PMLawrence

Constitutional Convention (United States)

The British House of Lords (as opposed to English) does not have an obscure origin, so your change of "English" to "British" there was not really suitable. Also, your edit summary was very confusing, because the UK was not established in 1787 (only Great Britain). AnonMoos (talk) 15:09, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately for you -- 1) You use many words to say what could be expressed rather briefly. 2) Your confusion between Great Britain vs. the United Kingdom is complete nonsense, and does not qualify you to correct others about historical matters. 3) The origin of the British House of Lords is very well documented; it's only the English House of Lords which could be said to have an "obscure origin"... AnonMoos (talk) 05:11, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

(1.) I went to some length because my first edit summary had been too short. More briefly, that article was about events in 1787. Some of those looked further back into the past before the U.K. came to be, or at specifically English things like English Law, so it is right to call those English. But some of those things were contemporary in 1787, like the House of Lords - so it is factually incorrect to call it the "English" House of Lords. What the people at the convention were looking at there was how things were handled there in 1787 - things like how English and Scottish peers were dealt with to get representation, and so on.

(2.) I am not confused about Great Britain vs. the United Kingdom at all. Here we go again: From the early 18th century to the early 19th century Scotland and England (and Wales) had been joined as a single sovereign state, called the United Kingdom of Great Britain or the Kingdom of Great Britain, with Ireland still being handled separately (apart the use of from Poyning's Law to over-ride that, if you want to be technically precise). From the early 19th century to the early 20th century Scotland, England (and Wales) and Ireland were joined as a single sovereign state, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but that was later than 1787. So was what was formed after the 1920s, when much of Ireland separated, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But I wasn't changing the article to read U.K. but to read "British" - it fits either way. So I'm not confused at all, some form of U.K. as a sovereign state subsuming England had already been around for generations by 1787, and this is nothing to do with my having authority to "correct others about historical matters" - these things are well known, and if you like you can follow those references to see for yourself.

(3.) What I was trying to bring out is nothing to do with the origins of the House of Lords at all, English, British or anything else. As I read it, the article wasn't listing the House of Lords as something whose origins the convention delegates were drawing on - the reference to English history should cover that - but to something they had before them as a contemporary example, to use as a model or as a warning or as food for thought as they saw fit. If you don't read it that way, perhaps we should work out some text that brings out both sides - historical and contemporary. Because those people weren't ignoring what was around them in 1787 (they paid attention to Venice, Switzerland and the Dutch, too).

Now, I'm not trying to start an argument but to head one off. Would you like to suggest wording that clarifies which parts of the text are historical to 1787 and which parts of the text are contemporary to 1787? Because I think it's important not to have anything referring to an English House of Lords as at a time when there simply wasn't one, and when it really isn't a quibble to remember that non-English were involved and how they were involved. It's not just a technicality. PMLawrence (talk) 06:43, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

---

I really don't want to get into an extended debate with you about semi-trivialities, but you still haven't gotten around the fact that the origin of the British House of Lords is not obscure, so that when you change "English" to "British" in a sentence about the "obscure origin" of the English House of Lords, you unfortunately change sense into nonsense. In any case, well-informed 18th-century colonial gentlemen would have had in mind the 17th century as well as the 18th century when contemplating how the English/British political system could provide lessons for the governmental system of a new confederation (some periods of the 17th century under Edward Coke etc. could be considered a lot more parliamentarily glorious than most of the 18thc century...) -- AnonMoos (talk) 07:01, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Now you are making your concern clearer. As I read it, the earlier wording brought out the obscure historical origins of the House of Lords but labelled the (contemporary) House of Lords incorrectly. As I meant it to read after I changed it, "the obscure origins of the British House of Lords" wasn't supposed to refer to how it became a British House of Lords but to the remote origins of the House of Lords that was, by 1787, British rather than English. I didn't see my wording as referring to the more recent change at all. That is, to me it didn't suggest that "origins" could refer to becoming British but only to becoming a House of Lords. Obviously - since you exist - there is another way to read that. So I am going to suggest a wording you might be comfortable with:-

The division of the legislature into an upper and lower house wasn't questioned either, despite the role of the contemporary British House of Lords as the representative body of the hereditary nobility and its obscure origins in the earlier English and Scottish parliaments.

