It was around 1980 when a turbine company that I worked for bought a CORDAX machine for their plant that cost in the high 6 digits. Since the plant was hot and dusty they build a small room for the computer and operator. It was supposed to have a window air conditioner but the accounting department said the operator did not need air conditioning and eliminated it. When the system was finally up and running, it worked for less than 2 weeks before the computer overheated and failed costing a low 6 digit repair bill. The VP of engineering was so upset that he assigned a junior engineer to work full time in the accounting department to keep an eye on engineering expenditures. This lasted for 18 months, then the plant closed.

Many years ago, I developed some compressors and expanders based on the same and similar designs to this engine. There is a design limitation that makes it hard to build one of these that doesn't have issues though. In a piston engine you have a compression ring that wraps around the piston leaving a tiny gap, where the ends of the ring come together, where things leak. Some rings overlap improving the seal. On epitrochoidal rotary devices they use apex seals, side seals, and usually a button seal between the intersections of the seals. There is a tiny leak at the ends, intersections, and behind of all those seals. Together they leak a lot more than piston engines and that is the reason why Wankel engines and similar devices burn a lot of oil and it makes it harder to meet emission standards. That may not be an issue for airplane engines. One advantage of these devices is that they can rotate very fast so they can put out a lot of HP in a very small light package. The faster they rotate the less of a problem the sealing becomes because there is less time per revolution for oil and compression gasses to leak. The faster they rotate, the less leakage there is per revolution.

I worked with atmospheric plasmas a few years ago. It generates a lot of ozone. Those free oxygen ions love to attach themself to O2 to make O3.

He just caused printers to use about 18 trees worth of paper.

Many of the plans to engineer global cooling to reverse the effects of global warming involve partially shading the planet. This could have very bad unintended consequences because we need the light for plants. The problem with global warming isn't that we get too much sunlight: the problem is that the greenhouse gases trap the infrared radiation that we need to shed. Here is a solution to that and another problem. The other problem is that during the day, solar panels lose efficiency because they get hot. If solar panels were mounted onto a heat sink that conducts heat away from the cells and stores that heat, it would help keep the solar cells cooler and they would operate more efficiently. When the sun sets, the cells could swing away from he heat sink exposing a very dark surface on the heat sink. That would enhance the radiation of infrared light from the heat sink so that the heat sink would cool. Even though some of the infrared light would still be blocked by greenhouse gasses, more heat would be shed because of the efficiency of black body radiation, and because the radiation can be focused straight up minimizing the thickness of atmosphere it has to penetrate to escape Earth. Alternatively, large swaths of the earth's under-productive surfaces can be covered by heat sinks that have a reflective coating on one side and a black surface on the other. During the day it reflects light back into space and at night it flips around exposing its dark surface to space so it can radiate heat back towards space. This would also create jobs for people to build, install, and maintain the radiators.

What Linux distribution has the default user as Root these days?

Linspire