Last week my wife took her SUV into a nearby quick-lube emporium for a routine oil-and-filter change. You may ask why I didn’t just do it myself. Hey, not only was I out of town, but there was also another car and a motorcycle halfway apart in the shop. Plus, she has plenty of other projects for me to do around the house–plumbing, electrical work, the works. And getting an oil change is something that anyone can do for her anytime....
Media Platforms Design TeamA compression test reveals the condition of your engine’s valves, its valve seats, and piston rings and whether these parts are wearing evenly. Healthy engines should have compression over 100 psi per cylinder, with no more than 10 percent variation between the highest and lowest readings. With a compression tester, a few hand tools, and 20 minutes, you can try this yourself.STEP 1 Remove the fuel pump and fuel-injection fuses....
All but one of the Apollo missions flew past it, but no country has sent something – robotic or otherwise – to explore the far side of the Moon. But China is setting out to be the first, aiming to land the Chang’e-4 probe there no later than 2020 and begin exploration. The probe will study geology and low-frequency radio waves, giving clues to electromagnetism. This could shed clues as to the nature of the lunar surface on the side that constantly faces away from Earth....
Name: Shkadov ThrusterNamed for: Russian physicist Leonid Shkadov, who presented the megastructure concept in a 1987 paper at the 38th Congress of the International Astronautical Federation. Selected science fiction portrayals: Star Maker, a 1937 novel by Olaf Stapledon, and the 2012 novel Bowl of Heaven and its sequel Shipstar by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven.In about a billion years our aging sun will become hot enough to boil off Earth’s oceans....
We received an e-mail recently from a Washington-based company called Green Power that makes some pretty tall claims. The corporation says it has perfected a process (catalytic pressure-less depolymerization, developed by German chemical specialist Christian Koch) that turns trash into high-quality diesel fuel. Here’s some of the e-mail Green Power sent us (the emphasis is ours): There is no waste or pollution from this process. A special, low temperature catalyst works across the spectrum of organic materials, breaking down long carbon molecules into short ones (oil), in a process called Catalytic Depolymerization....
“We tell you an expensive HDMI cable will give you a better picture,” a Circuit City TV salesman informs PM—but do brand-name cables really deliver a better picture? To find out, we pit two of them against a cheap generic cord in a blind test.Generic cable | $13 for 13 ft., newegg.comClaim: This cable lacked a label, let alone lofty claims.Media Platforms Design TeamMonster Cable Advanced HDMI 1000 HD Cable | $200 for 13 ft....
Media Platforms Design TeamWhen I tallied up the tools in my box, I counted 61 items with a combined weight of over 50 pounds. Of course, some things are multipiece, such as the set of high-speed-steel twist drills in a fold-out metal case. I think I’ve got a good little set of tools here, but it’s not perfect—I’m always looking for tools that are tougher or more precise. Nor is it complete....
Media Platforms Design TeamFor millions of Americans, today is a big day. In our darkest hour, a hero will rise—the living embodiment of our collective hopes and most deeply held beliefs. That hero, as it turns out, is a cyborg. No, this isn’t a particularly bad Mitt Romney joke. Election Day 2012 also marks the launch of Halo 4, the latest installment in one of the biggest video game franchises in history it will find millions of Americans are holding out for a hero whose foreign policy amounts to slaughtering entire platoons of invading aliens and whose gun-control concerns are limited to whether to fire controlled bursts or just shotgun everything in sight....
Lots of people with no farming background have started raising chickens in the past few years, mainly to add a satisfying dose of self-reliance to their daily diet. You can raise chickens anywhere and just need to provide a solid chicken coop and check that zoning laws don’t prohibit it, from a small yard in a rural township to the heart of many big cities—the project doesn’t take much space. My first piece of advice is to start slow....
Media Platforms Design TeamQ: The concrete block foundation of my house seems to be kicking out into the cellar. Can that be? Can I repair it?A: It is more common than you might think for a concrete block foundation wall to bow inward. The situation can develop slowly over many years from the force of water-saturated soil pushing against the foundation, or it can happen before the house is finished when an earthmoving machine pushes soil against a freshly built foundation wall....
While vinyl siding isn’t for everyone, millions of American homeowners have decided it’s just the thing for them. And if we could reduce the substantial cost of vinyl siding installation, legions of others would surely follow suit. According to HomeAdvisor, the average vinyl siding installation cost is $11,136, and most homeowners pay between $6,070 and $16,405 for an entire house.Luckily, you can cut that hefty price tag by nearly 50 percent—if you’re willing to do the work yourself....
