At 09:03 6/16/2000, Joel Walker wrote:
>won't work, ya know ... 200w driving lights produce enough photons to
>actually DEcrease your speed, if you use them while driving. and if you're
>trying to use them while in neutral gear, they'll start you rolling
>backwards, if you are on level ground.

Joel, Joel, Joel -- whatever will I do with you? <shakes head sadly>

It's a plain and simple fact that these lights simply melt the road ahead,
causing slowing as the van passes over the melted portions.  The reason
that they cause rolling back in neutral is that the melted road expands and
creates a hill.

It's true that Vanagons *have* been driven by light-sails powered by
stationary tera-bevawatt lasers, but with two operational restrictions: 1)
the required sail was 4-angstrom aluminum-flashed Mylar, with an
approximate area of ten hectares, and 2) the Vanagon mysteriously vanished
after .01 microseconds and has not been found, although traces of lead and
calcium vapor in the vicinity suggest that there may have been some anomaly
of battery operation -- probably auxiliary battery, this system has been
known to cause contention for system resources.  The suggested connection
between this experiment and the mysterious new valley is merely idle and
vicious rumour-mongering and hooliganism, and will not be tolerated.  No,
we don't know where all your relatives went to, stop bothering
us!  Volunteers are now being sought for additional experiments to refine
the operating parameters.

david
David Beierl - Providence, RI
  http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"