Camp Power

Once upon a time I read about a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generating plant that was built in the Soviet Union.

A MHD generator generates electricity directly from a flame. No engine, no boiler, no intermediate steps at all. Basically you have a couple of wire mesh grids in the path of a flame and you connect wires to these grids and you get electricity. Of course the grids are probably made of platinum or some other exotic substance, and the efficiency is not all that great, but you can't make a simpler machine.

I think a small generator like this would be a great power source for all sorts of remote locations, like our monitoring sites. It would also be great for campers and explorers, anyone who wants electricity where there isn't any other supply. Batteries, as demonstrated by our rooftop station this weekend, go bad.

I was thinking that one should be able to build a miniature MHD generator that would run on propane. Use it to generate electricity in remote locations to run radios. No batteries needed. As long as you have fuel, you have juice. Sell it to backpackers. Use it anyplace where you need a small amount of power, and you don't have, or don't want wires, and you don't want a big noisy generator set. I'm sure there would be a market for it if it could be built.

Neutron Propulsion

My big idea this morning is to use radioactive materials for propulsion for interstellar probes. (some?) Radioactive materials produce high velocity neutrons. Put your radioactive material in a heavy pot. Point the opening in the pot opposite the way you want to go. Thrust would be very low, but very long lasting. Don't need to worry about radiation, space is full of it. Just need heavy shielding in the pot to protect the rest of the spacecraft.

Details

Smoke Detectors

I have three smoke detectors in my house, all wired together, and all supplied with house current. The battery in the unit in the upstairs hall just failed for the second time. Neither of the other two units have ever complained. Why is that?

Optical Mouse

I got a Microsoft optical mouse a while back and took an immediate dislike to it. Everyone else in the family thinks it's just fine. But I use it play minesweeper and it was much more difficult to control than my conventional mouse. But then I sat down to play the other day and the mouse was working fine. It seemed to glide much easier. I think someone must have applied some furniture polish or something to the desk, because the mouse slide very smoothly. The problem was that the mouse was sticking to the desk just a little bit, so little that I didn't even notice it, but it resulted in jerky motion, which made it hard to control. For big motions it was never a problem, but for small motions, it was impossible.

Hard Boiled Eggs

I was peeling a hard boiled egg last night and it was being a real pain. You know how sometimes when you peel an egg the shell slides right off, but other times it sticks to the egg, and you have to pick each bit of shell off, and often it takes a bit of egg with it so you end up with an egg that looks like it's been through the war? What causes this? Why is it some eggs stick to the shell, and some don't?

Egg Replies:

I can share some egg knowledge. I heard that older, less fresh eggs peel easier than fresh eggs. Don't know if that's true or why it would be.

To hard-boil eggs, put them in a pan of cold water, heat to just boiling, turn off the heat, cover and let sit for 10 minutes, then plunge the eggs in cold water. I have pretty good luck with this method producing easy-to-peel eggs.

Some people like to pierce a hole in the fat end of the shell (just the shell) to allow the cooking egg to expand and shove the air out of the little pocket in the fat end of the egg. I don't know if this is worthwhile or not.

Now you have something to do this weekend. Good luck on your egg adventures.

-Dan




Note on egg piercing: Not worthwhile if you're hungry and have shaky hands.
Trust me.
Thank you.

Malia




Okay.....I have absolutely no knowledge of any scientific evidence that this is actually true...but I have found that if the hard-boiled egg is still hot/warm when you peel it, it tends to peel off easier. Could totally be a misconception on my part...or a just plain crazy notion...but it's the "rule of thumb" for this housewife!

Di

Lawsuits

Problem with this kind of stuff is that it makes great newspaper headlines, but how much of it really comes to pass? You hear all kinds of stories about lawsuits being filed, but you seldom, if ever, hear about anyone actually getting paid.

Just for grins, here is one anecdote that puts a slightly different spin on the situation.

Lawyer I know takes a minor automobile accident case to court. The case is fairly straight forward, the only question is how big the award for damages should be. He figures the case is worth maybe five grand. The JURY returns an award of $26,000.

There are unscrupulous people in all professions. Lawyers get picked on, I think, because their actions in court are a matter of public record.

Stop reading the newspaper, you'll feel better.

Musketeers

What isn't mentioned is bullet velocity. It is very high. Geneva convention outlawed mushroom bullets (because to the huge wounds they caused?). Mushroom bullets, otherwise known as hollowpoints, expand on impact, tending to cause the bullet to remain in the body and causing massive damage, instead of just going straight on through. Hollowpoints are called that because the tip of the bullet has been cut off and a small hole is drilled in the tip.

Hunter's use hollow point bullets. Warriors use ball ammo (ball just means it isn't hollow point, the bullets are still bullet shaped, not ball shaped).

