HYDROGEN I.C., PART 2: MAZDA
MY FIRST hydrogen internal-combustion drive came in 1994 when Mazda invited me to Vancouver, B.C., to experience a special Miata. This one had an RX-7 rotary engine fueled by H2. … Continue reading
HYDROGEN I.C., PART 1: BILLINGS
HYDROGEN IS extremely flammable (“Oh, the humanity!”). However, this is one reason why it’s a much better energy carrier than, say, potatoes, which are not flammable. And while hydrogen fuel … Continue reading
THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE—FACT AND FICTION
CHARLES BABBAGE was a nineteenth century mathematician who recognized the computational drudgery of assembling tables of logarithms, trigonometric and other mathematical functions. This was the Industrial Age, after all. Why … Continue reading
W. EDWARDS DEMING—A MAN OF HIGH QUALITY
IT’S RARE that one person can be credited with transforming an industry—not to say a country. However, there’s a good argument that W. Edwards Deming did just that. It was … Continue reading
A GLOSSARY OF COOL
CHANGES ARE coming in the refrigerant used in automotive air conditioning, so it seems a good time to bring things up to date with a Glossary of Cool. Also, it’s … Continue reading
COOLSPRING POWER MUSEUM
INTERNAL COMBUSTION engines built before 1900 are celebrated as “centennial engines.” And, among enthusiasts of things mechanical, the Coolspring Power Museum is a real treasure trove of these wonderful devices. … Continue reading
ENDEAVOUR 2012, MAIA/MERCURY 1938
CALIFORNIA IS home to a lot of the space industry, and many of us here were wacko about seeing the welcome-home flybys of the Space Shuttle Endeavour atop its Boeing … Continue reading
SOFTWARE PIRATING, BIG TIME
ACCORDING TO a Microsoft law suit, brand new computers in China are being delivered with forged software that’s already virus-infected. It all began in 2011 as a study of counterfeit … Continue reading
TURING NUGGETS
I’M ONLY halfway through Turing’s Cathedral, by George Dyson, Pantheon Books, 2012. Even so, I keep coming upon things I want to share. It’s a marvelous history of the digital … Continue reading
ENERGY ECONOMICS: ALUMINUM AND ICELAND
WHY EVER should Iceland, perched at the confluence of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, have a viable business of producing aluminum, even importing the ore all the way from … Continue reading
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