Author Archives: admin

Give me a brake.

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Don’t you just hate trying to figure out what to give someone as a gift? Dodge has taken the quess-work out of that by introducing a new registry program where you can pick out the features you want in a new Dart and then invite friends and family to sponsor individual parts of the car. You can raise a portion of the cost of a new Dart or the full price. Then all you have to do is go to a dealership and pick it up. It works just like a wedding registry but you can use it for birthdays, graduations or any other special occasion you can think of. You have up to 90 days to reach your goal and the amount that can be raised is capped at $30,000. So call Grandma and see if she’ll buy you a steering wheel, that way you can save her poor arthritic hands from knitting you another tie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BCfxOWLuNwU

Cows and Chickens and Pigs, Oh My!

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Mazda6 SKYACTIV-D clean diesel racecar. What do the US Navy, Mazda and Alamo & National Rental Car all have in common? They use animal fat (like beef tallow, chicken guts and pork lard) as fuel. These fats that would normally end up in the garbage are used to make an ultra-clean synthetic diesel. Mazda is going to give this fuel a trial on January 26th during the 2013 Rolex 24 endurance race at Daytona where they will have three Mazda6 race cars using it (chicken coupes?).

Other interesting alternative fuel sources in the works but still on the experimental side include:

1. Chemical engineers at UC Berkeley are using a sugar fermentation process that was used in World War I to make explosives to create a new, cleaner fuel.

2. Coskata is using garbage to make ethanol which would make Marty McFly proud.

3. A small British company called Air Fuel Synthesis is actually making fuel out of thin air. It uses air and electricity and it’s already gotten to the point where they’ve test driven a Lotus with their “carbon neutral” gasoline.

4. The US Air Force has been using a 50-50 blend of jet fuel and biodiesel derived from camelina plants (weeds) in their F-16s. They say there is no difference in performance and are looking into using this fuel for everything by 2016.

Let’s not forget Steven Hyde of “That 70s Show” who was convinced someone somewhere had invented a car that ran on water. Wait, was that just a drug induced haze or……?

Bang, Bang, You’re Dead, NH Legislative Thread

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I read an article recently about NH State Legislators and the bills they are sponsoring in the coming legislative session. There was one entitled HB-0078 “prohibiting the use of motor vehicle records in any federal identification database.” Hmm, interesting. I started looking around for more info but I couldn’t find anything else about that particular bill. I did, however, find these tidbits of recent NH law-making:

1. HB-1693. “This bill changes the annual motor vehicle inspection requirement to…every second year.” It also “raises the fee for inspection stickers from $3.25 to $6.50.” There’s really no need to say anything else about this one because it was pretty much submitted and rejected within a month (Jan/Feb, 2012). House Status: “Inexpedient to Legislate.” In other words: Dead on Arrival.

2. HB-1440. “This bill permits a person who has attained the age of 15 1/2 years to fulfill the driver education requirement by enrolling in an approved online driver education course…with behind-the-wheel instruction provided by the parent or guardian.” This one has to do with the fact that many teens are waiting until they’re 18 to get their licenses because you practically have to take out a loan to afford the cost of driver’s ed around here. There needs to be an alternative to the high cost, but I don’t know whether this is the answer or not. I guess it’s a moot point at this juncture as this bill did pass in the House but the Senate said that it needs an “Interim Study.” In other words: Dead in the Water.

3. HB-1549.  “Motor vehicle records may be made available pursuant to a court order or in response to a request from a state, a political subdivision of a state, the federal government, or a law enforcement agency for use in official business. The request shall be on a case-by-case basis. Any records received pursuant to this paragraph shall not be further transferred or otherwise made available to any other person or listed entity not authorized under this paragraph. No records made available under this section shall be used, directly or indirectly, for any federal identification database.” It was vetoed by the Governor, the House overrode the veto and the Senate sustained the veto. In other words: More Dead Than Alive. (To me, this bill seems to be the original bill that I was looking for which is now being reintroduced as HB-0078 for the coming session but I’m not very knowledgeable about how the government works so I wouldn’t quote me on that. It seems pretty logical, but that ain’t always the way things turn out when you’re talking government.)

