Published on 27 Feb 2015
The desire to record the human voice can be traced back to the 10th century. Thomas Edison is the first man who finally crafted the phonograph, a machine that can record sound. A few more GREAT MINDS are necessary to improve the technology until the first record made of shellac is produced. Emile Berliner, the inventor of the gramophone, is the reason why record lovers still listen to vinyl LPs to this day! This is the first part of our small series about the invention of sound recording.
March 19, 2017
Phonograph vs. Gramophone – The Invention of Sound Recording Part 1 I THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
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March 18, 2017
Don’t just “fix” CAFE … eliminate it
Virginia Postrel on the best idea for fixing the Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations:
Although Congress originally established the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards to conserve gasoline in 1975, the Obama administration justified its sharp hike as a way to curb greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. A reversal will almost certainly trigger legal challenges.
Fighting over the right level for fuel-economy mandates obscures the fundamental problem, however. The CAFE standards are lousy environmental policy. Instead of targeting the real issue — burning less gasoline — the mandates meddle in corporate strategy, impose enormous hidden costs, and encourage drivers to hang on to their old gas guzzlers. Republicans should scrap the standards altogether while they control the White House and Congress. The CAFE rules are a terrible way to achieve either fuel savings or lower carbon emissions.
For starters, measuring miles per gallon is a misleading way to think about fuel efficiency. What we need is the reverse: gallons per mile. That more clearly shows how much fuel a given improvement might save. Going from 3.3 gallons per 100 miles (better known as 30 mpg) to 2 gallons per 100 miles (50 mpg) presents a much tougher design challenge than getting from 6.7 gallons per 100 miles (15 mpg) to 4 gallons per 100 miles (25 mpg). Yet the more modest improvement saves more than twice as much gasoline. And that’s without considering the relative popularity of gas guzzlers or how better gas mileage can encourage people to drive more.
And, of course, CAFE standards affect only new vehicles, a tiny percentage of the total. Higher mandates don’t get old ones off the road and, in fact, they may very likely keep gas guzzlers driving longer. Research by economists Mark Jacobsen of the University of California-San Diego and Arthur van Benthem at the Wharton School finds that among vehicles more than nine years old, the least fuel-efficient ones stay on the road the longest. By raising the prices of new vehicles, tighter fuel regulations encourage drivers to buy used ones or simply keep what they already have.
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March 15, 2017
Making a Poor Man’s Mitre Box with Paul Sellers
Published on 11 Mar 2016
The best way to get hold of a mitre box that suits your needs is to make your own. In this video, Paul shows how he makes one in a matter of minutes that guarantees accuracy, especially when used in combination with a shooting board (link to shooting board video). They can be used for many things such as trim for tool chests, boxes and drawers as well as picture frames and the like.
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QotD: How may I interrupt you next?
Q: What do Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and Samsung all have in common?
A: Their business models involve interrupting you all day long.
Individually, each company’s interruptions are trivial. You can easily ignore them. But cumulatively, the interruptions from these and other companies can be crippling.
In the economy of the past, companies made money by being useful to customers. Now the biggest tech companies make their money by distracting you with ads and apps and notifications and whatnot. I don’t mean to sound like an alarmist, but I think this is the reason 80% of the adults I know are medicating. People are literally being driven crazy by a combination of complexity (too many choices) and the Interruption Economy.
There are days when my brain is flying in so many directions that I have to literally chant aloud what I need to do next in order to focus.
[…]
I’m wondering if you have as many distractions in your life. And if you do, can the chanting help you too? The next time you have a boring task that you know will be subject to lots of interruptions, try the chanting technique and let me know how it goes. It probably won’t cure your ADHD but it might help you ignore the tech industry’s distractions until you get your tasks done.
Bonus question: The economy has evolved from “How can I help you?” to “How can I distract you?” Can that trend lead anywhere but mass mental illness?
My hypothesis, based on observation alone, is that the business model of the tech industry, with its complexity, glut of options, and continuous interruptions are literally driving people to mental illness.
Scott Adams, “The Interruption Economy”, Scott Adams Blog, 2015-07-07.
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March 14, 2017
DIY Biohacking Can Change The World, If the Government Allows It
Published on 13 Mar 2017
Biohackers, much like their computer hacker forebears, prefer asking for forgiveness rather than permission.
