On 24 Oct, 04:39, wrote:
On Oct 23, 8:51*am, Pat Russell wrote:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/p...ture_vs_humans...

Wow.

Thanks for pointing it out.
Larry

Me too.

Thanks for that - very interesting.

I found the site tricky to navigate so these may assist -

MacCready main page on TED
http://www.ted.com/index.php/speaker...maccready.html
Two lectures.

All speakers -
http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/browse/page/14

MacCready's company - well ex obviously.
http://www.avinc.com/

I can recall following the Gossamer xxx exploits in the
news. It was widely covered in the media in the UK and
the aircraft itself was housed in the Science Museum in
London for many years. I recall that, at the time, it was stated
that a key reason for the success in the original 1 mile over
a figure of eight course prize winning effort was that the
aircraft was designed to be easy to repair.

Previous (mostly British if I recall correctly) efforts
focussed on raw aircraft performance at the expense
of all else and when - inevitably - it crashed in an early
flight there was a years delay in the program while the
aircraft was rebuilt. Of of course a longer delay
wound result if (as it usually had) the money had run out.

MacCready built crashing into the project plan.

I wonder if Richard Noble will do the same thing with
this project?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10...d_car_project/
(maybe not

Sorry a brief "thanks" has turned into a bit of ramble.