BUILDING THE UGEARS PNEUMATIC ENGINE
HERE’S AN ENTERTAINING pursuit emerging from a crowdsourced startup. UGears fulfills a dream of Denis and Gennady, two Ukrainians who hold fond memories of building mechanical models as kids. As … Continue reading
WAGNER INVECTIVES
THE OPERAS OF Richard Wagner give Wife Dottie, Daughter Suz and me much pleasure, though I also appreciate that the subject matter, complexity and sheer length are something of an … Continue reading
DRIVING THROUGH A BRUSSELS LOOPHOLE
THE SOOT CONTINUES to accumulate around diesel cars finagled to run clean in official testing, though not necessarily otherwise. “VW’s Diesel Scam” made news last year when the International Council … Continue reading
GLASTONBURY–MORE THAN ENGLAND’S WOODSTOCK
GLASTONBURY IS KNOWN to many for its annual pop music festival, sort of Woodstock in the west of England. I confess, my appreciation of rock reached its zenith in Elton … Continue reading
METHUSELAH AND THE BOMB
ABOVE-GROUND NUCLEAR weaponry helped researchers identify longevity of the Greenland shark, the world’s oldest known living vertebrate. Recently, a 400-year-old shark made the news; details of the research are given … Continue reading
RIGGED ELECTION? NOT AGAIN.
A RIGGED ELECTION? I’ll show you a rigged election, 1888-style. It makes today’s conspiracy theories sound like Sunday School play. A bit of background: The concept of ballot as we … Continue reading
FIFTY YEARS HENCE
OLD MAGAZINES ARE fun, especially when they prophetically identify something like one’s career. With this in mind, I share a compulsion of long-heralded R&T readers who carted their old issues … Continue reading
A CELEBRATION OF SAKI
H.H. MUNRO, pen name Saki, wrote 100 years ago about Edwardian England. His stories and plays are akin to those of Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse and today’s Julian Fellowes–but with … Continue reading
AN ADVENTURE, BLESSED
PARADOXICALLY, ON LAGUNA DIABLO I had an adventure that was truly blessed. Laguna Diablo is a vast dry lake in Baja California and, in the early 1980s, the R&T crew … Continue reading
CATCHING A RUM RUNNER BY VIEWING A SUNFLOWER
THE FOG LIFTS MOMENTARILY. You and your Coast Guard crew spot a Rum Runner some distance off. The fog descends immediately and the Rum Runner heads off at its known … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 