Media Platforms Design TeamWhen I was 14 years old I got my first computer. It was 1986, and my father took advantage of a deal with a local bank that was offering a Macintosh Plus in lieu of interest on a CD. My father had had computers in the house since 1980, when he bought a DEC VT180, and he encouraged my older brother and me to learn how to use them, but I think it all came to a head when he discovered us one Saturday morning hammering away at the keys of his Panasonic Senior Partner portable PC, trying to make the little green-screen athletes in the game Decathlon run fast enough to clear a pole vault bar....
Making a battery out of a potato isn’t exactly exciting. Most people have either seen it done or taken a class where they were forced to do it. Making a battery out of 110 pounds of potatoes, however, is something else entirely.View full post on YoutubeIn a nutshell, potato batteries use the tuber’s phosphoric acid and the reaction between some zinc and copper to generate power. Boiling the potatoes as well as using multiple slices between the zinc and copper improves the generation....
Researchers at four universities in Japan have created a hologram that can be touched: A person can interact with the 3D shapes when they pass a finger through the light. This interaction causes the light to scramble and transform into a new configuration.The femtosecond laser uses spacial light modulation, which controls the strength of the light pulses emitted. There’s also a galvano mirror, which is responsible for determining how the light is deflecting....
After weeks of anticipation, British satellite company Inmarsat released much of the raw data it used to lay out the most likely flight path of MH370, which disappeared virtually without a trace more than 80 days ago. Anyone hoping for a big revelation out of today’s report was likely disappointed.To a layman, the 47 pages of data read like impenetrable techno-babble. But importantly, the document lacks the analysis that led Inmarsat, as well as the other experts it said it consulted during the investigation, to pinpoint the likely spot where the plane went down....
Media Platforms Design TeamDuring Endeavour’s March launch (left), an officer manned these vehicle destruction switches in case the shuttle crossed the no-fly lines (see diagram below, in solid red). (Shuttle launch photograph by Getty Images)Each time the space shuttle rises from its launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Fla., an Air Force officer waits anxiously for the first 2 minutes to pass safely. If the spaceship were to veer off course and endanger a populated area, this range safety officer would bear the terrible responsibility of flipping a pair of switches under a stenciled panel reading “Flight Termination....
Media Platforms Design TeamDARPA’s latest challenge kicked off yesterday at the agency’s conference center in Arlington, Va. The Pentagon research division wants semiautonomous robots that can perform human chores such as driving vehicles, letting themselves into buildings, and repairing equipment, with the stated purpose of creating bots that could help in disaster-response efforts.Inspiration for the DARPA Robotics Challenge, or DRC, comes in part from the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster following the tsunami of March 2011, program manager Gill Pratt says....
Um, planes aren’t supposed to land like this. Newly captured video shows passenger planes setting down practically sideways at a wind-whipped Portugal airport.Dozens of planes had to deal with powerful gusts Sunday at Funchal Airport, a small airport on the island of Madeira. The crosswinds can be heard thrashing on the video. A tense moment comes at the :50 second mark when a plane aborts a landing just a few feet off the ground....
Expensive, fancy smartphones get all the attention. Oooo, the newest Samsung phone has a curved screen on both edges and costs $300 with a new two-year contract! But meanwhile, there’s some stealthily exciting stuff happening in the cheaper zone, like the new dirt cheap and waterproof Moto G. First off, this new Moto G is waterproof, up to three feet for three minutes so it can drop into a pool or toilet without ruining your whole summer....
Media Platforms Design Team>DATE2025LOCATIONHangar 23, U.S. Forward Operating Base>AIRCRAFTMQ-Mb multirole fighter prepped for a precision strike missionUNITU.S. Air Force Expeditionary Fighter SquadronPOSSIBLE PAYLOADAir-to-ground missiles, radio surveillance gear, high-definition video cameras, communications relays, nonlethal microwave-energy beams, 2000-pound precision bombs LENGTH45 feetWINGSPAN32 feetPILOTSZeroTHE NEW AIR FORCE: PILOTS OPTIONALThe Air Force is planning to build a fleet of unmanned warplanes that will fly and fight without human guidance. The next-generation aircraft envisioned by the Air Force, and modeled in the illustration opposite, would be able to dodge enemy radar, swap payloads for multiple kinds of missions and use sophisticated onboard sensors to prevent collisions with other UAVs and manned airplanes....