I don't know what we they were thinking when the developed the 223. It uses a very small (basically the same caliber as a 22), light bullet fired at extremely high velocity. Typical high powered rifle bullet leaves the muzzle at 2500 fps. I don't know how much faster the 223 is. Anyway, the combination of very high velocity and very light bullet makes it very susecptable to interference. Hitting a leaf will cause it to start tumbling. Hitting a body will cause the same effect. Which gives you the same result as a hollow point bullet. So we got around the Geneva convention.

Maximum effective range for a 30-06 (WW I & II standard infantry caliber): 1000 yards. Not all guns are accurate at this range, but they still pack a leathal punch at that range. But they are heavier than the M-16 and the bullets are heavier.

Biggish weekend

Took Johnny to see "Blast" (a Broadway musical) Friday night in downtown Portland. Quite a show. All trumpets and drums and juggling and clowning around. Whenever I used to see drum and bugle corps in parades, I always thought they were a little weak, not enough drumming, not enough horn playing, not loud enough. This show is what a drum & bugle corp should be!

Saturday I spent fixing broken do-dads around the house. The fan in the basement fireplace had quit. Took it apart and cleaned it. All it needed was a little oil in the bearings. Upstairs smoke detector had been beeping, so I changed the battery, but it still beeped, so I unplugged it. Finally got around to checking the power and it was fine. Plugged it back and now it's working fine. Went to home depot and bought a new motion detector for the front door light. Motion detector by itself was $20. But a light fixture that incorporates a motion detector only costs $10. So I bought the light fixture and removed the lights and installed it and now the front door light doesn't stay on all night long anymore.

Sunday afternoon Ross & I drove down to Canby to visit Pat's Acres, a go-kart track. They were having races, charged us $3 admission each. We stayed and watched three races. Started with little kids, like first graders, and worked up to big kids and adults. Ross wants to build a cart. We saw some new ones for sale: $3500 to $5500. All new and shiny blue and gold anodized aluminum. Nothing mickey mouse about these karts. Some of the participants there are really into it, they have big enclosed trailers they tow behind their motor homes. Most people operate on my scale: out of the back of a pickup truck. We'll have to scrounge around on E-bay, see it we can find an old one we can fix up.

Star Wars: Episode I

Somebody wrote up some complaints about Episode I. Their complaints are in quotes. My responses follow.

"However, even though the primitive beings have the technology for explosives they can't seem to come up with gunpowder. "

Just because they have the weapons doesn't necessarily mean they have the technology to produce them. Not that much different than most of the 3rd world where we have armies wielding AK-47's.

"In the great battle scene, the bad guys drive up in giant tanks and attempt to blast the good guys who are protected by their force field. This force field is transparent to visible light but nevertheless repels blasts of visible laser beams."

Could it be that the field can be penetrated by low intensity energy, but becomes opaque to higher levels? Seems I've run into this kind of physics elsewhere, though probably not involving energy.

"Why use armored vehicles to protect your troops if you're going to openly expose them to danger when you're parked in plain sight of your enemy?"

You use armored vehicles when going into battle. After you have engaged the enemy and found they are not a substantial threat, you may discard your armor. Or maybe they just used the troop carriers for carrying troops.

"A single W.W.II vintage 50 cal machine gun could have turned the entire army of droid tin men into a pile of tin cans."

Bullets are expensive. Some bean counter has decided energy weapons are more cost effective, or maybe they use energy weapons for environmental reasons.

"Once unloaded, the tin men came to life and marched forward, effortlessly passing through the force field's wall! Once again, we were left wondering why the bad guys wasted their money on a droid army when the force field was clearly incapable of stopping a metal object."

The force field evidently only blocks high concentrations of energy. Don't know if the droids are metal or not. Could be ceramic and/or plastic. You use a droid army for the same reason you use a real army: when you want to kill the enemy in detail without destroying everything and everyone else.

"A few marines with a machine gun could have easily done the job for a lot less expense."

You use the tools you have. Droids are built in automated factories. Droids are cheap. A few marines with a machine gun are not cheap.

"First, why would anyone design a droid army which was entirely dependent on receiving signals from a mother ship in outer space."

Common to all evil empires: central control.

"Second, why were none of the good guys smart enough to figure this out and jam the signals."

Even current technology allows us to send virtually undetectable, and therefor, unjammable signals. And we've only been messing with radio for 100 years.

"There was the flying junk yard dealer, Watto, with wings so small they couldn't possibly provide enough lift"

That's what science says about the bumble bee.

"the movements of the Jedi which appeared to have been pulled straight from B-grade kung fu movies"

they use the force.

"the incomprehensible pod race physics"

they've been using repulser fields for floating cars since the original. And the "jet engines" obviously use an advanced Eveready battery to heat air to an extreme temperature to give us the jet engine effect.

" not to mention a six year old poverty stricken, fatherless, slave boy who nevertheless had the time and resources to build a high-tech pod racer and an artificial life form."

depends on what you've got to work with. What can a precocious six year old make now that would have amazed a scientist from 100 years ago?

"Please kill off Jar Jar Binks"

I don't understand why we have Jar Jar Binks, but he certainly is a point of contention.