To sum it up, the first bill has me scratching my head, the second one seems to only apply to a very small percentage of the state’s populace and the third one needs more investigation to see why there was such a wishy-washy response. You know, this started out as a five minute search but turned into a mind-numbing government-speak exercise in madness on my part thinking that I could figure this stuff out without a road map. In other words: the last hour has been a dead loss. Go figure.

Still looking good, Corvette.

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January 17: “On this day in 1953, a prototype Chevrolet Corvette sports car makes its debut at General Motors’ (GM) Motorama auto show at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The Corvette, named for a fast type of naval warship, would eventually become an iconic American muscle car and remains in production today.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZssvK0tjgU

He Blinded Me With Science

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So I’m watching the NFL and getting more ticked off by the minute with all the bad calls (there seem to have been more than usual this season). Before I blow a gasket I decide to tool around on the net and see what I can find to distract myself. I land on a Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) talk by Dennis Hong entitled “Making a Car for Blind Drivers.” Nope, better stay away from anything with the word “blind” in it………on the other hand it’s only nine minutes long and that’s a pretty interesting title that conjures up all kinds of different scenarios in my head.

Mr. Hong starts out by explaining that around 2009 the National Federation of the Blind had challenged the research community to develop a vehicle where blind people could actually drive, making active decisions and maneuvering on their own and not one where they were  just being placed in the vehicle and driven around. His team came up with a prototype that incorporated perception tools (GPS, cameras, lasers that sweep the environment around the vehicle), computer processes (that help understand the info being scanned) and non-visual interfaces (gloves, vests and seat pads with sensors that vibrate to convey instructions, voice command units, etc.). One of the really innovative non-visual interfaces is called AirPix where the driver holds his hand over a small tablet that is full of holes and they shoot compressed air through certain holes in certain patterns, with differing intensity and temperature to convey details – kind of  like a braille board that “draws” pictures with air. All of this info is then used by the blind driver to navigate a course as any normal sighted person would do except that he has gathered all the necessary info in a non-visual way.

It was quite exciting to watch a demo of the prototype at Daytona in January, 2011. The driver was genuinely thrilled to have successfully made a trip around the track while successfully dodging boxes that were being thrown in his path, passing another moving vehicle and maneuvering between barrels at the finish line. This avenue (punny) opens up a myriad of possibilities not only for those with limited sight but for spin-off applications like helping to see through fog, use in everyday home appliances, and for office or classroom settings.

I started thinking about what they should call this vehicle. Too bad Land Rover is already taken. What about the Batmobile? That might be just a little too out there. Then I glanced over at the muted TV and had what I thought was a flash of brilliance – what about calling it the “Linesman”? Tough call.

NHDOT Highway Cameras Open to the Public

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traffic cam imageCheck it out, the New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT) has teamed up with TrafficLand to provide public access to highway cameras around the state. Click “See Live Traffic,” then pick which state and which city you’re interested in. Your choices in NH are: Claremont, Concord, Franconia, Keene, Laconia, Lebanon, Manchester, Portsmouth, Rochester and Salem. If you choose Rochester you will see a Google map on the top right hand side of the page with different colored lines which tell you how fast the traffic is flowing (green=normal, yellow=slow, red=slow or stopped). On the left hand side is the actual camera which will show you the different locations you choose. You can either click on the large circles marked on the Google map or click on individual camera thumbnails underneath. For Rochester on the date I looked the top choices were between cameras on NH-4@Cedar Point Rd, NH-16@Hilton Dr (Dover Exit 5), NH-16@Indian Brook Rd (NH-108), NH-16 n/o Rochester Tolls, NH-16@Roberta Dr. (Dover), NH-16 s/o Indian Brook Rd (Exit 9), NH-16@Tebbetts Rd (Roch), NH-16@US-4 (Dover Exit 6) and NH-16@Blackwater Rd (Roch). (Which cameras are included in the thumbnail area are the ones that are currently being viewed the most in that region.)

The Google map shows a larger region and you can click cameras up and down a corridor and see real-time snapshots of more than just the city you chose if you’re going on a longer trip. Great resource for when you’re heading out on the highway.

