The Spechtacle

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Month: April 2008

T. Rex tastes like chicken…

April 25, 2008 / / 0 Comments

trex.jpgThe Journal Nature this month had an article on 2 scientists that extracted proteins from a 68 million year old Tyrannosaurus thigh bone and found that its closest living relative was a chicken! This is amazing that they could even get any matter out of a 68 million year old T. Rex, but even more amazing is the implications for evolution and the disappearance of the dinosaurs.

The claims of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky are now starting to make sense. According to them, Dinosaurs and Man roamed the earth at the same time, and that there is no such thing as evolution. Once a few cave men came across a dino that had been hit by lightning and found out they tasted like chicken, they were done for. They ate them all! You notice there are no more wooly mammaths around… They ate them too! Sabre tooth tigers, the Dodo, passenger pigeons, the whole lot. If we hadn’t learned to domesticate animals we would have eaten ourselves out of house and home.

I heard that the aliens at Roswell tasted good to…

greg

The Technology of Tailights…

April 16, 2008 / / 0 Comments

dsc02380.JPGThe tailight has undergone a metamorphosis in the last couple of years. From Henry Ford until the new millenium, the humble tailight hadn’t changed. It was very simple, all that was involved was a battery.. a wire to the tailight switch, a wire to the tailight, and then a wire back to the battery. Easy to understand by any human, and easy to diagnose. All you needed was a $20 test light and possibly (but not necessarily) a schematic.

Come the new millenium and the age of the computer and things are different. Tailights (the kind that still use a bulb, that is) now consist of a battery, a wire to the switch, a wire to the bulb, a wire to a computer, and a wire back to the battery. They now work by pwm (Pulse Width Modulation), which means you feed a bulb with power from the battery, and the ground side is pulsed by the computer. The frequency of the pulse determines how bright the bulb is. This does have several advantages, like the brake lites and tailights can all be the same bulb (simplifying logistics.) With the computer involved, you can also have any bulb take over any other bulb’s function. (like if a brake lite bulb fails, the tailight bulb can take over its function.) Diagnosis is more difficult, however. Now you can’t use a testlight because it’s impedence can blow the computer. Now you need $500 Digital Multimeters and a $4000 Scan tool to talk to the computer.

The net effect is that to install tailights in your car, it used to cost the manufacturer about 20 Bucks. Now it costs 500 bucks..

I think they call it progress…
greg

DIY FW-190

April 6, 2008 / / 4 Comments

fw190.jpgIt has recently come to my attention that the do it yourself craze has reached a new level. Not only can you change your own oil, redo your own kitchen, or do your own personal makeover, but you can also build your own (very rare) WW2 fighter plane! Since you’re still not allowed to build your own airplane you will have to get an airframe and powerplant license from the Federal Aviation Administration. Then you can get the airframe newly made from Flugwerk. http://www.flugwerk.de/
These guys are turning out newly made airframes from the original dies and machine tools that made the originals. Next you’ll need a motor. Since the original BMW 801 powerplants are extremely rare, a better alternative would be the ASH-82. This is a Chinese made, Russian copy of a Wright Cyclone. The engine is available and has comparable power and looks to the original. All you have to do is put it all together and away you go!

You might want to get a few flight lessons first…
greg

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