the same country at the same time.

Technically co-belligerency..