Back to the Future on a Monocycle

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On our December 13, 2012 facebook post, we were looking at the Hammacher-Schlemmer Motorized Monocycle and wondering if they had been watching Men In Black movies when they got the idea for it. Now I keep seeing pictures of monocycles and it seems like it wasn’t reverse engineering after all but these have been around since the late 1800s. Click here to go to a site that has a great gallery of pictures and rundown on the evolution of the monocycle. There really is nothing new under the sun.

monocycle2mib

 

If you build it, they will come.

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In a shed located in a garden in the back of a normal house on a normal street in a little town in England you’ll find Kevin Thomas working on his car. What’s so unusual about that you might say, seeing the same thing plays out just about everywhere around the world on any given day? Ahh, but you see, Mr. Thomas is building a Formula 1 car. You heard that right – with parts he’s cobbled together from ebay, memorabilia sites and a network of contacts, he’s putting together as best he can a 2001 BAR003. Yes, some things are going to have to be parceled out because they are beyond his expertise, but he is doing the bulk of the construction himself and as a do-it-yourselfer myself, I say more power to him. (I’ve built a few project cars including a 1966 GTO and more recently a 1987 Chevy Silverado but nothing along the lines of what he’s tackling.)

I don’t think he would’ve been able to get as far as he has without the use of the internet. It’s a beautiful thing when it comes to locating hard-to-find auto parts and I’ve even been dipping my toe in the water lately learning how to search and purchase things that are hard to find locally. If I can do it, anyone can but my hat’s off to Mr. Thomas for taking this to the ultimate extreme. He’s built a shed of dreams that have all the gear-heads out there rethinking some ideas they’ve put on the back-burner. If I lived in England, I would certainly be beating a path to his back door to have a look-see.

Woody, who knew you were an airhead?

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cardboard helmetI seem to be stuck in airbag mode because here’s another story about them. This one has to do with a new bicycle helmet made with a cardboard liner instead of EPS foam. The inventor got his inspiration from the woodpecker: “Looking into nature, the woodpecker is one of the only species that experiences severe impact to its head every time it pecks. Its beak and skull are joined together by a corrugated cartilage structure that absorbs each impact.” The Kranium liner is made with honeycomb shaped corrugated cardboard with each cell acting as a mini airbag. His helmet design allows for “flexing at different points which absorbs the peak force of the impact after which the tiny air pockets absorb the remaining energy.” It’s 3 times stronger than regular helmet liners, 15% lighter (90% of the liner is air) and it’s sweat and rain proof. He’s actually having a hard time getting anyone to believe the excellent safety ratings he’s received after all the testing that’s been done in China, UK and Germany. There should be a clear plastic version out soon in Europe with the US seeing its debut sometime next spring. I wonder if the NFL is checking this out?

While you’re wearing your cardboard helmet, why not take a spin on this cardboard bicycle. It’s 95% cardboard and very cheap to make – about $9 in materials. Who knew cardboard was so versatile (I even saw a cardboard wheelchair prototype last week). What’s next, cars?

News for Week of 12-9-12

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1. The car tech industry is working on a cool seat belt latch that unhooks when wet helping to keep more people from drowning when their car is submerged. When water hits the inside of the Escape Belt a salt pill dissolves and releases the hammer of the male section of the belt freeing the occupant. It’s the same tech used by airlines in self-inflating life jackets. The mechanism costs around $40 and the cartridge needs to be changed every few years. Great stuff coming from this Dutch manufacturer.

2. London cabs are getting free wifi. You have to watch a 15-second ad every 15 minutes but that could be just what the doctor ordered if you’re trying to avoid roaming charges on your smartphone. Is it viable? Londoners will just have to wait and see.

3. This one is truly creep-worthy (is that a word? I’ll add a hyphen). The US is planning to listen in on people’s conversations on buses. “With the new systems, experts say, transit officials can effectively send an invisible police officer to transcribe the individual conversations of every passenger riding on a public bus.”  Watch out good people of Eugene, Ore.; San Francisco; Athens, Ga.; Baltimore; Traverse City, Mich.; Hartford, Conn.; and Columbus, Ohio because you seem to be the first to have this implemented. Big Brother is getting his ears on.