I do hope we can work towards an agreed wording rather than insisting on the current one, because I see the joint nature, the British rather than just English side of things, as a very important part of the example it offered, and not trivial at all. PMLawrence (talk) 07:50, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

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Daniel Craig.

Talk page. Discuss. Don't make PoV edits in regards to people's identity based on ancestry. Have a good day. --Τασουλα (talk) 08:53, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

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Hello, PMLawrence. You have new messages at Talk:Daniel Craig.
Message added 12:17, 11 November 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I have re-instated your revision. Cheers! Gareth Griffith-Jones/The Welsh Buzzard 12:17, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I was about to do so myself when my system crashed. I have direct, personal knowledge of this issue from Scottish and Irish ancestry (my mother was always proud I wasn't English), much as I suspect you have direct, personal knowledge of it yourself. PMLawrence (talk) 12:33, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I am about to send you an e-mail. Okay? -- Gareth Griffith-Jones/The Welsh Buzzard 12:35, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, although it's late here in Australia so I may not reply soon. PMLawrence (talk) 13:00, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

"my mother was always proud I wasn't English" you're an unbelievable Anglophobe. Have fun bitching about how Evil the English in your E-Mails - your POV pushing isn't going to get anywhere around here.

Please don't make stuff up. Yours is the intolerant position that says you can't be tolerant of someone unless you agree with him 100% on everything, that tolerance requires unconditional support and commitment. I went to a good English public school and have the accent to match, I spent much of my teenage years and early adult life in or near London apart from my time at Cambridge University, I am fully immersed in English culture, at least up until the time I came to Australia, and I have no problem with any of that - and yet I see nothing in that that would require me to repudiate the things from the past that have also made me what I am (and Britain too - there never was an "English" Empire). So, in all this, I myself would be offended at being called English, not because of any dislike for "English" but from not wanting to despise and discard the rest, so out of sheer respect I would not want to throw anyone else under that bus either. In this case, unless and until Daniel Craig shows that he would be happy to drop everything else, it is not safe to call him English but it is safe to call him British - a more cover all term. As for you, as Winston Churchill put it, "the right honourable gentleman should not generate more indignation than he can comfortably contain"; you might want to examine yourself, to see why you have taken such an angry, conscripting position. PMLawrence (talk) 23:14, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

@ Τασουλα (talk), You surprise me, by your not signing and dating your post here. -- Gareth Griffith-Jones/The Welsh Buzzard 17:43, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

@ PMLawrence, You and any possible friendly (talk page stalker) "lurker" may be amused by this diatribe too. -- Gareth Griffith-Jones/The Welsh Buzzard@ 09:29, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)Τασουλα is dead right. Opting to de-Anglify Daniel Craig because of some original research on your part that says he's part Celt so may identify with those roots more (?!?) is very poor practice. I don't think we've ever interacted before, Gareth, but from what I can see you're normally a very good, neutral editor, so I think Τασουλα is just a bit disappointed that you've lapsed into sentimental nationalism and claiming him as "one of your own". I think she thought you were above that. Over and out. — Jon C.^ॐ 09:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

@ User:Jon C.,
You are missing my point entirely. I am not claiming him as "one of your own". Quite the opposite: I am merely stating that he is British – as I also would regard myself.
I am Welsh and I am British. I am proud of being so in each instance.
Furthermore, I too went to a public school on the edge of Greater London – Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood – and lost my Welsh accent then – at the age of 13.
Sincerly, -- Gareth Griffith-Jones/The Welsh Buzzard 11:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

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Enabling Act

Interesting take you mentioned about Hitler possibly not violating the constitution by taking the president's powers--got a source? HangingCurve^{Swing for the fence} 21:20, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

It struck me that the prior assertions lacked a source, and certainly seemed implausible given how such things are usually construed in the real world (i.e., to consolidate power), but that I could not back that. What I did was present the alternative alongside that, leaving it to others to provide further if they had it. It would be just as (un)justified to remove either or both views for lack of sourcing, but it seemed that presenting both options without endorsing either was all that was justifiable given present information.PMLawrence (talk) 05:40, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Pistonless rotary engine: Beauchamp Tower

I saw the animation of the Tower Spherical Engine last year and immediately thought the general geometry could be adapted for an internal combustion engine. I did a search for such an engine, a search that was crude but that nevertheless ought to have found such an engine if it existed. Among other things I searched U.S. patents for ICE patents that referenced the Tower engine. I found nothing. I exchanged a few emails with Douglas Self about ICEs and about the geometry of the Tower engine, but nothing about a Tower ICE.