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March 13, 2017
French cleat storage system for hand tools
Published on 1 Mar 2013
A new method for storing my hand tools and allow me to get rid of my pegboard. I decided on using french cleats to hang screwdrivers, pliers and other items. It’s a really flexible system that lets you get creative customizing it.
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March 12, 2017
Reasons for THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Published on 26 Feb 2015
The Industrial Revolution transformed and shaped our modern world as we know it. Why did the fundamental changes of the Industrial Revolution begin in Great Britain? In our first episode about the era of Industrial Revolution, Brett explains how the agricultural revolution, a few inventions in the textile industry, the steam machine, improving means of transport and an overall changing society created a solid basis for the coming changes of the late 18th century.
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March 11, 2017
The EFF’s guide to digital privacy at US border crossings
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) provides a quick overview of your rights when entering the United States:
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March 8, 2017
Why can’t trains go uphill? – James May’s Q&A (Ep 30) – Head Squeeze
Published on 19 Jul 2013
James May looks at why trains can’t go uphill
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March 7, 2017
7 Things To Get You Started Using A Table Saw | WOODWORKING BASICS
Published on 15 Jan 2016
If you want to make things out of wood, a table saw is one of the most useful tools you can own. If you are new to woodworking, this video will help get you started.
Kickback caught on camera video: https://youtu.be/u7sRrC2Jpp4
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March 6, 2017
David Fletcher’s Tank Chats #1: The A13 Cruiser
Published on 13 Feb 2015
The first in a series of short films about some of the vehicles in our collection presented by The Tank Museum’s historian David Fletcher MBE.
The A13 was the first British tank to have Christie Suspension. With a top speed of 40 miles per hour, it was much faster than the German Panzers, and had one of the best guns of its time. Despite this, many were lost in the battle for France in 1940. They fared better in the desert when their speed enabled them to cut off and defeat a huge Italian Army at Beda Fomm in Libya.
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March 4, 2017
Let There Be Light – The Invention Of The Light Bulb I THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Published on 20 Feb 2015
Welcome to IT’S HISTORY! We are kicking off this new history channel by taking you on a journey through the Industrial Revolution. In our first episode about INVENTIONS, Brad Explains everything about the history of the light bulb – it was a long way from the discovery of fire till the first electrical lightning. Learn who else, besides Thomas Alva Edison and Nikola Tesla helped form the technology that illuminates our nights to this day!
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March 3, 2017
“Apollo 8 altered the self-perception of our species forever”
Colby Cosh contrasts the insane bravado of John F. Kennedy’s moonshot announcement with the more recent insane bravado of Elon Musk and SpaceX:
SpaceX, the private rocketry company founded in 2002 by billionaire adventurer Elon Musk, says it is developing plans to fly two unnamed persons to the moon late in 2018. This announcement has created both skepticism and alarm. This is, I think, partly a matter of confusion about prepositions.
If I announced that, despite being Canada’s most sedentary citizen, I was going to Mount Everest next week, you would probably know better than to assume I was going UP the mountain. SpaceX’s proposal is to send a manned spacecraft beyond the moon. That’s the word they use in the SpaceX press release, and whoever chose it should get a big fat bonus. “Beyond” is an English word of unparalleled connotative power and romance.
But, of course, going beyond the moon — more prosaically, looping around it and coming back — is much, much simpler than landing ON it. It is probably not a fantastically difficult challenge, and the company’s zany-sounding timeline may be justified. (Mind you, this is not a prediction.)
Even if you are old enough to have followed the golden age of spaceflight as it happened, you may not understand or remember the half-insane ambition of John F. Kennedy’s original proposal to land men on the moon. For young and old, the moment that the Apollo 11 lunar module landed on the Sea of Tranquility tends to obscure everything else about the tale in retrospect. But no U.S. astronaut had orbited the Earth yet when JFK threw down the gauntlet. No spaceship had photographed, much less touched, the moon.