I've been working sporadically on a Tower ICE, and, recently, somewhat more diligently. Nothing constructed, just on paper and on a Lénárt sphere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenart_Sphere. Have you found info from the past (i.e., before 2012) about a Tower ICE? Sometimes inventions and discoveries are said to be "in the air", but I can't imagine what could be in the "air" such that after 127-128 years two people (at least) independently start thinking about an ICE adapted from the same disused steam engine.HowardJWilk (talk) 02:20, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Nearly twenty years ago, I saw Wankel's material that aimed at being an exhaustive cataloguing of all possible configurations for a rotary engine. I saw at once that it wasn't, because it only covered motions within two dimensions - yet I had already seen a (different) model rotary engine that moved in three dimensions and wasn't covered in his cataloguing, at the South Kensington Science Museum (it had an orbital motion, with the outline of a diaphragm rotating within a housing cut out of chunks of spheres, with an interrupting partition passing through a gap in the diaphragm to separate the working volumes). I also knew about a rotary vacuum pump he didn't cover that is used in diesel railway engines' braking systems, which could be worked up into a realistic steam engine by compounding to reduce losses when the working volumes switch over. Even without yet knowing about the Tower engine, it struck me straight away that the irregularities of a universal joint's motion could be used in a cat-and-mouse engine or a swash plate engine without the swash plates; when I came across the Tower engine on the internet a bit over five years ago, it struck me that that was the logical conclusion of those ideas, and that it could readily be adapted to a two stroke cycle using half of it for scavenging and the other half for power. However, given that it even had material leakage losses as a steam engine, it seemed unlikely to be worth while apart from maybe certain niches, but (like Wankel's own early work) it could well prove useful as a scavenge pump for a more conventional two stroke piston engine, particularly since it allows a separate air scavenge from half of the pump. All that more specific stuff is from between five and ten years ago. PMLawrence (talk) 07:37, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking of a four-stroke engine. Like the Tower engine, it has the two shafts, the disk, and the quarter spheres. Other than that, the ports, etc. are completely different. Looking at one chamber of the four total chambers, two on each side of the disk, you have 180 degrees for intake, 180 for compression, 180 for power, 180 for exhaust. That's two revolutions for one cycle, where the expansion strokes alternate between intake (port open) and power (port closed), and the contraction strokes alternate between compression (port closed) and exhaust (port open). You'd need some sort of something--I've thought of a few things--that rotated at half the speed of the shaft to do the opening and closing, the principle being no different than a camshaft rotating at half the speed of a crankshaft.

That could work, but firing would be less even than with a two stroke approach, and the disc would have more cooling problems (it couldn't be cooled directly the way the housing and the wedges can, but the scavenged air would cool it in a two stroke and then intercooling could prevent that heat reaching the power side). In theory, you could make a Tower engine analogue of a gas turbine with one side compressing and feeding a separate combustion chamber that fed the other side to produce net power - but the cooling and flow problems would be horrendous, on top of the sealing problems. PMLawrence (talk) 12:25, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why leakage would be a problem, or, for that matter, why it was a problem with the steam engine. With one exception, it's all surface sliding on surface, like a piston in a cylinder, and unlike the Wankel, where you have the three rotor edges sliding against the housing. The one exception is the edge of the quarter sphere against the disk, but that can be made surface-against-surface, e.g. by the edge ending in a small cylinder (male), and a corresponding half-cylinder out of the disk (female). They're not actually linked; where the disk meets the quarter sphere, the disk can roll around the quarter sphere for the expansions and contractions, and the disk will rotate with the quarter sphere.

In general, rotary engines tend to leak because of the high pressures involved and the tendency of the seals to open up through uneven thermal expansion at hot spots - issues which matter much less with pumps. This still applies even when you have close fitting surfaces forming the seals, plus those need a lot of the right kind of oil to work at all. The geometry of pistons in cylinders allows piston rings to beat that problem (they do not work using close fitting, sliding surfaces) because a circle has no end and the breaks in the rings that do have to be there in practice to allow for expansion can be arranged not to line up; there is never a direct path past the system of rings (this also reduces the amount of oil needed). The Tower engine can be made very close to this, with the disc/housing joins having piston rings and the wedge/housing joins having half rings, while the disc/wedge joins can have a flexible seal with no breaks as they only pivot within an angle. However, the ends of the half rings can't be arranged to avoid gaps lining up, as in ordinary pistons - so, you still get vulnerable zones. PMLawrence (talk) 12:25, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Is there some way we can get in touch with each other directly?HowardJWilk (talk) 11:25, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

If you google for my home page at the beagle ISP, you will find my email address obfuscated somewhere below the surface. I won't give it directly for obvious reasons. PMLawrence (talk) 12:25, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

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Please stop

Kindly stop your constant changing of place names without gaining consensus. If the title of an article is Marseille, Lyon or Zaragoza on English Wikipedia, then we use those names in other articles as well to refer to them. If you want to change the names, the proper procedure is to discuss it at the talk page of each city, not going around changing city names in other articles so that they look different from the titles of each article.Jeppiz (talk) 21:32, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

On the one hand, I'm not violating any norm anyway since there is no consensus the other way, either (just look at the inconsistencies all over Abdalong of Marseilles!), and on the other hand there is an established pattern for the variants I was providing, e.g. as shown in dictionaries and the older source works like the 1911 Britannica. Since people have to be able to follow up references, it's important to have (say) Ostend, Saragossa and Corunna matching English language sources (nobody ever caught the Oostende ferry by looking for that name in a British time table, or cross-checked British poetry starting from a Spanish place name in Galicia!), even though it might look like a quibble for Marseilles, Lyons, and maybe even Majorca etc. where it is easier to sort out. But even with those it is harmless, and often merely an older spelling convention even in the languages of the locals, not an improper one at all. So what is your problem with all this? Shouldn't it be levelled at the people who started articles by translating foreign material without checking to see if there were established names in English?

And I do hope you haven't been doing wholesale reverts without bothering to see if I was doing any other corrections at the same time. If you have been doing that, not only is that both sloppy and harmful, it shows the sort of disregard for context that I was trying to sort out by providing rectification of names to match the wider context. PMLawrence (talk) 23:28, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Sure, you weren't harming anything; but neither were you helping. The "established pattern" you speak of is an old one. Not wrong, just old. There is a newer established pattern as well. Why should we prefer the old one in every context? Precisely because, as you say, "people have to be able to follow up references", it is important to have modern placenames where these are the most widely used, especially when they are what is used (i) in the sources we've relied on to write the article and (ii) in most maps people are likely to check if they are trying to find a place. Zaragoza and Coruña are now established in English, like Livorno or Córdoba. Seville and Rome are safe for now. In an article on an obscure military campaign of the 12th century, there is nothing to choose between "Marseille" and "Marseilles", so you should have just left it alone. You'll notice that article uses "Majorca". Srnec (talk) 00:01, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

PMLawrence, you refer to Britannica 1911. It is over 100 years old, languages and language use evolve constantly. And once again, consistency is the key word here. The name of the article is Marseille, not Marseilles; it's Lyon, not Lyons; it's Zaragoza, not Saragossa etc. If you want that to change, I repeat that the place to do so is in the talk pages for each article. Changing Marseille to Marseilles should be discussed in the Marseille article, not the Bicycle Sharing System article.Jeppiz (talk) 10:42, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I obviously haven't got across the point I was trying to make. I'll put some time and thought into it before I try again. For now, suffice it to say that I have no interest in changing those articles themselves; it's quite good enough that redirects reach them. So what you have in mind, that you suggest I address that way, isn't anything to do with I am trying to do at all and wouldn't help even if it got a consensus in favour. But I will write more later. PMLawrence (talk) 11:14, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