Taken by Apollo 8 crew member Bill Anders on December 24, 1968, at mission time 075:49:07 (16:40 UTC), while in orbit around the Moon, showing the Earth rising for the third time above the lunar horizon. The lunar horizon is approximately 780 kilometers from the spacecraft. Width of the photographed area at the lunar horizon is about 175 kilometers. The land mass visible just above the terminator line is west Africa. Note that this phenomenon is only visible to an observer in motion relative to the lunar surface. Because of the Moon’s synchronous rotation relative to the Earth (i.e., the same side of the Moon is always facing Earth), the Earth appears to be stationary (measured in anything less than a geological timescale) in the lunar “sky”. In order to observe the effect of Earth rising or setting over the Moon’s horizon, an observer must travel towards or away from the point on the lunar surface where the Earth is most directly overhead (centred in the sky). Otherwise, the Earth’s apparent motion/visible change will be limited to: 1. Growing larger/smaller as the orbital distance between the two bodies changes. 2. Slight apparent movement of the Earth due to the eccenticity of the Moon’s orbit, the effect being called libration. 3. Rotation of the Earth (the Moon’s rotation is synchronous relative to the Earth, the Earth’s rotation is not synchronous relative to the Moon). 4. Atmospheric & surface changes on Earth (i.e.: weather patterns, changing seasons, etc.).
NASA photo via Wikimedia.
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Sharpening a Chisel with Paul Sellers
Published on 27 Feb 2017
Chisels come from the manufacturer needing preparing or initialising as well sharpening. How do you check they are flat and get them sharp? Paul shows you the process he follows. This gets them to the level we need for crisp and accurate work.
For more information on these topics, see https://paulsellers.com or https://woodworkingmasterclasses.com
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March 2, 2017
Possible end-game for the British nuclear deterrent
Charles Stross speculates on a few ways that Il Donalduce could trigger the end of Britain’s nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines:
Working hypothesis #1: Donald Trump is an agent of influence of Moscow. Less alarmingly: Putin’s people have got blackmail material on the current President and this explains his willingness to pursue policies favourable to the Kremlin. Russian foreign policy is no longer ideologically dominated by communism, but focusses on narrow Russian interests as a regional hegemonic power and primary oil and gas exporter.
Clearly, it is not in Russia’s geopolitical interest to allow a small, belligerent neighbor to point strategic nuclear missiles at Moscow. But this neighbor’s nuclear capability has a single point of failure in the shape of the resupply arrangements under the 1958 UK-USA Agreement. Donald Trump has made no bones about his willingness to renegotiate existing treaties in the USA’s favor, and has indicated that he wants to modernise and expand the US strategic nuclear capability. Existing nuclear weapons modernization programs make the first goal pointless (thanks, Obama!) but he might plausibly try to withdraw British access to Trident D-5 in order to justify commissioning four new US Navy SSBNs to carry the same missiles and warheads.
(Yes, this would break the “special relationship” between the USA and the UK for good — but remember, this is Donald Trump we’re talking about: the original diplomatic bull in a china shop who decapitated the state department in his first month in office.)
Trump could present this as delivering on his promise to expand the US nuclear capability, while handing his buddy a gift-wrapped geopolitical easter egg.
Working hypothesis #2: Let us suppose that Donald Trump isn’t a Russian agent of influence. He might still withdraw, or threaten, British access to Trident as a negotiation lever in search of a better trade deal with the UK, when Theresa May or her successor comes cap-in-hand to Washington DC in the wake of Brexit. It’s a clear negative sum game for the British negotiating side — you can have a nuclear deterrent, or a slightly less unpalatable trade deal, but not both.
In this scenario, Trump wouldn’t be following any geopolitical agenda; he’d just be using the British Trident renewal program as a handy stick to beat an opponent with, because Trump doesn’t understand allies: he only understands supporters and enemies.
As for how fast the British Trident force might go away …
Missiles don’t have an indefinite shelf-life: they need regular servicing and maintenance. By abrogating the 1958 agreement, or banning Royal Navy warships from retrieving or delivering UGM-133s from the common stockpile at King’s Bay, POTUS could rely on the currently-loaded missiles becoming unreliable or unsafe to launch within a relatively short period of time — enough for trade negotiations, perhaps, but too short to design and procure even a temporary replacement. It’s unlikely that French M51 missiles could be carried aboard Dreadnought-class SSBNs without major design changes to the submarines, even if they were a politically viable replacement (which, in the wake of Brexit, they might well not be).
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