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FYI

First, steamboats were "technically" invented by a different American, not a Scotsman. It sank. Second, the first "practical" one was invented by another American, not a Scotsman. Third, popular culture didn't pay any attention to any of those guys. But nice try. =) — LlywelynII 05:39, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

You're right that they were technically invented by others, but that's why I only brought out "practical" about the Charlotte Dundas, in that it did the job it was meant to do (Fitch's steamboat didn't, probably mainly because he tried to use mechanised oars). As such, it left enough evidence of itself that we can see that Fulton wasn't actually the inventor; I wasn't trying to establish just who was, because that's too murky, but he definitely wasn't - so I changed that reference to a factually accurate one about introducing the steamboat. But his own article has struck the right balance, in my view, by correctly stating that he made the first commercially successful steamboat (various things stopped the Charlotte Dundas from achieving that). But, as for popular culture, (a.) this isn't a "print the legend" thing, we are here to inform popular culture; and (b.) actually, that's only a U.S. perspective, as these things tend to be taught differently elsewhere (like my learning that Joseph Swan was already making light bulbs in England before Edison independently completed his work that drew on the same preceding work as Swan - and, I have since learned, Swan established his priority in court). PMLawrence (talk) 06:03, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Fitch's steamboat did, inasmuch as it got where he wanted without sinking. I'm not really sure where this "practical" bit for Symington came from. It's on his page and his boat's, but it isn't cited or explained. I left some notes. In any case, your correction obscured his importance in America (the entire reason for his appearance and, no, "commercially-successful application of steam power to water-born transport" wasn't his claim to fame) and was factually wrong (Fitch and another guy brought it to the US first). We're here to (at that page in any case) to report popular culture, not inform or emend it. — LlywelynII 06:18, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

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Sapperton tunnel

Hello! You changed this from "third" to "fourth" longest, and referred to "the link"; can you please clarify which link? I can't find anything in the article Sapperton Canal Tunnel which suggests fourth or third, though I can only see two other tunnels mentioned, so I am just asking for clarification. Thanks! Imaginatorium (talk) 14:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I edited Thames and Severn Canal to leave "It includes Sapperton Tunnel, which when built was the longest canal tunnel in Britain, and remains the fourth longest". I was referring to that link, there in the same sentence, which is not a link to Sapperton Canal Tunnel at all even though the linked article then links there in turn. The linked article contains this relevant passage: "The Thames and Severn Canal Sapperton tunnel was the longest tunnel in Britain between 1789 and 1811, and remains the fourth longest canal tunnel after [no. 1] Standedge, Yorkshire; [no. 2] Strood, Kent; and [no. 3] the Lapal Tunnel near Halesowen". I don't know how or why you went to cross-check an article that wasn't linked near my edit. PMLawrence (talk) 02:57, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks - sorry for the confusion. I meant the T & S canal article... part of my confusion was that the 'Sapperton tunnel' link used to go to the article on the railway tunnel, which includes a completely different version from the Sapperton Canal Tunnel article. Anyway, the Sapperton tunnel is anything from 2nd to 4th as far as I can see, because of two separate issues.

* The length of the Lapal tunnel is variously given as "2 ml 297 yds" which is 3490 m, or "11,385 ft" (WP:Lapal) or "3795 yds" (lapal.org) which is 3470 m. It looks as though the shorter 3470 is overwhelmingly more likely (including newspaper lines like "fourth longest"...). In this case, the Sapperton tunnel was only exceeded twice.

* The Thames and Medway tunnel at Strood was longer, but was later divided into two by the construction of an open-air passing area. Arguably this returned the Sapperton tunnel to 2nd position!

I think the best thing is to reword, to mention the two other longer tunnels, but perhaps this is better in the Sapperton Canal Tunnel page. I also think the railway tunnel article should be made separate: Sapperton railway tunnel, with 'Sapperton tunnel' a disambiguation page. There's a lot of tidying up to do! Imaginatorium (talk) 06:34, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

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